William Blake is a poet most noted for the engravings that accompany his works of poetry. These engravings included with the poems help to depict the meaning of the poems. However, at times the engravings he includes with his poem can lead to complications for the interpreter of the poem. There are a multitude of variations of the same engraving that accompany a poem, all of them originals; some of these engravings compliment the poem, while others complicate the poem. One example of this occurrence, where one engraving may compliment the poem and the other complicates it, is in William Blake’s work “The Ecchoing Green” which can be found in Blake’s Songs of Innocence. The important thing to recognize is that regardless of whether the poem is further complicated or simplified because of the image, the poem and its accompanying image are still evoking thought, and discussion from the reader.
When reading the poem alone, without the engraving two different interpretations were found. The first one is that “The Echoing Green” is a detailed exploration on the cycle of life. Blake uses natural imagery to compensate for the natural growth in a person, physically and mentally. In many cases he uses a rural landscape to compliment the innocence of the 'green' how child play is completely acceptable and distances us from the urbanized world of pollution and experience.
In literature, spring is often associated with growth, and here we can see that spring is the season present. Because of this the reader can link spring to both the growth of nature and to the growth of the children described in the poem. The growth of the children can be viewed as a positive aspect because of its link with spring; because winter is usually linked to de...
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...ring this poem with its engraving a few things are learned, the first learned thing is that there can be multiple interpretations within a poem. The second is that depending on which engraving one was reading the poem with their interpretations of the poem will differ. These differences are caused because the engravings hold a large influence on what is pulled from the poem and how it is interpreted. Whether Blake did this on purpose on not, one does not know, however it can be appreciated that the variety within this one poem allows for many different interpretations and support for those different interpretations. Whether the engraving is complimenting or complicating the poem is regardless, the important part is the fact that the poem and engraving together are evoking multiple emotions from the audience and creating more thought than either one would on its own.
On the echoing green.’ This doesn’t suggest that they as children were oppressed. The use of the word ‘joy,’ shows that people were happy to see them playing, and that they were happy too. Blake uses an image of children sitting about their mother’s knee, he writes, ‘Round the laps of their mothers Many sisters and brothers.’ This image of children around their mother’s knee is an image of security and safety.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
It is in lines 10 – 24 that the poem becomes one of hope. For when Blake writes “As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black. And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins and set them all free;” Blake’s words ring true of hope for the sw...
Blake’s diction throughout helps readers fully sense each emotion and action taken by the speaker through imagery. In the second stanza of his poem the speaker explains the times when he waters the poison tree, “night and morning with my tears” (Blake 6). Blake uses visual imagery here, seen from ‘night’ and ‘morning’. This is conveyed as visual imagery because the reader needs sense of sight to depict whether it is night or day. Another use of imagery in the text takes place in stanza three, “till it bore an apple bright” (Blake 10). This is visual imagery as well, the apple is a thing seen by the eye and bright is something you can only sense through sight. In this line the speaker’s anger is reaching it’s climax, becoming bigger and bigger. Along with visual imagery Blake also uses Organic Imagery, focusing on recreating an internal sensation felt only in one’s
The horrors which prevail in a poem such as William Blake’s ‘London’ are portrayed through its form and meter as well as a number of specific techniques designed to encompass the senses and play on the mysteries of the human mind. Through the use of repetition, constant references to sound and extravagant metaphors, Blake manages to successfully explore the darkness within a specific location- the streets of 18th century London. The poem follows a sequence of rhyme in an iambic tetrametric format consisting of four quatrains which detail the speaker’s thoughts as they walk the streets of what appears to be a very dismal perspective of London. Though the opening of the poem follows the regularities of the usual iamb (an unstressed syllable followed
Blake repeatedly uses the word "every" and "cry" in the second stanza to symbolize the depression that hovers over the entire society. The "mind-forged manacles" the narrator hears suggests that he is not mentally stable. & nbsp; In the third stanza, Blake utilizes imagery of destruction and religion. This imagery is a paradox, which implies some religious destruction, like the apocalypse. The "chimney-sweeper's cry" symbolizes the society trying to clean the ashes that cause their state of depression. Blake uses the religious imagery of the "black'ning church" to represent the loss of innocence, and the society's abandonment of religion.
