William Blake Flashcards
(11 cards)
Who was William Blake & his significance?
Considered a “visionary” who aimed to provoke social and mental change in his era.
- A critic of injustice and oppression, while celebrating imagination and spiritual freedom.
- Lived in London, deeply influenced by major social and political upheavals of his time (e.g. French Revolution).
- Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, his work is now highly regarded globally.
What are Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”?
- “Songs of Innocence”: Generally portrays a world of childlike purity, joy, and divine presence, often with pastoral settings.
- “Songs of Experience”: Reveals the harsh realities of corruption, suffering, and societal hypocrisy, caused by human institutions.
- he does this to show “the two Contrary States of the Human Soul,” he often pairing poems to highlight the duality in human existence and society.
“Holy Thursday” (Innocence) - Main Idea & Tone?
it shows an annual procession of charity children into St. Paul’s.
Main Idea: Presents a seemingly beautiful, harmonious, and divinely blessed scene of benevolent charity.
Tone: Appears uplifting, pious, almost hymn-like (“flowers of London town,” “multitude of lambs”).
- Subtext: The article hints at “brutal irony” – is this harmony genuine or forced?
“Holy Thursday” (Innocence) - Main Idea & Tone?
- Natural Imagery: “flowers of London town,” “multitude of lambs,” “raise to heaven,” “harmonious thunderings.” These create a vivid picture of purity and divine connection.
- Symbolism: Children as “flowers” or “lambs” symbolise their vulnerability and innocence.
- Effect: Creates a powerful visual of order, beauty, and apparent compassion, which can be seen as either genuinely hopeful or deceptively superficial.
“Holy Thursday” (Experience) - Main Idea & Tone?
This poem revisits the same procession, but offers a massive difference and it directly critiques society.
- Main Idea: It powerfully exposes the hypocrisy of institutional charity and the children’s true condition of suffering and misery.
- Tone: The tone shifts dramatically to angry, accusatory, and questioning, directly challenging the reader’s complacency.
- Blake’s Message: It directly questions how such poverty can exist in a “rich and fruitful land,” highlighting societal failure and injustice.
Holy Thursday” (Experience) - Key Imagery/Language?
- Imagery of Suffering: Uses stark phrases like “babes reduced to misery,” and implies exploitation through “cold and usurious hand.”
- Dramatic Contrast: Emphasises the sharp contrast between England’s supposed prosperity (“rich and fruitful land”) and the children’s desperate reality.
- Direct Challenge: Employs rhetorical questions (“Is this a holy thing to see…?”) to force the reader into critical engagement and moral reflection.
- Effect: Highlights the gap between appearance and reality, exposing the harsh truths of social inequality and the failures of established institutions.
“The Sick Rose” - Main Idea & Effect?
A very short, ambigious poem from Songs of Experience, depicting a beautiful rose being secretly destroyed by an “invisible worm.”
- Main Idea: It powerfully symbolises the corruption of innocence, love, or beauty by hidden, insidious, and often internal forces, e.g society or insituitions
- Effect: Creates a profound sense of unease, tragedy, and implied moral decay, despite its brevity.
- Ambiguity: The poem’s meaning is highly ambiguous, allowing for multiple interpretations, such as suppressed desires, the destructive nature of jealousy, or pervasive societal illness.
“The Sick Rose” - Key Symbols?
- The Rose: A traditional symbol of beauty, love, passion, innocence, and life itself. Its sickness represents the decay or betrayal of these pure qualities.
- The Invisible Worm: Represents a hidden, insidious, and destructive force. This could be internal (e.g., guilt, possessive love, repressed sexuality) or external (e.g., societal corruption, disease, hypocrisy). Its “secret love” suggests a dark, consuming passion.
How does Blake critique Society (general themes)?
- Exposing Hypocrisy: He consistently exposes the gap between outward appearances of morality or piety and the inner corruption or suffering within institutions (e.g., “Holy Thursday”).
- Oppressive Institutions: He challenges established power structures like the Church (“Priesthood” enslaving “the vulgar”) and the State, arguing they limit human freedom, creativity, and spiritual perception.
- The “Fallen State” of Humanity: Blake believed humanity had lost its original unified spiritual connection, leading to a limited perception dominated by “a philosophy of five senses” and rigid reason.
- Critique of Enlightenment Reason: He explicitly opposed figures like Newton and Locke, seeing their emphasis on cold logic and scientific materialism as stifling imagination and true spiritual insight.
How does Blake exemplify Romanticism?
- Emphasis on Emotion & Imagination: He vehemently prioritized feeling, intuition, and visionary experience over the Enlightenment’s emphasis on empirical reason and logic.
- Nature as Symbolism: He frequently used elements from nature (like the Lamb, the Rose, or the Storm) not just descriptively, but as potent symbols to convey profound spiritual and moral truths.
- Focus on the Individual: Blake valued the personal vision and inner truth of the individual, believing that God resides “in the human breast,” rather than in external institutions.
Social Commentary: His strong critique of industrial society and its dehumanising effects on the poor and innocent is a hallmark of early Romanticism.
Key Biographical/Historical Context for Blake?
- Industrial Revolution: Blake lived in London during a period of rapid industrial growth, witnessing firsthand the associated poverty, child labor, and stark social inequality.
- Radical Politics (1790s): He was deeply sympathetic to revolutionary ideals, influenced by events like the American and French Revolutions. He knew radical thinkers like Thomas Paine and his work often calls for liberation from tyranny and oppressive systems.
- “Visionary” Nature: From childhood, Blake claimed to experience unique spiritual visions (e.g., “a tree filled with angels”), which profoundly informed his artistic and poetic output, leading to his unique mythology.
