30/11/23
William Blake's Poetry
Context
- ‘Pictor ignotus’ - the unknown painter (40 years after his death)
- He became successful after his death
- Songs of Experience was published 4 years after Innocence
- During the industrial revolution (late 18th, early 19th century writing)
- Industrialism
- He had an apprenticeship with an engraver → lead to his interest in the art
Punctuation in Blake’s poetry
- He has a lack of conventional punctuation - suggesting a sense of freedom. The texts we are
given by AQA are ‘cleaned up’ and a neater version of Blake's initial use of punctuation. He
uses irregular punctuation as a way of challenging norms even within his writing (Alice
Ostricker)
- Link to Emily Dickinson's use of irregular punctuation. She uses dashes a lot, in an
unusually irregular way; possibly a way of stressing particular terms, words, etc. She
seems to use a dash in place of many other punctuations.
Innocence vs Experience
Songs of Innocence and Experience
- “The two contrary states of the human soul”
- Presented on the cover as by innocence there is a bird flying in the sky- the top of the cover
resembles heaven and the bottom “experience”- two people are hunched over almost as if
they are being swept which resembles hell
Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Blake)
- “without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love
and Hate, and necessary to human existence.”
- “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind”
Paired poems:
- Divine image and the Human abstract
- The Tyger and The Lamb
- Infant sorrow and Infant joy
- Chimney Sweep x2- one in Songs of Experience and one in Songs of Innocence
- Holy Thursday
- Night/ The little girl lost and The little girl found
‘Innocence’
- Purity, childhood, naivety, lack of sin (prelapsarian), not yet done things wrong, new
beginnings (hope), not yet exposed to hard realities, optimism, idealised, vulnerability.
,‘Experience’
- Corruption (a corruption of the soul/happiness/ political/ or religious corruption - corruptions
of the institution - postlapsarian - sin, guilt, shame…), faces problems, exploring challenges
in the world, gaining new knowledge (causing you to think differently - might have a
different atmosphere in the poems), abuser or manipulator (might exploit innocence which is
vulnerable), being free in dangerous situations, more action/possibility
Neuroscience in the 17th-19th century
- (Add notes from PowerPoint)
- 1664 - Thomas Willis
- 17th century - Rene Descartes. Rationalist and dualist
- 17th- 19th century (1863) Otto Freidrich Karl Deiters
- Dendron - greek for tree → a tree growing in the human brain (rationalism in
science)
- Link to a poison tree
- Drawings of nerve cells → similar to trees
Peity - religiousness
The French Revolution
- Mrs Brown worksheet
- Significance of freedom and liberty → bringing down the monarchy
Links to the Bible
Blake was interested in the Bible as a poetic source
Passage from Revelations 1:14-17
14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was
as the sun shineth in his strength.
17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the
first and the last
- Links to:
- ‘wool, as white as snow’ → The Lamb, Spring
- ‘his eyes were as a flame of fire’, ‘as if they burned in a furnace’ → Little
Boy Lost: ‘and burned him in a holy place’, The Tyger: ‘tyger tyger burning
bright’, The Little Girl Lost: ‘his eyes of flame’
- ‘His head and his hairs were white like wool’ → Ecchoing Green, A Little
Girl Lost, Earth’s Answer, The Little Black Boy
- ‘In his right hand he had seven stars’ → Introduction to Experience,
Introduction to Innocence,
, - ‘With a golden girdle’ → The Little Girl Lost, The Little Girl Found, Night
- Significance of the colour gold
- ‘He had in his right hand seven stars’ ‘And in the midst of the seven
candlesticks’ → The Little Girl Lost ‘seven summers old’ , The Little Girl
Found ‘Seven nights they sleep’
- Significance of the number 7
Links to other texts
- Can link to ‘The Snow Leopard” where ‘Maya’ is the illusion of reality
- Blake has echoes of Eastern spirituality (Buddhism)
- Parallels between Buddhism and William Blake
https://genius.com/1466784?
The Divine Image (page 76)
Context of the poem:
- Written in 1789- before the French reign of terror
- The relationship between humans and God:
- Suggests that God is an extension of humanity → since this is written in songs of
innocence, it also suggests that this is an idealised version of humanity and God
- God feels more personal in songs of innocence
- “The Divine Image” → ‘man was made in the divine image of God’: Genesis 1:27
- Blake suggests that humans and God are the same
- An ‘image’ is something that doesn't change or move, it is also a two-
dimensional image, showing the lack of complexity, suggesting that there
isn't a clear focus. In Songs of Innocence, the poetry is almost romanticised
and simple.
- The third stanza defines and makes “Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love” all physical
beings or things.
