Holy Thursday Tone

509 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Holy thursday william blake

“Holy Thursday” shines light on the treatment of the many poor, orphan children living in England. Holy Thursday is traditionally a special day during Easter which the poor or orphan children of the charity schools march to St. Paul’s Cathedral for service. In both versions of this poem, William Blake uses form, tone, diction, and imagery to show his views on life. The form Blake uses helps the reader to interrupt his tone throughout the poems. In “Holy Thursday” (Song of Innocence), the poem contains three stanza with two rhymed couplets. This provides order which is significant because in the poem the children march through the streets in a specific manner. The tone for this specific poem is very ironic. Holy Thursday is supposed to be a “holy” day, but the treatment of the children suggest otherwise. “Holy Thursday” (Song of Experience) contains four quatrains with no rhyme throughout which creates a tone of decay for the reader. Not only does Blake use form and tone to show the treatment of the children in england, but he also uses diction and imagery to support his views. …show more content…

In “Holy Thursday” (Song of Innocence), the words “innocent faces clean” show how the children must be tidied for public because they are not usually taken care of (Blake line 1). Blake chooses the phrase “flowers of London town” in order to show the children's’ beauty and fragility (Blake 5). The use of “mighty wind” and “harmonious thunderings” suggest that the children are becoming powerful (Blake lines 9-10). When Blake says “like Thames’ waters flow” he is showing how the children march in unison towards the cathedral as if they were a river (Blake line

Show More
Related

  • A Father's Phaethon: The Legend Of The Father

    1407 Words  | 3 Pages

    When the poem is read aloud, the explicit rhyme and rhythm of the lines becomes extremely obvious. In fact, the bouncy rhythm is so uplifting, it occasionally makes the audiences feel like it is too predictable and straight-forward. An example would be “bright with chrysolite”, the word “chrysolite” feels like it is forcefully implemented for the sake of the rhyme. This is somewhat similar to a children’s tale. Most children’s tale as we know it, conveys messages straightforwardly and are easily understood by children, it also has an amiable tone and a merry mood that engages the children 's attention. Similarly, the rhyme and rhythm of this poem is very obvious and explicit, creating a delightful, casual mood that appeals to a young audience. Even though the legend dealt with deep insights about parenting that are intricate and puzzling, the father delivered it in such a gratifying, simple manner that made even the most dark and dreadful matters: like the description of precarious beasts and vicious monsters to sound like a blissful adventure of friendly animals. The sole purpose of this contradiction between the tone and message is to make this seemingly strong and serious topic more tolerable and captivating to the son of the father. Unsensible, impulsive youth is very similar to restless children, a long insipid lecture about deep insights is very difficult for them to buy into. In the same time, a harsh, threatening warning will only make them obey unwillingly, and creating a doubtful relationship will make them uncomfortable to communicate or appeal to their parents. Clearly, the percipient father recognized the ineffectiveness of these unsuitable parenting methods. Instead, he conveyed the message in a uncomplicated, friendly way that made his son to accept his teachings more comfortably. A

    Read More

  • Blake's View on Oppression of Children by Adults

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    The fact that they feel they can sit about the knee of their mother, in this stereotypical image of a happy family doesn’t suggest that the children in this poem are oppressed... ... middle of paper ... ... y has a negative view of the childish desire for play which clearly has an effect on the children. The fact that they the are whispering shows that they are afraid of the nurse, and that they cannot express their true thoughts and desires freely, which is why they whisper, and therefore shows that Blake feels that children are oppressed. I feel that the two poems from innocence which are ‘The Echoing Green,’ and ‘The Nurses Song,’ display Blake’s ideological view of country life which I referred to in my introduction, and show his desire for childhood to be enjoyed.

    Read More

  • The Theme of the Suffering Innocent in Blake's London

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    The theme of the suffering innocent person, dying and being diseased, throws a dark light onto the London seen through the eyes of William Blake. He shows us his experiences, fears and hopes with passionate images and metaphors creating a sensibility against oppression hypocrisy. His words come alive and ask for changes in society, government and church. But they remind us also that the continued renewal of society begins with new ideas, imagination and new works in every area of human experience.

    Read More

  • Anaysis of William Blake's The Lamb, The Tyger, and Proverbs of Hell

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blake’s poetry focuses on imagination. When Blake created his work, it gained very little attention. Blake’s artistic and poetic vision is reflected in his creations. Blake was against the Church of England because he thought the doctrines were being misused as a form of social control, it meant the people were taught to be passively obedient and accept oppression, poverty, and inequality. In Blake’s poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell, he shows that good requires evil in order to exist through imagery of animals and man.

