Ways in which Blake Uses Images of Animals and Plants
William Blake was born in 1757 in London and died in 1827. His most
famous works are called "Songs of innocence" and "Songs of
experience". "Songs of innocence" written in (1789) were easy to
understand, very simple vocabulary, simple verses, with ideal, happy
and pastoral locations. In Contrast "Songs of experience" written in
(1794), had more difficult ideas and vocabulary, with negative views,
which where realistic and sad. In this essay I will be studying how
Blake uses animals, plants and the natural world to create pictures
for the reader of what he thought life was like in eighteenth century
England. I will be comparing, “The Echoing Green”, “The Garden of
Love” and “Laughing Song”. These poems contain an extensive amount of
visual images of “Green” which will help me compare the different ways
in which Blake uses the images of animals, plants and natural world.
To embark on “The Echoing Green”, this poem is a very calm, joyful and
positive poem. It consists of happy people, happy children and a
beautiful natural landscape, which is pastoral. Pastoral is another
word for the rural location, where there are animals and other natural
life such as trees and plants. At the location there are many
different sporting games in progress and children under the
supervision of parental figures. I can also see from the poem that the
people have been at the location for the entire day as the poem starts
with “The Sun does arise”, and ends with “On the Darkening Green”.
This shows how much they must have enjoyed themselves to be at the
same location for the entire day. The title “The Echoing Green” tells
you that this is a location where communities come a...
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...”Chapel were shut”
showing how the doors to the chapel that was built on the land that
the writer played and how they are now shut to the public, and the
writer could be hinting extreme dislike towards religion. Furthermore
the third stanza backs up this opinion of mine, “I saw it was filled
with graves”, this quote shows how the narrator only noticed the
negative points of the chapel and not the positive religious aspects.
In conclusion, there have been many natural features shown throughout
all three poems. The poem reflects what William Blake thinks of
animals, plants and the natural world. Blake has also described social
aspects within his poems, which creates an unreal texture in “Laughing
Song” and “The Echoing Green”. In contrast “the Garden of love” has
been shielded from social activity as he describes that the gates
towards god are not shut.
William Blake focused on biblical images in the majority of his poetry and prose. Much of his well-known work comes from the two compilations Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poems in these compilations reflect Blake's metamorphosis in thought as he grew from innocent to experienced. An example of this metamorphosis is the two poems The Divine Image and A Divine Image. The former preceded the latter by one year.
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.
In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, many of the poems correlate in numerous aspects. For example, The Chimney Sweeper is a key poem in both collections that portrays the soul of a child The Chimney Sweeper in Innocence vs. The Chimney Sweeper in Experience In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, many of the poems correlate in numerous aspects. For example, The Chimney Sweeper is a key poem in both collections that portrays the soul of a child with both a naïve and experienced persona. Blake uses the aspects of religion, light versus dark imagery, and the usage of the chimney sweeper itself to convey the similarities and differences of the figure in both poems. The Chimney Sweeper is an excellent example of how William Blake incorporated religion into his poetic works.
The ideas that are presented in poems are often the same ideas everyone is thinking but are too afraid to speak their mind for fear that they might be judged. Allen Ginsberg explained this predicament when he said “[p]oetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private” (Ginsberg). This quote applies especially to “The Tyger” by William Blake. William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” at the surface is very simplistic; however, with further analysis the story’s theme of religion asks fundamental questions that pertain to one’s worldview with the use of symbolism.
By using syntax, diction, figurative language, imagery and a curious tone, “The Tyger”, by William Blake reveals that the more mysterious something is, the scarier it can be to us. All of these literary devices control the feeling of the theme and help set up this unique poem to make it feel unknown.
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.
William Blake used nature in his poetry to show and compare innocence to experience. His works in Songs of Innocence and of Experience , explores the differences between good and evil. In The Lamb, he describes the timidness of a lamb saying, “Softest clothing, wooly bright; gave thee such a tender voice”. This
To illustrate, Blake displays imagery throughout his poem. These descriptions leave a picture in the reader’s mind. With great detail, the
Blake’s background and occupation greatly influenced the style and content of his poems. He lived during the 18th Century when the church was beginning to lose its grip on British society; science was rising up against the church. Blake was part of a group known as the Romantics. He began to challenge the church believing that an individual could discover God without going to church. His poems ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’ reflect this, as he is telling how God created these two animals and on another level how he created humanity.
William Blake was born in 1757 and of an early age he wrote poetry, soon enough he became well known to the Church and also the wealthy. Blake was very critical towards the Church despite being a firm believer of God. He thought that the Church were overpowering the poor side of the Country. Blake would get his message through to others in the use of poetry, if people studied the poems they would get a clear idea of Blake's views. William Blake wrote two books which included some of his poems, they were called 'Songs of Innocence' and 'Songs of Experience.' Songs of Innocence was written in 1789, five years earlier than 'Songs of Experience'. This book contains poems of trickery, I say this because if you just read the poems you would think that he is writing about happiness, but if you look harder at each line individually you would see that he is trying to state the unhappiness in the world, the darker side of the poems. The other book 'Songs of Experience' contains some of the same titles of poems but with different contents. If you compare the two books you will see that this book contains the truth about the world, with the misery.
During the Romantic Era (1750-1870), poets used nature as a common motif as they believed it was an extension of the human being. One such poet, William Blake, famously wrote “And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.” A common theme of his writing on the subject of love is the juxtaposition of innocent love and experienced love. For example, both poems, “The Clod and the Pebble” and “The Sick Rose” which first appeared in his book Songs of Innocence and Experience in 1789, generally follow a similar rhyme scheme and development as with all the poems contained within this book. The first half of each poem relates to innocent love, followed by a rhyme scheme discord to represent a turning point,
During one’s lifetime, they might come across various experiences that give them an insight to the hidden truths behind life; the good things and also the bad evil things. These ideas were the main topics in the poems of William Blake’s poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”. These poems were written during the literary era known as the Romantic Era, which took place from the late 18th century to the early 19th century. The era’s tenets were about individuality, spiritual elements, and emphasis of self-expression. “The Lamb” was included in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and told of the positive aspects of life in innocence and chastity. “The Tyger”, which was included in Songs of Experience, dealt with the more negative aspects such as the horrors
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. Good morning/afternoon ladies, I am William Blake, not Wordsworth; Blake, a romantic poet. I was born in 1757, in the Soho district of London, England. I was not only a poet but also a painter and a printmaker. Since I was young, I had these beautiful ‘visions’. I saw a God’s head appear in a window and a tree filled with angels. You may think I was insane but really, I was not. I lived in the Romantic Period, the period of free emotion, adopting individuality and engrossing oneself in nature. We, the Romantic poets, wanted to change the ideas of the previous period, the Enlightenment. We were sick of the industrial society and the want of reasons and purposes behind everything. We believed that nature and emotion were the places in which one found spiritual truth. The idea of engrossing oneself in the natural and beautiful, or in some cases the natural and frightening as in the poem ‘The Tyger’, is distinctly romantic.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own” (Blake, 123) The child is the symbol of the most fragile and brave components in the human mind. The characteristics of Romanticism are shown in his poems, for example the sense of wonder and the contemplation of Nature through fresh eyes. Everything that a child sees is mystery and beauty and goodness. The words in these poems fit the thought because he poems are simple. The “Songs of Innocence” most completely covers the definition of Romanticism. In this book, Blake deals with themes of experience and innocence, and on bigger Romantic themes is nature, the body, and sublime. The world of Nature and man full of love and beauty and innocence enjoyed by a happy child. In spite of his powerful emotions and his rare ideas, Blake keeps his structure perfectly clear and