- One person's very simplistic view of what God is. Emphasises the connection
between God and humans, since there is a repetition of ‘human’. (“For
Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love the human form
divine, And Peace the human Dress”)
- No story, but more of a descriptive piece. Maintains a similar perspective
throughout the poem, there is no development of ideas, looping back to the
beginning at the end → cyclical structure suggests the lack of movement, or
change in this poem. There is less narrative
- Rene Descartes (Cartesian): “cogito ergo sum” →, “I think therefore I am”
- Dualism: the body and the soul/mind are separate parts of a person.
- Rationalist → contrast to Blake.
- Lyric - used by Aristotle (Lyrical poem, which is set apart from the narrative)
, - ‘Imago dei’= man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27)
- “To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love”
- Rene Descartes- “cogito ergo sum”- trying to figure out what he can understand
- Dualism- body + soul/ body + mind are different
- In the poem: when God and humans are separate
- cartesian – body and soul are one
- No story – cyclical structure, static compared to songs of experience, songs of innocence =
less development
- The word “image” is significant as an image is still
- opinion, one perspective, 2 dimensional and static – no development
- The form of the poem doesn’t change
- Broad rhyming scheme
- The form of the poem:
- Very regular structure, and is mostly regular throughout the poem
- Half rhymes indicate how relaxed the rhyme scheme is.
- Difference between lines 1 and 3, and 2 and 4: 8-6-8-6 syllables in a
line structure
- Lines 1 and 3 are longer
- Common metre (hymn metre) - song of religious praise
The Human Abstract (page 88)
- Mentions the idea of pity and mercy
- Imagery of chains and binding
- First stanza:
- Challenges whether God is all-loving (omnibenevolent)
- Pity is an important virtue to have but it requires someone to pity as a result
- Abrupt statement – Christian values like ‘Pity’ and ‘Mercy’ only exist due to the evils
that render them necessary (people to pity, people to show mercy – suffering)
- ‘Mercy’ relies on people in sadness and pain
- You must have suffered - must have good to have bad
- Divine image appreciates religion
- lines 1 + 3 = clauses that express similar ideas, but with reversed sentence structures
– chiasmus
- chiasmus = figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each
other through reversal structure to make a larger point
“Opposition is friendship” Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind”-
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“Without contraries there is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and
hate, and necessary to human existence” - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
- The speaker would be critical of religion and the idea of God and religion, a sceptical
individual. (pragmatic, realist thinker)
William Blake's Poetry
Context
- ‘Pictor ignotus’ - the unknown painter (40 years after his death)
- He became successful after his death
- Songs of Experience was published 4 years after Innocence
- During the industrial revolution (late 18th, early 19th century writing)
- Industrialism
- He had an apprenticeship with an engraver → lead to his interest in the art
Punctuation in Blake’s poetry
- He has a lack of conventional punctuation - suggesting a sense of freedom. The texts we are
given by AQA are ‘cleaned up’ and a neater version of Blake's initial use of punctuation. He
uses irregular punctuation as a way of challenging norms even within his writing (Alice
Ostricker)
- Link to Emily Dickinson's use of irregular punctuation. She uses dashes a lot, in an
unusually irregular way; possibly a way of stressing particular terms, words, etc. She
seems to use a dash in place of many other punctuations.
Innocence vs Experience
Songs of Innocence and Experience
- “The two contrary states of the human soul”
- Presented on the cover as by innocence there is a bird flying in the sky- the top of the cover
resembles heaven and the bottom “experience”- two people are hunched over almost as if
they are being swept which resembles hell
Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Blake)
- “without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love
and Hate, and necessary to human existence.”
- “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind”
Paired poems:
- Divine image and the Human abstract
- The Tyger and The Lamb
- Infant sorrow and Infant joy
- Chimney Sweep x2- one in Songs of Experience and one in Songs of Innocence
- Holy Thursday
- Night/ The little girl lost and The little girl found
‘Innocence’
- Purity, childhood, naivety, lack of sin (prelapsarian), not yet done things wrong, new
beginnings (hope), not yet exposed to hard realities, optimism, idealised, vulnerability.
,‘Experience’
- Corruption (a corruption of the soul/happiness/ political/ or religious corruption - corruptions
of the institution - postlapsarian - sin, guilt, shame…), faces problems, exploring challenges
in the world, gaining new knowledge (causing you to think differently - might have a
different atmosphere in the poems), abuser or manipulator (might exploit innocence which is
vulnerable), being free in dangerous situations, more action/possibility
Neuroscience in the 17th-19th century
- (Add notes from PowerPoint)
- 1664 - Thomas Willis
- 17th century - Rene Descartes. Rationalist and dualist
- 17th- 19th century (1863) Otto Freidrich Karl Deiters
- Dendron - greek for tree → a tree growing in the human brain (rationalism in
science)
- Link to a poison tree
- Drawings of nerve cells → similar to trees
Peity - religiousness
The French Revolution
- Mrs Brown worksheet
- Significance of freedom and liberty → bringing down the monarchy
Links to the Bible
Blake was interested in the Bible as a poetic source
Passage from Revelations 1:14-17
14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was
as the sun shineth in his strength.
