Spring (Innocence) Flashcards
Give an overview of the poem
- Birdsong, children and a lamb welcome the new year
What does Spring symbolise?
- Symbolizing the awakening of nature after the dormancy of winter (Rebirth/ Renewal/ transformation)
- Blossoming of youth
- Fertility, abundance, and prosperity.
What is the structure of the poem?
- A lyric poem
- Simple prosaic lexis
- Refrain
- Transferred epithet
- Dimeter
- AABB/ CCDD/ E
What is the perspective the poem is written in?
- 1st Person Perspective
- Create a sense of immediacy and intimacy
- Reference’s to other poems or characters from Blake’s “Songs of Innocence (flutist, Little Girl lost/ Little Boy lost)
Symbolic interpetation of the poem
- Romantic, pantheistic representation of nature and springtime. Untained by the vices of experience. Aspirational vison of a prelapsarian world
- Children in communion with nature
- Idealised vison of childhood and innocence which can be problematised.
Stanza 1: “Sound the flute now it’s mute”
- Reference to the Greek God of Pan.
- A nymph was turned into a reed to protect her chasity from Pan. Pan blew the reeds in fustration and the pan flute was created.
- Perhaps sexuality is the bridging point between innocence and experience.
- It can be uncomplicated, without shame but can be distorted when entering experience.
- Perhaps its up to readers to choose which way they experience it.
- In Ancient Greece the flute was the shepards instruments. Thus the poem guides readers.
Stanza 1: Pastoral / Animal Imagery “Birds delight/ Day and night/ Nightingale/ In the dale/ Lark in sky”
- “Nightingale” sing in the evenings. Whereas Lark sing at dawn. Even at polar ends nature is connected. Everything is in a state of harmony.
- “Birds” symbolise the liberated spirit. Elevated plane of existence/ divine/
- Blake reveres even the smallest units of nature (universalism)
Refain “Merrily/ Merrily to welcome in the year”
- In a cheerful way/ no consideration of consequence
- Everything within the world of the poem are presented as happy and free. Perhaps reinforcing the message that only through a connection with nature can man obtain similar levels of perpetual happiness and freedom.
- Joyful climax to the 3 syllable pattern
- Continuity/ harmony
Dimeter
-A metrical line of verse with two feet.
- Emphasises the innocence of the scene
Pantheism
- views the universe and nature as synonymous with divinity.
What is the effect of the simple, prosaic lexis?
- Creates a sense of musicality (lyrical feel)
- Situates the poem in the state of innocence, childhood which brings simplicity, unbridled joy
- Although the 2 states should be integrated there is value in innocence.
- Testament to Blake’s values in making his poetry accessible (Introduction)
Bible verse: Look at the birds of the air…
They do not sow or reap and yet your Heavenly father feeds them.
“Little Boy/ full of joy/ little girl sweet and small”
- They are loaded with plentiful delight and exultation. There is physically no room for vices or troubles. Thus, the children are ironically protected by their great capacities for joy.
- Omission of articles, suggesting a universal image of childhood
-Further opposites, boy and girl joined in happiness. Binaries are often needed for a fuller perspective, image
“Cock does crow/ So do you/ Merry voice/ Infant noise”
- metaphor for daybreak (beginnings/spring)
- Discordant lexis disrupts the tranquility of the poem only to further indicate new beginnings.
- Reciprocity as man echoes back the cocks crow in perhaps a sense of reverence, harmony and connection. Man is in communion with nature.
What is the symbolism of the “little lamb”?
- Christ (as the sacrifical lamb)
- he underwent death without being guilty of any iniquity.
-Sacrificial Atonement for humanity