In “Songs of Innocence”, and “Songs of Experience” Blake sets a dismal and gloomy tone. This is accomplished by using words such as “Dark”, “Black”, and “Coffins”; these words provoke a dark and ominous feeling when reading. Also, both poems have a depressed to exuberant tone shift, for example, from line one; the words “crying” and “weep” set a dark tone. Then in line nine the words “happy” and “heaven” shift the tone to a much lighter one.
Throughout the Poem, Blake used alliteration to make his poem read similar to a song for example; “burning bright” and “what wings”, which is an emphasis for his support of nature. (“The Tyger” 18) He also makes a connection to the Industrial Revolution, where we can generalize that he dislikes the Industrial Revolution because its effects are harsh. He shows us this by stating, “in what furnace was thy brain? What the Anvil?
Blake also uses sound to deliver the meaning to the poem. The poem starts off with "My mother groaned! my father wept." You can hear the sounds that the parents make when their child has entered this world. Instead of joyful sounds like cheer or cries of joy, Blake chooses words that give a meaning that it is not such a good thing that this baby was brought into this world. The mother may groan because of the pain of delivery, but she also groans because she knows about horrible things in this world that the child will have to go through. The father also weeps for the same reason, he knows that the child is no longer in the safety of the womb, but now is in the world to face many trials and tribulations.
William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are collections of poems that utilize the imagery, instruction, and lives of children to make a larger social commentary. The use of child-centered themes in the two books allowed Blake to make a crucial commentary on his political and moral surroundings with deceptively simplistic and readable poetry. Utilizing these themes Blake criticized the church, attacking the hypocritical clergy and pointing out the ironies and cruelties found within the doctrines of organized religion. He wrote about the horrific working conditions of children as a means to magnify the inequality between the poor working class and the well to do aristocracy.
In 1789, English poet William Blake first produced his famous poetry collection Songs of Innocence which “combines two distinct yet intimately related sequences of poems” (“Author’s Work” 1222). Throughout the years, Blake added more poems to his prominent Songs of Innocence until 1794, when he renamed it Songs of Innocence and Experience. The additional poems, called Songs of Experience, often have a direct counterpart in Blake’s original Songs of Innocence, producing pairs such as “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” In Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake uses musical devices, structure, and symbolism to develop the theme that experience brings both an awareness of potential evil and a tendency that allows it to become dominant over childhood
There are often two sides to everything: chocolate and vanilla, water and fire, woman and man, innocence and experience. The presence of two opposing items allows for harmony and balance in the world. Without water, fire cannot be put out and without woman there can be no man. William Blake’s poetry collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience draws parallels between poems of “innocence” and poems of “experience”. His poem The Lamb is mirrored by his poem The Tyger. Although Blake’s poem The Tyger revolved around the idea of a ferocious mammal, its illustration of a sheepish tiger complicates and alters Blake’s message in the poem by suggesting that good and evil simultaneously exist.
Considering the attention that could be drawn from his strange behavior, William’s father decided not to put him in school. He learned to read and write at home. He also showed a talent of drawing that his parents noticed. At age ten, he was enrolled at Henry Pars’ drawing school. At age fourteen, he was apprenticed to an engraver. Blake’s master was the engraver to the London Society of Antiquaries. Every print that he could afford, William bought it. He drew many sketches of monuments throughout the London area. At age twenty-one, Blake completed his seven-year apprenticeship and became a journeyman copy engraver. He worked on projects for book and print publishers. To prepare himself to become a painter, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Art’s Schools of Design. His artistic energies then began to branch out at this point. He then privately published “Poetical Stretches”, a collection of poems that he had written for the past fourteen years.
At the very start of the poem it is clear in what way Blake wishes to
William Blake's poems show the good and bad of the world by discusses the creator and the place of heaven through the views of Innocence and Experience while showing the views with a childlike quality or with misery.