17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the
first and the last
- Links to:
- ‘wool, as white as snow’ → The Lamb, Spring
- ‘his eyes were as a flame of fire’, ‘as if they burned in a furnace’ → Little
Boy Lost: ‘and burned him in a holy place’, The Tyger: ‘tyger tyger burning
bright’, The Little Girl Lost: ‘his eyes of flame’
- ‘His head and his hairs were white like wool’ → Ecchoing Green, A Little
Girl Lost, Earth’s Answer, The Little Black Boy
- ‘In his right hand he had seven stars’ → Introduction to Experience,
Introduction to Innocence,
, - ‘With a golden girdle’ → The Little Girl Lost, The Little Girl Found, Night
- Significance of the colour gold
- ‘He had in his right hand seven stars’ ‘And in the midst of the seven
candlesticks’ → The Little Girl Lost ‘seven summers old’ , The Little Girl
Found ‘Seven nights they sleep’
- Significance of the number 7
Links to other texts
- Can link to ‘The Snow Leopard” where ‘Maya’ is the illusion of reality
- Blake has echoes of Eastern spirituality (Buddhism)
- Parallels between Buddhism and William Blake
https://genius.com/1466784?
The Divine Image (page 76)
Context of the poem:
- Written in 1789- before the French reign of terror
- The relationship between humans and God:
- Suggests that God is an extension of humanity → since this is written in songs of
innocence, it also suggests that this is an idealised version of humanity and God
- God feels more personal in songs of innocence
- “The Divine Image” → ‘man was made in the divine image of God’: Genesis 1:27
- Blake suggests that humans and God are the same
- An ‘image’ is something that doesn't change or move, it is also a two-
dimensional image, showing the lack of complexity, suggesting that there
isn't a clear focus. In Songs of Innocence, the poetry is almost romanticised
and simple.
- The third stanza defines and makes “Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love” all physical
beings or things.
- One person's very simplistic view of what God is. Emphasises the connection
between God and humans, since there is a repetition of ‘human’. (“For
Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love the human form
divine, And Peace the human Dress”)
- No story, but more of a descriptive piece. Maintains a similar perspective
throughout the poem, there is no development of ideas, looping back to the
beginning at the end → cyclical structure suggests the lack of movement, or
change in this poem. There is less narrative
- Rene Descartes (Cartesian): “cogito ergo sum” →, “I think therefore I am”
- Dualism: the body and the soul/mind are separate parts of a person.
- Rationalist → contrast to Blake.
- Lyric - used by Aristotle (Lyrical poem, which is set apart from the narrative)
, - ‘Imago dei’= man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27)
- “To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love”
- Rene Descartes- “cogito ergo sum”- trying to figure out what he can understand
- Dualism- body + soul/ body + mind are different
- In the poem: when God and humans are separate
- cartesian – body and soul are one
- No story – cyclical structure, static compared to songs of experience, songs of innocence =
less development
- The word “image” is significant as an image is still
- opinion, one perspective, 2 dimensional and static – no development
- The form of the poem doesn’t change
- Broad rhyming scheme
- The form of the poem:
- Very regular structure, and is mostly regular throughout the poem
- Half rhymes indicate how relaxed the rhyme scheme is.
- Difference between lines 1 and 3, and 2 and 4: 8-6-8-6 syllables in a
line structure
- Lines 1 and 3 are longer
- Common metre (hymn metre) - song of religious praise
The Human Abstract (page 88)
- Mentions the idea of pity and mercy
- Imagery of chains and binding
- First stanza:
- Challenges whether God is all-loving (omnibenevolent)
- Pity is an important virtue to have but it requires someone to pity as a result
- Abrupt statement – Christian values like ‘Pity’ and ‘Mercy’ only exist due to the evils
that render them necessary (people to pity, people to show mercy – suffering)
- ‘Mercy’ relies on people in sadness and pain
- You must have suffered - must have good to have bad
- Divine image appreciates religion
- lines 1 + 3 = clauses that express similar ideas, but with reversed sentence structures
– chiasmus
- chiasmus = figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each
other through reversal structure to make a larger point
“Opposition is friendship” Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind”-
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“Without contraries there is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and
hate, and necessary to human existence” - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
- The speaker would be critical of religion and the idea of God and religion, a sceptical
individual. (pragmatic, realist thinker)
