Songs Of Innocence And Experience Flashcards
(16 cards)
Songs of innocence and experience
Two contrary states of the human soul
Child vs Adult world
Wrote songs for his poems
Introduction (I)
‘Valleys wild’- nature + romantic notion
‘On a cloud’- a cloud is white, white is associated with innocence, children are innocence. Embedding a know image, links to mystical/religious experience.
4 line stanza- typical for Blake.
‘Lamb’ - capitalised like God/Jesus, Jesus is identified as Lamb of God in bible- religious connotations.
Mostly trochaic tetrameter
The ecchoing green (I)
Pastoral notion- connotes idea of community, public space, common land.
‘Green)’- notion of nature
Sense of nostalgia, like a memory
‘Cheerful sound’, ‘laugh’, ‘merry’-Cheerful connotations
‘Old John with white hair’-Contrast to ‘priests with black gowns’- white vs black.
‘No more can be merry’ - sense of end- foreshadowing, ambiguity
‘Like birds in their nest’- similar connotes togetherness+ idea of nature.
‘On the darkening green’ shift in tone, contrast to ‘eccohing green’.
The garden of love (E)
Garden is a private/personal space- boundaries , fences
Garden- growing plants, growth (experience)
Biblical connotations (Eden), implied garden of Eden,17th century gardens were geometric, idea of controlling nature.
Perspective opposite to green- first person brings reader closer.
‘Tombstones where flowers should be’- Replace life with death.
Last stanza, every line begins with ‘And’ creates a sense of never ending cycle.
‘Priest in black gowns were walking their rounds’- sinister, surveillance and control
‘And binding with briars my joys and desires’- juxtaposition, reference to crown of thorns, carrying cross. Binding connotes crucifixion.
Holy Thursday (I)
Refers to traditional charity school service. Holy Thursday also reference to ascension day.
Long lines, unusual for black, suggests the train of children processing toward to cathedral.
Heptameter also unusual.
‘The children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green.
‘Grey headed beadles’- authoritative figure, contrast to ecchoing green ‘old white haired John’
Role of adults is authoritative vs in ecchoing it is adults are pastoral.
Iambic tetrameter
Holy Thursday (E)
‘Babes reduced to misery’- Holy is the sight of the children living in misery in a prosperous country.
Short lines compared to innocence
Critiques rather than praises the charity of the institutions responsible for hapless children
‘And their sun does never shine’- Children as victims of cruelty and injustice.
The Lamb (I)
Lamb is a symbol of innocence. Young sheep
Jesus= lamb of god.
Idea of being closer to god if your closer to nature.
‘Tender voice’ semantic of gentleness
Related ‘clothing’, humanises lamb
Call and response, question and answer, adjacent pairs
‘He’ capitalised noun in middle of the line. Suggests importance. Turns it for a noun to pronoun,
Cyclical narrative.
The tyger (E)
‘Forests’ idea of nature + romanticism
Motif of fire , burning, fires of health
Imagery of biology; heart, tendons, feet, hand. Gruesome
‘On what wings does he aspire?’ Satan, angles- religious + biblical.
‘Deadly terrors’ semantics of life and death.
Question no answer, juxtaposes question and answer in ‘lamb’
‘What i mortal hand or eye’, an eye for an eye
Provides symmetry by cyclical narrative.
Period of colonial expansion; lamb =British tiger= Indian.
The divine image (I)
‘To mercy, pity, peace and love’ the 4 virtues. Unorthodox, praying to abstract virtue
Makes abstract qualities of the object of human prayer and deity.
Frequent repetition of words+ phrases combine with a spiritual subject.
‘Is God our Father dear’ conveys a sense of candour and naturalness
‘God’ innocent belief in a supreme, benevolent and protective god.
Uses personification to dramatise Christs mediation between god and man.
The human abstract (E)
An example of metaphysical poetry
Prom analyses/criticises how virtues are tied to suffering
Tension between humanity and divinity
Mercy presumes unhappiness origin of peace is fear.
Breaks rhyme pattern half way through to gain readers attention to ‘mystery’ growing for tree of false virtues.
Raven = symbol of death
Negative values grow and spread into the brain
Nurse song (I)
Not parent, surrogate parent, proxi parental role, authoritative voice.
Anapaest + iambic
Dialogue, call and response
Many references to Ecchoing green
Nurses song (E)
Absence of childrens voice
Immediate shift/ contradiction
Metaphorically spring= youth/day, winter=death/ depression/miserable
Voice isn’t permissive
Notion of guilt- playing allusion, realisation moment links to innocent play.
Sense of regret, restriction, church morality
Negative tone
The clod and the pebble (E)
Lobe, passivity, victimhood. Heaven vs hell, religious Naive notion of love. Volta Notions of nature Alliteration + assonance Symbol of continuity/movement Love= entirely selfish and makes a lover bend them other person to their desires Faithful vs unfaithful Loyalty vs betray, Clay/clod had already been stepped on so view of love should be taken as authoritative. Innocent vs experience Clod= mouldable Pebble= eroded over a long period of time.
The chimney sweeper (I)
Bleak poem
Direct address
Voice is a child
Exploitation that robs the children of their childhood
Using religion to find Hope amid the misery
Sense of uneasy resolution at the end
Regrets need to call of the call of the chimney sweeps in London ‘weep’
Hope+ salvation
Idyllic nature
Religion is fed to poor people to shut them up
The chimney sweep (E)
Notion of punishment Undertone of depression Blaming parents for exploitation Miserable and dark Reminded that reader is exploiting children Dehumanising Tertramete
London (E)
Urban vs pastoral Geographical denotation Trochaic tetrameter Bad representation of marriage, love and desire combines with death and destruction. Signs of human suffering Hearse= coffin carriage Plagues could be referencing syphillis
