On November 28, 1757, one of the most eminent poets from the Romantic period was born. William Blake, the son of a successful London hosier, only briefly attended school since most of the education he received was from his mother. He was a very religious man and almost all of his poems enclose some reference to God. “Night” by William Blake is part of a larger compilation of poems called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. This collection of poems, published in 1789, depicts innocence and experience. “Night” dramatizes the conflict between heaven and earth.…
The tone, William Blake used in the poem “London”, was purely sad and discomforting. The entire poem talks about misery in London. Some quotes like, “marks of weakness, marks of woe” and “in every infants cry of fear”. The tone of the poem “sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, gives us hope and perseverance, but it is sad. The caged bird is constantly looking for ways to fly out, even though it is hurt. The phrases like “till its blood is red on the cruel bars” and “when he beats his bars and he would be free” demonstrate the idea that one day the bird will find a way out.…
During the romantic era London was a place of beauty with underlying darkness. Both William Blake and William Wordsworth address this in their poems “London” and “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge”. The poems are eight years apart and both written in London. Europe was going through its Industrial Revolution during this time. These poets see London in opposite…
The first work of this time period I will discuss is London from William Blake’s Songs of Experience. In this piece, Blake starts off by the depressing fact that generally all of London is heavily controlled, even the Thames River. The reader can tell that London is not portrayed as a happy place in the poem; everyone that the narrator passes by is in an enslaved…
William Blake's poem “London” explains very concisely and effectively the sociological problems encountered in London back in the late 18th century. This poem is extremely important to the culture of 18th century Western culture as it called into question the morality and unintended effects of early capitalism with the combination of monarchical rule. It is important to note that this poem was written only three years after the French Revolution in which the French working class overthrew the French monarchy that was in control. Surely many people of the working class in Britain found this revolution inspirational. One could assume that Blake is vaguely alluding to these people in this poem by explaining that the living conditions in London were so miserable and deplorable that the people could be eventually forced, even justified, into revolt. It is much clearer, however, that Blake is attempting to outline the inequality between the working class and the aristocratic. This inequality has been further perpetuated by a British government that restricts freedom of speech and denies protection of the average person in fear of civilian uprisings due to the revolution that happened across the channel in France.…
William Blake's contrast between innocence and experience is apparent in another book, aside from those that are named respectively, that was produced in 1789, The Book of Thel. Thel is a maiden who resides in the Vales of Har, which seems equivalent to the sheltered state of peace and innocence in the Songs of Innocence. Feeling unfulfilled and useless, Thel is invited to assume an embodied life by Clay. In doing so, she is exposed to the foreign world of sexuality and experience. This revelation terrifies her tremendously and she flees back to the safe, familiar Vales of Har, never to be enlightened.…
William Blake was born in 1757 in London (“William Blake”, The Poetry Foundation). During his life in London, which became the site of the Industrial Revolution, Blake lived through a time of great social and political change, (“William Blake”, The Poetry Foundation) that had a great impact on his writing. Because of Blake’s experiences seeing the terrible living conditions and social effects on children caused by the Industrial revolution, many of Blake’s poems are told in a Childs point of view. This is very true in Blake’s poem, “Infant Sorrow” where the whole poem is described by a child and discusses the loss of innocence during that time. Because of what Blake witnessed living through the Industrial revolution and seeing the effects on children, his poems reflect the events that had been going on during that time such as children being forced to work in factories while being stripped of their childhood and innocence.…
London, which consists of sixteen lines, is not just a description of William Blake’s birthplace but also a detailed poem of how the social status works in London. The poem is a devastating and concise political analysis delivered with passionate anger. It is revealing the complex connections between patterns of ownership and the ruling ideology, the way all human relations are inescapably bound together within a single destructive society. The reason why Blake wrote it was because he believed that the human spirit was being suppressed by custom and politics. His idea in the poem was that humanity could flower if long-established institutions could be altered or removed. For this reason his poem “London” is revolutionary because it stresses the need to correct the misery the speaker describes. Those who are degraded should be healthy and wholesome. By contrast, Blake reminds us in the poem of privilege, soldiers, and palaces, all of them aspects of oppressive authority. Songs of Experience, from which “London” was taken, was a collection of poems on this basic theme. Blake published the work in 1794; the French Revolution was only five years old at the time, with his own engravings.…
Blake not only portrayed the loss of innocence but allowed society to read about it in his poems that later filled the minds of them as to how important innocence is for children. “…He helped change the world and in changing the world he saved many innocent children from lives of drudgery and misery terminated by premature deaths. While he wrote many wonderful poems and was also a talented painter, printer and engraver, what makes Blake the most important of poets and artists is the change his work wrought in human hearts, minds and consciences,” (Burch). In “Nurses Song of Innocence,” Blake shows the importance of children’s innocence by saying, “No, no let us play, for it is yet day / And we cannot go to sleep / Besides in the sky he little birds fly / And the hills are all covered with sheep,” (Blake). The children are free in their pursuit of joy as they are running and playing through the greenery. Blake showed that sometimes children became the pathetic victims of the unfair behavior of the…
Blake feelings about London appears to be expressing that everything that is wrong with London seems to be just a result in physical and mental barriers placed on the citizens and it make the society seem…
“The Tyger” by William Blake, has a theme of how powerful curiosity is. The tone is ‘curious’ and ‘in wonder’ as well, Blake shows the tone and theme by an obvious use of syntax and similes. Moreover, Blake writes about how wonderful God is for making the tyger, and how powerful he must be. Blake writes in short sentences, with either question marks or exclamations at the end. He also uses similes and metaphors about how he thinks God made such a majestic creature.…
Throughout both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, Blake repeatedly addresses the destruction of childlike innocence, and in many cases of children's lives, by a society designed to use people for its own selfish ends. Blake romanticizes the children of his poems, only to place them in situations common to his day, in which they find their simple faith in parents or God challenged by harsh conditions. Songs of Experience is an attempt to denounce the cruel society that harms the human soul in such terrible ways, but it also calls the reader back to innocence, through Imagination, in an effort to redeem a fallen world.…
Blake lived and worked in the capital, so he was arguably well placed to write accurately about the conditions people who lived there faced. . It wasn’t until after his death in 1827 that his work was given recognition, so his life was blighted by poverty. He felt an affiliation with the proletariat and loathed inequality. Throughout this poem Blake uses a range of different poetic techniques to convey the inequalities and unjust treatment of the poorer classes. This gives the reader a stronger understanding overall.…
I have chosen the poem London by William Blake; I will explain how Blake is making a social and political statement by addressing the inequality and oppression within the city of London in the late 18th century. I will also examine how the poet manages to convey his opinion through poetic techniques.…
Auguries of Innocence by William Blake was published in 1863, assumed written in 1803. William Blake, a British poet from the Romanticism movement, wrote Auguries of Innocence full of paradox and mixed feelings. Blake used to have trouble with authority, and he expresses this need of freedom through his poem. This poem, thanks to its imagery, let the reader make his own interpretation of life and political views of the author.…