Hannah More vs. William Blake
The Little Black Boy and The Sorrows of Yamba are both anti-slavery poems. Both Blake and More were against the political and social structure of slavery, but the way in which they choose to address the issue through their poetry is quite different. Differences in tonality, gender of main characters, implications for the future of these characters, and the audiences these pieces were addressed to make for a good contrast to the similarities they inevitably share in being both anti-slavery.
Blake's poem, The Little Black Boy seems to be more hopeful then More's, The Sorrows of Yamba, which is in accordance with comments made about Blake's general attitude in Songs of Innocence. This hopefulness appears to come from a combination of faith and hope on the part of the author mixed with a type of ignorance on the characters part. The boy does not know any better; therefore, he can envision a heaven where he is an equal to the white English boy in heaven with him. More's poem does not seem as hopeful, it is more laden with grotesque imagery, something we might expect to see in a counterpart to Little Black Boy in Songs of Experience. More's descriptions are corporeal, and the despair and pain seem to be shouting out of these carcasses with 'mangled flesh.' Part of this difference in tonality may be due to the gender of the narrators and similarly the authors. As a man, Blake has always maintained the position a more privileged position in society compared to More simply because she is a woman. Although Blake may not agree with slavery, he is not writing from the perspective of a person who has been marginalized because of a biological difference within him, whereas More is. Perhaps because of this she has more knowledge and understanding of the internal strife, and more of a right to speak, of a person of color being stripped of all they have - even the desire to live.
However, beyond the superficial reading of the authors' gender, though beneficial, there are lots of similarities and differences within the texts themselves. First, the genders of the narrators match up with the genders of the authors. One is a child, a boy, and one is an adult-the mother. I thought Blake's poem seemed to fit within the end of More's poem through the mother's sentiment, in the sense that the little boy was accepting Christian teachings of heaven?
The two poems are two extreme sides of the Negro mentality. They do not leave opportunity for other Blacks to move. They are both required complete conformity. The short story was about Blacks weighting their options. It shows that Blacks can think logically about their action.
Because the poem is written in two different formats it causes readers to want to know more from both perspectives. If reading the poem from the slave owners perspective the mood of the poem, revolves around happier times. Slavery is showcased to be a time of possibility and better times for everyone involved. But when reading it from the slave’s perspective, it is told from the business element. Although it is clear, they do not enjoy their job, you also see that they are overly dedicated. In the beginning, they state that they work from sun-up to sun-down doing the same thing every day. And although, they are doing the same thing every day their determination and hard work is clearly shown. Furthermore, it is also shown that even at a young age they started working as slaves. From the slave owner’s perspective, we see that they are content with how things were during slavery. But from slave side they are fed up with being viewed as a profit. Therefore, the two separate moods are clearly shown. However, one thing that is interesting is that both poems end with the same word “slavery”. The fact that both poems ended using the same word, show how although they are living in two separate worlds somehow they still will collide. It also shows, that although they have two different moods it all ties back to the word
Even if these poems had the same theme of the delayment of a dream, each poet’s vision towards this dream is explored differently, where readers are able to grasp both the effects and potentials of a dream deferred, through the use of imagery. Nonetheless, both poems had fulfilled the role of many distinguished poems during the period; to communicate African-Americans’ desires to live a life of equality and free from prejudice.
The theme throughout the two poems "A Black Man Talks of Reaping" and "From the Dark Tower" is the idea that African American live in an unjust
The United States saw its territory more than double in the first three decades of the 19th century. Bursting with nationalist fervor, an insatiable desire for more land, and a rapidly increasing population, the western frontiers of the United States would not remain east of the Mississippi. The eventual spread of the American nation beyond the Mississippi into Native and French land, referred to as “Manifest Destiny” by John O’Sullivan, was rationalized as a realization of their God given duty. The Louisiana Purchase set the precedent for unrestricted westward expansion in America, and allowed for others to follow in his footsteps. Characterized by racist overtones, a lack of the “consent of the governed, and ethnic cleansing, there is no valid distinction between this American continental expansion and the international expansion sought by Europe in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and is clearly imperialist in nature.
Blake's View on Oppression of Children by Adults Blake was a poet who wrote in the Romantic period. He had idealistic views about life, and believed that the traditional country way of life was the best way to live. He despised the industry that was establishing itself in England because it was the opposite of the ideal country lifestyle that Blake idealised. The idea that Blake believed that children were oppressed is an interesting one, because, there are a number of poems which suggest different ideas about this topic.
The points of comparison these two writers share are that they were both iconic poets of their day and that they wrote in what is referred to as “black dialect.” The differences between them are their cultural and educational backgrounds.
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.
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.
In a dream the boy has an “Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, he’d have God for his father, and never want joy” (Blake 19-20). This gives the boy the motivation that he needs to continue his life and so as he awoke, he “was happy and warm; / [and] if [he did his] duty [he] need not fear harm” (Blake 23-24). The young boy decides to suffer through his brutal everyday life so that one day he can go to heaven, where he will be happy. These two polar opposite approaches to dealing with the misfortune of the characters is what shapes both the theme and tone of the poems. Another similarity between these two poems is their extensive use of imagery.
During the late 19th century and early 20th century, Manifest Destiny was a popular concept in America that meant that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the world and its lands. After the Civil War, America faced a period of Reconstruction, in which the country was truly able to restore itself, expanding Westward. Later on in the time period, America had transformed into an industrial nation, which sparked competition among other countries. Although New Manifest Destiny of the late 19th century and early 20th century was in some instances a departure from Old Manifest Destiny, however, in other instances, it was a continuation of earlier expansionist policies. To begin with, Imperialism was different from Old Manifest Destiny
The symphony is anticipating 11% increase in total revenue based on 2001-2002 financial projection based on raising more contributions and raising ticket sales by 1%.
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
The beginnings of today's green revolution can be traced back to the environmental awareness of the 1960s and European design. New construction techniques have lead to the development of innovative materials and design concepts. Green buildings are designed, constructed and commissioned to ensure they are healthy for their occupants. Successfully designed green projects can involve an extensive array of factors, ranging from the resourceful use of materials, to careful consideration of function, climate, and location.
Although both Blake and Wordsworth show childhood as a state of greater innocence and spiritual vision, their view of its relationship with adulthood differs - Blake believes that childhood is crushed by adulthood, whereas Wordsworth sees childhood living on within the adult. In the William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the vision of children and adults is placed in opposition to 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 am happy, Joy is my name.’” (Line 4-5).