Ah! Sunflower
In the late 1700s, William Blake published an illustrated collection of poems named Songs of Innocence and Experience. In 2016, a group of students in Penn State Altoona sat down to pore over his writings, each one finding a special poem to connect with. Although Blake bled his innocence and experience onto pages over four hundred years ago, the message, imagery, and personal significance translates beautifully still. A particular poem, ‘Ah, Sunflower,’ seemed to grow roots outside of the page and wind around my hands, pulling me in. Blake used this poem to express his opinions on religion, and unfulfilled desire. He utilized stunning poetic techniques as well as stunning illustration to create and distribute a poem all the way from the 17th century to land right in the laps of students of the 21st.
The poem, drenched in wistfulness, tells the tale of a sunflower very near to the speaker’s heart (demonstrated with the use of “my” in the eighth line) that he observes as being “weary of time,” (Blake 1) and following “the steps of the sun,” (Blake 2) as all sunflowers do to stay alive. However, this particular plant goes one step farther than natural instincts as Blake personifies the flower early on in the poem. He creates an ancient traveller nearing the end of a great journey, “seeking
Both the youth and the virgin are yearning for something that they cannot have. In the youth’s case, the use of the word “desire” (Blake 5) indicates lust, which is seen as a sin. Similarly, the virgin, who is “shrouded in snow,” (Blake 6) also wakes up to pine for something more. The equal craving for lust and sin between these two symbols results in the simultaneous attention toward the sunflower’s “sweet golden clime,” which we have assumed to be heaven. William Blake expertly includes numerous vital poetic techniques that critics and students alike can’t wait to uncover in “Ah,
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
While William Blake’s “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Innocence was written before the French Revolution and Blake’s “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Experience was written after, creating obvious differences in formal structure; these poems are also uniquely intertwined by telling the same story of children arriving to church on Holy Thursday. However, each gives a different perspective that plays off each other as well the idea of innocence and experience. The idea that innocence is simply a veil that we are not only aware of but use to mask the horrors of the world until we gain enough experience to know that it is better to see the world for simply what it is.
In Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789 and 1794), William Blake arouses readers' minds and leads them into a path of finding their own answers and conclusions to his poems. He sets up his poems in the first book, Songs of Innocence, with a few questions as if they were asked from a child's perspective since children are considered the closest representation of innocence in life. However, in the second book, Songs of Experience, Blake's continues to write his poems about thought-provoking concepts except the concepts happen to be a little bit more complex and relevant to experience and time than Songs of Innocence.
Natoli, Joseph. "William Blake." Critical Survey Of Poetry, Second Revised Edition (2002): 1-12. Literary Reference Center. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.
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...
The imagery of nature and humanity intermingling presents Blake's opinion on the inborn, innate harmony between nature and man. The persona of the poem goes on to express the `gentle streams beneath our feet' where `innocence and virtue meet'. This is where innocence dwells: synchronization with nature, not synchronization with industry where `babes are reduced to misery, fed with a cold usurous hand' as in the experienced version of `Holy Thursday'. The concept of the need for the individual's faithfulness to the laws of nature and what is natural is further reiterated in `the marriage of heaven and hell' in plate 10 where Blake states `where man is not, nature is barren'. The most elevated form of nature is human nature and when man resists and consciously negates nature, `nature' becomes `barren'. Blake goes on to say `sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires'. This harks back to `the Songs of Innocence' `A Cradle Song' where the `infants smiles are his own smiles'. The infant is free to act out its desires as it pleases. It is unbound, untainted. Blake's concern is for the pallid and repressed, subjugated future that awaits the children who must `nurse unacted desires' and emotions in this new world of industrialisation. Despairingly, this is restated again in `the mind-forg'd manacles' of `London'. The imagery of the lambs of the `Songs of Innocence' `Introduction' is developed in `the Chimney Sweeper' into the image of `Little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, that curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd'.
... transcend the material world and reach what Blake views as the actual world of the spirit. The hidden interpretation within the piece is a telling commentary on Blake’s non-conventional religious awareness.
Johnson, Mary Lynn and John E. Grant, eds. Blake's Poetry and Designs. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1979.
Upon reading William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, a certain parallel is easily discerned between them and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Blake, considered a radical thinker in his time, is today thought to be an important and seminal figure in the literature of the Romantic period. Being such a figure he has no doubt helped to influence many great thinkers throughout history, one of whom I believe is Carroll. There are many instances throughout Carroll’s story where comparable concepts of innocence and adulthood are evident. Through its themes of romanticism, Carroll crafts a story that is anti-didactic by its very nature.
Frighteningly beautiful and destructive, Blake’s tiger becomes the main symbol for his questions into the presence of evil in the world. For example, The reference to the lamb in the final stanza, “ Did he who made the lamb make thee?” reminds the reader that a tiger and a lamb have been created by the same God, and raises questions about the implications of this. Is there a purpose beh...
The sunflower is its own unique kind and it differs from any other flower or plant. This ties extremely well into this essay. This essay is about my story and how it is not the same as anybody else 's. Each plant serves its own unique purpose just like us as humans. They can grow to be big if they receive the right amount of sunlight, water, and other requirements to help plants grow. I compare that to life after college. We have to have more than just one aspect of college to succeed and grow. We need to get involved to show that we care and have success in the classroom. If future employers see that I not only successful in the classroom, but also got involved, I stand out. That is one way this plant has related to me thus far in my
withholding the anger from the “foe”. Blake uses the simplicity of the poem to surprise his
Thus the poem is a splendid pen picture of joys of child hood and their eventual fading away into eternity. Blake has further laid stress on the potent entity called ‘change’. The poet has through useful symbol of oak tree, old people, evening etc has discussed the mechanics, which act as a fulcrum in moving the paddles of life. The poet has showed superb mastery as he changes the mood of the poem along with the progression of the poem. The poem is in fact a very fine presentation of the philosophy of life resting on the hinges of the magnificent time.
In the William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the vision of children and adults are placed in opposition of one another. Blake portrays childhood as a time of optimism and positivity, of heightened connection with the natural world, and where joy is the overpowering emotion. This joyful nature is shown in Infant Joy, where the speaker, a newborn baby, states “’I happy am,/ Joy is my name.’” (Line 4-5) The speaker in this poem is portrayed as being immediately joyful, which represents Blake’s larger view of childhood as a state of joy that is untouched by humanity, and is untarnished by the experience of the real world. In contrast, Blake’s portrayal of adulthood is one of negativity and pessimism. Blake’s child saw the most cheerful aspects of the natural wo...
LaGuardia, Cheryl. "WILLIAM BLAKE: SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE." Library Journal 128.9 (2003): 140. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 13 July 2011.