    Read More

  • William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper

    911 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Elegy Written in a Church Courtyard by Thomas Grey

    1152 Words  | 3 Pages

    Grey, Thomas. “Elegy Written in a Church Courtyard.” The Norton Anthology Of Poetry. shorter fifth edition. Ferguson, Margaret W. , Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York, New York: W W Norton , 2005. 410-413. Print.

    Read More

  • Rebellion As Art By William Blake

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    His spiritual beliefs reached outside the boundaries of religious elites loyal to the monarchy. “He was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War” (E. P. Thompson). Concern with war and the blighting effects of the industrial revolution were displayed in much of his work. One of Blake’s most famous works is The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience. In this collection, Blake illuminates the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and follow them into adulthood.... ...

    Read More

  • The Influence of the Bible on William Blake

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bloom and Trilling 28-29. Print. The. Blake, William. The. “Songs of Innocence: Holy Thursday.”

    Read More

  • The Theme of Authority in William Blake's Poetry

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme of authority is possibly the most important theme and the most popular theme concerning William Blake’s poetry. Blake explores authority in a variety of different ways particularly through religion, education and God. Blake was profoundly concerned with the concept of social justice. He was also profoundly a religious man. His dissenting background led him to view the power structures and legalism that surrounded religious establishments with distrust. He saw these as unwarranted controls over the freedom of the individual and contrary to the nature of a God of liberty. Figures such as the school master in the ‘schoolboy’, the parents in the ‘chimney sweeper’ poems, the guardians of the poor in the ‘Holy Thursday’, Ona’s father in ‘A Little girl lost’ and the priestly representatives of organised religion in many of the poems, are for Blake the embodiment of evil restriction.

    Read More

  • The Chimney Sweeper: Dispair

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    Though this poem mainly describes the suffering of these children, William Blake wrote another poem also titled “The Chimney Sweeper” where he described how as these chimney-sweepers grew older, they began to realize how they were taken advantage of and how the promises of the Church were all just a big hoax. From these two poems, it can be inferred that Blake intentionally pointed out and revealed the malfeasance of the Church and society and how they exploited younger children due to their gullibility and innocence solely for the economy without having any regard for the children’s lives.

    Read More

  • The Chimney Sweeper Analysis

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poem, “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake, the author attempts to educate the reader about the horrors experienced by young children who are forced into labor at an early age cleaning chimneys for the wealthy. The poem begins with a young boy who has lost his mother but has no time to properly grieve because his father has sold him into a life of filth and despair. The child weeps not only for the loss of his mother and his father’s betrayal, but also for the loss of his childhood and innocence. Blake uses poetry in an attempt to provoke outrage over the inhumane and dangerous practice of exploiting children and attempts to shine a light on the plight of the children by appealing to the reader’s conscience in order to free the children from their nightmare existence.

    Read More

  • New Criticism In William Blake's London

    766 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Blake uses repetition, rhyming and imagery in his poem to help promote the idea that London, England is not the city that people dream that it is, the city itself can be a

    Read More

  • Childhood

    1788 Words  | 4 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • If the Romantic poet is as William Wordsworth said a man speaking to men

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    by different names and as a separate category, highlighting their. differences. The. Children to Blake are extremely important, especially in the context of poetry, indeed in "The Introduction to Songs of Innocence. He says that the poems are "for children to hear" and concentrates on a child's view of life. It is not possible to say that Blake's poetry excludes women and children as so many of his poems are.

    Read More

  • Child's Innocence In The Poetry Of William Blake And William Wordsworth

    1788 Words  | 4 Pages

    The idea of the child’s innocence is shown through their interactions with others and their descriptions in both of these writers’ poems. For example, in the introduction to “Songs of Innocence” the interaction between the child and the narrator depicts the amount of innocence he has for laughing and enjoying life up in a tree while telling the narrator to write about merry cheer and the Lamb. This example shows innocence because innocent children are usually the happiest for they do not know as many of the horrors of life yet. The child being in a tree relates to Wordsworth’s religious view of being one with nature and how children are delightful and free. Another example of childhood innocence, is in William Blake’s poem “Holy Thursday” he refers to the children as innocent looking and having clean faces. When the children are described as being clean or having something of the color white that usually means purity and innocence. Since Blake wrote many of his passages on religion, the color white also has to do with the purity of the soul and being free from sin. Another example of this would be in “The Chimney Sweeper” when the little boy lost his white hair, this refers to the child losing his innocence or

    Read More

More about Holy Thursday Tone

Open Document