William Blake

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WILLIAM BLAKE.

William Blake was born in London in 1757 into a lower-class family. He didn’t receive any formal education; at ten year was sent to a drawing school and began to learn the engraving. Then he attended the Royal Academy. He became poetry writer in fact in 1789 he published Songs of Innocence. He didn’t print his poems, but he engraved them adding pictures which translated the poetic theme in visual terms. In 1794 he published Songs of Innocence and of Experience in a combined volume. He didn’t have a great success, so was forced to illustrate the work of other authors and to look for patrons and rely on their protection and money. Blake wrote also the so-called Prophetic Books in which he expresses his belief in the poet as a prophet and his admiration for revolutionary movements. At last he wrote mythological poems which are often obscure.
Blake’s work was not really appreciated until the end of 19th century, while now he is considered a major poet.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience represent only a fragment of his total poetic production, but illustrate his major themes and his style. The two part of the collection are complementary, in fact there is a dual vision of life.
Externally the state of innocence represents the condition of man in the Eden before his Fall. Internally and psychological it refers to the condition of the child who hasn’t yet know what evil is. The inner state of Innocence is represented by many images like the Lamb or the Child. Moreover in it there is a society based on good feelings like love and generosity.
In the world of Experience, which is the world of adults, people are selfish and incapable of spontaneity, while society presents inequalities and exploitation between men. This world is represented by symbols such as sounds and sights of distress or creature like the tiger.
In human soul these two states coexist: innocence is an ideal to be struggled for in a corrupt and wicked world.
To this dual vision of life corresponds a dual vision of God: in the first collection the Lamb is the symbol of God’s innocence and a demonstration of his love for his creatures, while in Songs of Experience is a powerful symbol of energy and violence which question the nature of God and the value of his creation.
Blake painted also an image of the God of Experience, Elohim Creating Adam: the grim winged God doesn’t look pleased of his creation.
Many scholars said that Blake has marked the beginning of a new age, in fact he contrasted the idea of the “reasoning power in man” and presented a new conception of imagination which is the ability to see more deeply into the life of things. The poet, the child and the man in a state of innocence have this power. They can see beyond surface reality. In the poem The Lamb, a little lamb is transfigured into the symbol of what a loving God can create: the animal becomes a source of joy the poet responds to. In London the poet can see more deeply into the life of the town. He hears the rattling of “mind-forg’d manacles” and has visions of blackening churches and palaces covered with blood: the sights and sounds the poet perceives reveal the evils in the town is oppressed by. In The Chimney Sweeper a child, like Tom Dacre, who is “on the side of imagination”, can have visions and dreams.
American and French Revolution influenced Blake; he supported the London riots for American Independence and was sympathetic to the equalitarian ideas of the French Revolution. From his poems his affinity with the poor and the oppressed emerges. For example in London he describes the streets and the Thames with the word “charter’d”, that is, subject to commercial exploitation. Moreover he criticise Church, which has neglected its duty to protect the weak, and the Monarchy, which oppresses the young soldiers. At last he says that the young prostitute is evidence of the failure of marriage and love.
Both in Songs of Innocence and in Songs of Experience there’s the presence of the child and of the theme of childhood, but with different meaning. In the first collection the child retains the innocence of a new-born infant who is loved and protected by God or when entrapped in the wicked world of adults can regain his freedom in dreams and find himself in a children paradise. In the second collection there’s the figure of a child refused by parents and by society; in this case it is the symbol of the oppressed.
Blake’s view of the poet is that of a visionary man. The poet has the power of imagination whose work parallels that of God in creation. He tries to understand the value of the creation, questioning the lamb and the tiger and having visions that he tries to communicate to society, just as he does in London. Also the tone is often that of a prophet, emotional and grave, indignant and compassionate for the weak and the oppressed.
His purpose is to warn men against evils. To reach is aim he had to contrast the conventional poets who wrote only for an elite. So he rebelled against the cultural convention of the 18th century and this emerges also from his paintings.
As regards the lexis and the syntax, they are very simple; he introduces a lot of repetition and follows regular stress patterns and rhyme schemes, adopting features that are typical of children’s songs, ballads and church hymns. Because of the visionary quality of his poetry there is a frequent use of personification, of metaphor and symbol. Moreover there are many images which mix literal and metaphorical meaning, such as the powerful metaphor of the “mind-forg’d manacles” in London. The originality of Blake’s production is represented by the use of unconventional symbolic imagery, by the expression of personal visions and by a more spontaneous use of language.

William Blake wrote two important collections of poems: “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”. The first was published in 1789 during the French Revolution, while the second collection was printed in 1794.

LONDON.

