William Blake

I work from midnight to eight o'clock in the morning at a security desk. Needless to say, this is when I get most of my school work done. Last night (or this morning, depending on which way you look), I read the poems by William Blake scheduled for my literature course. Overall, I really enjoy Blake's work, both in art and poetry. He was very innovative and original for his time, in my opinion.

Here are some notes I took while reading my assignments:

William Blake, 1757-1827

Songs of Innocence (1789), “Introduction”

My first impression is that the child represents divinity. The fact that the piper sees the child “on a cloud”, and that the child asks him to sing about a Lamb, supports this idea. This child might also represent inspiration or imagination, as the child encourages the piper to then create lyrics for a song and further write down the song to share with the world. Perhaps the poems that follow are the songs inspired by divinity from this introduction.

Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EDED FGFG HDHD
Tone: Cheerful, creative, dare one say innocent.

Compared against “Introduction” and “Earth’s Answer” in Songs of Experience (1794):
The introduction for Songs of Experience also presents the Holy Word, God’s voice, calling for Earth to return from darkness. In “Earth’s Answer”, the Earth appears to call God a “selfish father of men”. It seems to resist the day, preferring night. Then it seems that God replies, “Does spring hide its joy when buds and blossoms grow? Does the sower sow by night or the plowman in darkness plow?” It is not clear to me who speaks in the last stanza (“break this heavy chain”). The last line, “That free Love with bondage bound” is interesting. I think a lot of these two poems have sexual suggestions.

Rhyme Scheme:
Introduction, ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF GHGGH
Earth’s Answer, ABAAB CDCCD DEFFE GHHFH I J I I J
Tone: Almost despairing, desperation.

Songs of Innocence, “Chimney Sweeper”

I remember reading this one in high school – and what I remember from that lecture is that the “coffins of black” are chimneys. The boy dreams about an Angel taking them all to play and bask in the sun. “And the Angel told Tom if he’d be a good boy, he’d have God for his father & never want joy.” The last line of the poem, “so if all do their duty they need not fear harm”, does not necessarily apply to the life of the chimney sweeper, but to a person fulfilling their duty to God to be a good person. The reward is Heaven.

Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IIJJ KKLL
Tone: Dark, but hopeful.

Compared against “Chimney Sweeper” in Songs of Experience:
Half the length of the previous poem, this version is told from a passerby’s point of view. He asks where the sweeper’s parents are, and the boy replies that they are at the Church praising “God & his Priest & King who make up a heaven of our misery”. While both poems hold up the sweeper as a positive example of mankind, this one in particular points out the corrupted morality of the common world.

Rhyme Scheme: AABB CACA DEDE
Tone: Revealing, almost spiteful.

Songs of Experience, “London”

This poem paints an image of London as a city where everything and everyone is owned by the Church and the King. However, “the mind-forg’d manacles” suggests that this ownership is not physical, simply accepted by a pacified society. There is a bit of interesting structural play with the word “hear”, being the last word of the second stanza and the end of the first line of the fourth, and the third stanza creates “HEAR” with the first letters of its lines. Once again Blake spotlights the children, the young boys as chimney sweeps and the young girls as harlots. Overall, the poem displays the oppression of people by the mind games of the Church and government, a psychology so effective that the people curse the infants in restlessness.

Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF DGDG
Tone: Observant, almost angry.



Songs of Experience, “The Garden of Love”

This poem is symbolic of the Church corrupting what is supposed to be a beautiful religion. It also represents the Romantic view of industrialism against nature. In the Garden of Love there are “tomb-stones where flowers should be” and priests “binding with briars, my joys & desires”. I believe this poem represents the idea of religion vs. spirituality. Following the manmade rules of how to practice religion restricts the very spiritual experience of God’s love, which can be found in nature. I think the poem compares to Blake’s “Jerusalem”.

Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DEAE FGH*I* (*internal rhymes)
Tone: Depressed, horrified.

I was very lucky to have also gone over a bit of Blake in my Romantic Imagination course. Here are some additional notes from that class:

William Blake is one of the primary six poets often reviewed in the Romantic period.
He believed in the freedom of sexuality and advocated against the doctrine of marriage and keeping to one sexual partner. (However, he was married and loved no other but his wife. He attempted to bring in a second wife once, but the first wife told him to send her away.) It is said that Blake and his wife often sat naked in their garden conversing with angels.
Blake was very much against the industrial revolution, believing it was a movement away from God and nature. This is most prevalent in his poem “Jerusalem”. This personifies the inherent view of most Romantic writers, who believed it was important to use nature to expand the imagination beyond the restraints (mind-forged manacles) the Church and State insisted upon in this era.