However, in amongst stark differences, there are also notable structural similarities between both poems. In ‘The Garden of Love’, Blake has used a somewhat regular rhyme scheme of ABAB for the first two stanzas and ABCD for the final stanza. This regularity is also displayed in Mavell’s poem which is written entirely in couplets. The breakdown of the rhyme scheme in Blake’s poem mirrors the disruption to the harmonious element of love displayed by the Garden in the first stanza and creates an unnatural sense of incompleteness and fear. This implies that the chapel, representing institutionalised religion, destroys all elements of nature and innate human desire.
All of these comparisons have a sense of movement and vibrancy. By comparing the children to nature, perhaps Blake is making a comment on how the state of innocence is natural and pure, making this poem 's placement in Songs of Innocence appropriate. The imagery in Holy Thursday from Experience is a lot more hopeless and cold. The comparisons with nature are also found in this poem, however they are static. For these children, the "sun does never shine" and "their fields are bleak & bare".
Blake’s work was mentioned as ‘diseased and wild’ by John Ruskin, even though Ruskin noted that Blake’s mind as ‘great and wise’. However, it was only in the Twentieth century that Blake was acknowledged as a notable poet and artist. Blake’s poems are simple and lyrical in form, but there are complex works too, which needs the reader to work hard to understand what Blake means. This complexity is due to the presence of mythological in addition to the philosophical sources present in his work. Blake himself has stated that he had to "create a System, or be enslaved by another Man 's.” this reasons the presence of vague thoughts and allusions in his work.
Connecting from one to Another (A critique of William Blake’s archetypes) “Archetypes provide foundations to build on and allow endless variety” (Gibson). William Blake in his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience has a few main archetypes in these poem. Blake’s poems have a tendency to move from the simple to the complex. In The Lamb by William Blake this poem is about lambs, where the speaker asks the lamb who made him, then informs the little lamb in the last stanza who made him. This poem has a lot of repetition and uses childlike language, which places it in Songs of Innocence.
No one has listened to he softer plea, so now William Blake must take a more aggressive approach. His rhyme scheme changes after the first stanza - from the children’s story pattern of the first poem to a more jarring form - and he no longer tries to communicate with named characters and little stories. There is no more little Tom Dacre, only “A little black thing among the snow. (Blake 1)” There is no more figuratively corrupt Angel, only a very blunt “God and his Priest and King, Who make up a heaven of our misery. (Blake 11-12)” He directly calls out the church and parents who say they love the children, yet they force them to work hard and feel unloved all their painfully short lives.
Blake was a Romantic poet as he wrote during the Romantic period. “Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that arose in Europe in the mid 18th century as an alternative to the ideals of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment” Blake, during romanticism poets and writers emphasized more on the importance of human emotions, imagination and sensitivity over science and reason which made romanticism different from other periods. William
However, a close reading of the poem alongside an assessment of contemporary history will show that the London Blake is referring to is the same London that Robison is referring to with the only difference being perspective. Blake’s focus on the less fortunate is so great that they are all that he sees while Robison is open-minded enough to see the irony of pleasure in the middle of so much pain. In Robison’s “London Summer Morning”, beauty and ugliness, pain and pleasure, endurance and enjoyment all exist together. In some cases, they even exist in the same place and time. “The ruddy housemaid twirls the busy mop, Annoying the smart ’prentice, or neat girl” (Robison, Lines 18 and 19).
William Blake uses the children in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience to represent the effects of the by-products left by a society dominated by the concept of providing for an upper class through the notions associated with proto-capitalism. This essay will highlight the various ways in how Blake presents both the physical and psychological effects caused by these by-products (poverty and suffering) to these children and how they as a whole, represent this side of society that is affected therefore as a result conveying the ways in which Blake represents poverty and suffering in both of his books. It is clear that Blake wished for his readers to sense in Songs of Innocence that the children are mostly unaware as to why they suffer or to what is the source of
From Blake’s perspective, a passage through experience is necessary before entrance into a final state of vision, as it describes a journey from childhood innocence to maturity. In contrast to the omniscient narrator in the first poem, this poem uses the first-person singular ‘I’, indicating that he is now able to reflect deeply on his situation. The poem begins with the narrator amidst ‘a little black thing among the snow’, juxtaposing the experience of misery against the purity and whiteness of the snow. This stanza presents a self-contained introduction of the child’s plight, combined with monosyllabic phrases following the ABAB rhyme scheme which changes thereafter to an alternate rhyme scheme. Within this stanza, the conversation between the speaker and a sweeper establishes a slower, reflective pace and
Initially, Blake was twelve years old when he had started writing poem. He was both an idealistic and supernatural writer. As per Gillingham 2002, the poem he has narrated are described of his central ideas and imaginary. The purity of childhood innocence and sincerity are admired in the concentration of innocence wittings while the adulthood corruption displayed its work in the manner of darker mood. The Lamb: The narrator states the Lamb humble, the God’s most tender and innocent creature.