Blake can be considered the first romantic poet, and this poem, from “Songs of Experience” of 1794, illustrates his view of London.
Reading the first stanza we can already understand that there is a first person narrator because the first word of the poem is the “I” pronoun. The poet is the only person who can see things that common people can’t see, so the poet is the one who can reach the truth. In the second stanza the expression “I hear” highlights that the poet is a sort of prophet who can see behind things.
In line 8, the poet introduces a vision, that is a metaphor with a universal, deep and strong meaning. According to the poet, political and social institution have forged men’s mind so that they do what government wants them to do.
In this poem Blake condemns three institutions: Church, Monarchy (represented by the Palace) and Marriage.
Blake attacks “black’ning Church” because it doesn’t make anything to avoid children’s exploitation and forgets the truth and original religious spirit. The word “black’ning” indicates both the immorality of the Church and the fact that in Blake’s time churches were black for the smoke caused by urbanisation and industrialisation.
Then Blake condemns Monarchy because it puts at risk soldiers’ life who stand guard outside the royal palaces.
Finally he criticises Marriage that brings to prostitution because it reduces men’s freedom. At that time there weren’t love-marriages but people got married only for interest. For this reason and because of the unemployment, women who low social classes became prostitutes; this phenomenon brings to moral degradation of the society, determined the birth of illegitimate children and the spread of many diseases (for example the syphilis) and caused the destruction of the families. So the poet links marriage to death with the image of the “hearse”. In the last stanza, Blake says that “the youthful Harlot blasts the new born Infant’s tear”: this means that there are no feelings, so it is useless to show pain or any other feelings because of the poverty of London industrial society.
The tone is initially emotional, grave and sombre, then it becomes indignant combining compassion for the oppressed with bitter scorn for the oppressor.

THE LAMB.

The poem consists of two stanzas which are related to each other because the first is a question about creation, while the second is the answer. Moreover they present symmetry: they have the same number of lines (10) and there are two indentations at the beginning and at the end of each of them. At the beginning of the first stanza, there are two questions that the poet repeats in lines 9 and 10: Blake asks the Lamb if it knows who made it. Moreover the poet gives a sort of medieval taste to the poem with the use of archaism, for example the word “thee” instead of “you” object, “thou” instead of “you” subject, “thy” old use for “your” and “dost” old use for “do”.
The Lamb is described as the animal of innocence, like the creature of a world in which there are no troubles, no tension; Blake introduces biblical images of a world made of tenderness, harmony and innocence. The Lamb could stand both as a real animal and as a symbol, in fact some details of the natural setting (“stream”, “mead”) make you think of the real animal; others suggest a symbol of innocence. So the Lamb is the symbol of God’s innocence and a demonstration of his love for his creatures unlike the tiger of the poem “Tyger” which is a powerful symbol of energy and violence.
As regards the sound of the poem, it is very sweet thanks to the presence of soft sound, for example the letter “l” recurrent throughout the poem. This is important in order to give the idea of a harmonious world.
To the questions of the poet, it’s not the Lamb which answers, but the poet himself does it. There is a sort of visionary power because the poet can tell the Lamb who is the Creator. The poet becomes a sort of prophet who can see more deeply into reality and who also tries to warn men of the evils of society. (We must remember that Blake reproduced his ideas also through paintings.)
In the second stanza the poet says that the Creator is the Lamb because he is tender, sweet, innocent: he is a little child (Jesus); these words suggest a gentle, good nature, and they all have a positive quality. There is an identification of the poet with the child and the Lamb; the poet creates a sort of medieval chain: in this case the poet identifies himself with the Creator, so he is the Child, the Child is the Lamb and the poet is the Lamb.
In this poem Blake gives an idea of nature like Rousseau thought, that is men are good by nature; so the poet has the gift of innocence thanks to which he can discover the truth.
As regards the style, the poet makes use of simple lexis and syntax as well as of a fairly substantial amount of repetition, which are all characteristic of young children’s speech as well as the Bible.
The poem is pure, that is it doesn’t contain any evil element or suggestion to corruption. The colours are bright as well as the setting, while the relationships are harmonious.

THE TYGER (from “Songs of Experience”).

This poem, whose title is written in Blake’s original spelling, is usually associated with the Lamb from “Songs of Innocence”. It is one of the most famous of all Blake’s poem due to its powerful imagery and original rhythm.
The world of the collection “Songs of Experience” is a bitter world, made of oppression. The poem which expresses better the idea of the absolute evil is The Tyger that is completely different from The Lamb, absolute good.
In reality, absolute good and absolute evil don’t exist alone, but together; they coexist in man’s soul and he can decide to follow innocence, goodness or evil.
Only the poet, who is a sort of prophet, can see the two worlds separated. So, symbol of God is the Lamb, while symbol of violence is the Tiger. God created both the Lamb and the Tiger, so he has both the concept of good and of evil. Men have the same characteristic; for this reason in their soul a positive and a negative side coexist.
The Tyger is divided in six stanzas and the first and the last ones are equal: this is the expression of the will of the poet who always introduces symmetries in his poems. The rhyme scheme is elementary, in fact is AA-BB, but in the first and the sixth stanzas last two lines don’t rhyme. The rhythm is not melodious and sweet like in The Lamb, but hammering and speedy. Also the metre is different: while in The Lamb there’s an iambic metre, in The Tyger it is trochaic. Moreover the tone is very tense and strong as well as the sound.
Blake gives both a positive and a negative connotations of the Tiger: Tiger is violent and bad, but also beautiful, full of energy, elegant; it’s world is obscure but fascinating; it seems to have supernatural powers, but it exists only to satisfy its own instincts.
In the first line, the expression “burning bright” gives the idea of energy, fire, but also something religious, obscure, something which is life.
In the second line, the words “forests of the night” suggest a Dantean reminiscence: the forests give the idea of Dante’s Divina Commedia, in fact they represent a place where man is lost and the sin is chaos; it is a terrible world where men are unprotected.
In line 4, Blake, with the expression “fearful symmetry” imagines the physical world after the Adam’s fall; before this fall men lived in harmony and symmetry, but then the symmetry has become “fearful”.
Last line is different from the forth because of a change in fact there is the word “dare” instead of “could”: this gives a stronger and deeper meaning to the line.

I FEAR’D THE FURY OF MY WIND.

This poem, from Songs of Experience, consists of two stanzas of the same length; in fact they present the same number of lines that is four. As regard the metre, in the first stanza there is an iambic metre, in the second there is a trochaic one. The stressed syllables are always four per line, except the 1st, the 3rd, the 4th lines of the first stanza in which there are three ones.
The rhyme scheme is ABCB-BDBD and there are some enjambments between the lines: 1-2; 5-6; 7-8; exactly the last enjambment is more arched to give a strong meaning. Moreover there are some alliterations (“fear’d the fury”, “blight all blossoms”, “sun shin’d and shin’d”, “but a blossom”, “fruitless, false, tho’fear to see”) and some of these reproduce onomatopoeic sounds. The presence of sounds like “f” and “s” gives the idea of rustle of wind while the sounds “b” and “l” reproduce a soft tone.
“The fury of my wind” represents the rage of the poet who wants to underline that the feelings must be showed and not oppressed by reason. In fact the poet connects the image of sun with the reason, so it is something negative because it dries up the trees that stand for people’s good values. Reason, getting the upper hand over the impetus of passion, extinguishes the feelings of human soul, expressed by blossoms. In fact they disappear in comparison with the selfish of industrial society. We can compare this poem with “London”: they are linked together because the blossoms represent all the false and hypocritical values of human being, behind which the society of London hides itself to justify its bad and malign behaviour.
Through the contrast between the images of the sun and the wind we can recognize Blake’s interpretation of the Universe and of man, based on the dualism innocence-experience. The first one is represented by the image of Lamb that evokes a harmonious world and God’s love for his creature. Experience comes true with the tiger that is the fascinating evil, that is present also in God’s soul, because he knows both good and evil.

THE GARDEN OF LOVE.

The poem, from Songs of Experience, is divided in three quatrains with a stress pattern of 3 stresses in each line, except the 6th, the 11th, and the 12th lines in which there are 4 stresses. The rhyme scheme is irregular and this means that in the world derangement and loss of values dominate. There are little alliterations, like “were”-“walking” in the 11th line and “binding”-“briars” in the 12th line. The poet introduces in the last line an internal rhyme (”briars”-“desire”) to increase the tone that is always emotional. There are a lot of syntactic links, for example “and”, repeated more than once, “so”, “that”, “where”.
Since from the first stanza the poet seems to be against the religion, in fact the Chapel was built in the middle of the garden, so that it limits the space where the poet, in his childhood, used to play. For this reason there is a contrast between the institution and the feelings of the poet. The images of the Chapel, of the Garden of Love and of green are allegorical and give a medieval taste to the poem, coming from the “Roman de la Rose”.
The initial “I” pronoun connects this poem with “London”, in fact the poet is a sort of prophet who can see two images placed one on top of the other: that of the Garden of Love, connected with his childhood, and that of the Chapel, which represents the real world of Experience. The manacles of the institutions, in particular the Church, are indicated through the expression “Thou shalt not”, which is the beginning of each commandment; it is in contrast with the image of sweet flowers, which express the purity of human soul; on the other hand they are also in conflict with the image of the “tomb-stones”, which show the harsh reality. The rhythm is particular because there is a “crescendo” from the first to the last stanza, increased through the presence and the repetition of the word “and”. So the rhythm becomes hammering, pressing, and gives an idea of anxiety: it is a metaphor of the meaning and is hallucinating because it reproduces the sensation of spinning round. As regard the space plain, this idea is given by the presence of the Chapel in the middle of the Garden.