Human Abstract : One Man 's Attempt At Encapsulating The Human Condition

“Without contraries, there is no progression.” These words of William Blake encompass his philosophy as a writer. In his work Songs of Experience, William Blake depicts human nature as fallen. Specifically, in “London” he explores the dangerous conditions of England at a time when industrialization, prostitution, poverty and child labor were prevalent. Over the course of “London,” Blake’s diction evolves from ambiguous to symbolic, ultimately illuminating the theme that the mindset of man is what oppresses him, not the social institutions in place, and in order to free himself man must break his bond with death.

As a forerunner to the free-love movement, late eighteenth century poet, engraver, and artist, William Blake (1757-1827), has clear sexual overtones in many of his poems, and he layers his work with sexual double entendres and symbolism. Within the discussion of sexuality in his work Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake seems to take a complicated view of women. His speakers use constructs of contraries, specifically innocence/ experience and male/female. Of the latter sex, he experiments with the passive (dependent, docile, virtuous) and active (independent, evil, a threat to the masculine) female subjects. Blake’s use of personification specifically of nature and botany suggest the use of nature to discuss human society. In Songs

I believe that the misfortune of the human condition is the ability to image and conceptualize. These are both a blessing and a curse, and can come with great consequences and despite all our awe-inspiring accomplishments, we humans have been the fiercest and most devastating force that has ever lived on Earth. Undeniably humans have an indescribable history of brutality, murder, rape and war; yet we are capable of great love. People's mindfulness and true self awareness contributes to this ultimate irony. Poetry explores the different properties of the human condition; but we can discern what the poet may choose to embody in his or her poetry.

Blake says another line,”The mind-forged manacles I hear/How the chimney-sweeper’s cry” The first line was broad and didn’t go into much detail. In the other lines he tells us some problems that are faced. In this line he talks about how the people have chained their feelings and thoughts thus having no views and just following the society or the majority of the people.

The style of Songs of Innocence and Experience is simply direct, but the rhythms and language are often deeply complex. Many of the poems are narratives, but some like, “The Sick Rose” use symbolism and abstract concepts to deliver a message. Blake often uses Biblical symbolism and language in his writing. He seems to enjoy applying simple, nursery rhyme meter to his unorthodox conceptions. This combination of familiarity with the unfamiliar is what keeps Blake’s work perpetually interesting (Erdman, David V. Complete Poetry and Prose. New York, 1982.

nt ideas. ‘All Religions Are One’, and ‘There is No Natural Religion’ were composed in hopes of bringing change to the public’s spiritual life. Blake felt that, unlike most people, his spiritual life was varied, free and dramatic. Blake’s poetry features many characteristics of the romantic spirit. The romanticism of Blake consists in the importance he attached to imagination, in his mysticism and symbolism, in his love of liberty, in his humanitarian sympathies, in his idealization of childhood, in the pastoral setting of many of his poems, and in his lyricism

An archetype is defined as a recurrent symbol in literature, art, and mythology. Usually an archetype is a character in a story that represents such universal patterns of human nature. William Blake is a poet and an artist during the 1800’s who used archetypes in many of his writing’s he wrote. Blake published two books of poems, one being called Songs of Innocence, and Songs of experience, these two books of poems are his most known writings. William Blake uses archetypes in his four poems “The Lamb”, “The Tyger”, “The Chimney Sweeper”, and “Infant Sorrow”.

Blake’s poem and much of the literature was very representative of the societal change and feelings of people during the Industrial Revolution/Romantic era. There was a push-and-pull between the “perks” of industrialization/mechanization and the negative impact it had on society. The dramatic change that would exist in politics, religion, and family gave rise to

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, printed in 1794, “represents the world as it is envisioned by what he calls ‘two contrary states of the human soul’” (Greenblatt, 1452). This collection of poetry is accompanied by pictures, which create a mutually reliant relationship that allows for complete understanding of Blake’s works. “To read a Blake poem without the pictures is to miss something important: that relationship is an aspect of the poem’s argument” (1452). Overall, Blake’s works in Songs of Innocence and Experience provides a greater understanding into human life. Through poetry, Blake juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the corruption of adulthood. Thus, his work allows the reader to see situations from a double-sided lens of innocence and then of experience. These two perspectives, known as the “two contrary states of the human soul”, are independent and each poem is accompanied by another poem; the poem ““Infant Joy” is paired with “Infant Sorrow” and the meek “Lamb” reveals its other aspect of divinity in the flaming, wrathful “Tyger”” (1456). In Songs of Innocence, published in 1789, celebrates the innocence and untainted nature of childhood but it also doubles as a warning to adults. It warns them that the corruption of society and culture is to come and in Songs of Experience, a state of being that encompasses the loss of childhood vitality and corruption caused by social and political influence. The “innocence” and “experience” that Blake

The poem “A Poison Tree” is one of the most wonderful and appreciated works of William Blake. It was published in the year 1794 in his collection of Songs of Experience, which talks about various emotions of humans. The poem consists of stanzas and each stanza has four quatrains. And also; there are 16 lines and harmony between lines because the rhyme scheme of the poem is AABB “friend (friend)- end (end)”, “foe (foʊ)- grow (ɡroʊ)”… Moreover; it has been used metaphors in this poem such as apple and tree. It seems as if the poem is full of hatred but the poet just wrote it for teaching a moral lesson to be considered. The only thing to avoid the hatred and anger is to communicate each other. Thanks to the communication, everything reaches

Blake uses traditional symbols of angels and devils, animal imagery, and especially images of fire and flame to: 1) set up a dual world, a confrontation of opposites or "contraries" which illustrate how the rules of Reason and Religion repress and pervert the basic creative energy of humanity, 2) argues for apocalyptic transformation of the self "through the radical regeneration of each person's own power to imagine" (Johnson/Grant, xxiv), and 3) reconstructs Man in a new image, a fully realized Man who is both rational and imaginative, partaking of his divinity through creativity. The form of the poem consists of "The Argument," expositions on his concepts of the "contraries" and of "expanded perception" which are both interspersed with "Memorable Fancies" that explicate and enlarge on his expositions, and concludes with "A Song of Liberty," a prophecy of a future heaven on earth.

Love is a chemical that we all feel. However, love is a poisonous illusion, a dead clique. In fact, it is a tragic illusion in the sense that we fall in love with who we want that person to be, not who they actually are. Also, as a species, humans have ruined the beauty of sexuality through rules. Famous English poet William Blake of the romantic age saw sexuality as complex and natural, then quickly turning violent through greed and moral codes imposed by our species. In his poem The Sick Rose, Blake uses a mixture of symbolism, ambiguity, simplicity and complexity. The main theme of the poem is a worm penetrating a bed of crimson joy, this symbolizing the loss of innocence and love.

Blake’s poems are simple and lyrical in form, but there are complex works too, which needs the reader to work hard to understand what Blake means. This complexity is due to the presence of mythological in addition to the philosophical sources present in his work. Blake himself has stated that he had to "create a System, or be enslaved by another Man's.” this reasons the presence of vague thoughts and allusions in his work. The reader has to struggle to apprehend Blake’s perspective on the issues of religion, faith and belief. The efforts put to understand Blake’s works will assist the readers to know the revolutionary and visionary artist and poet whose works

The green grass has nothing on his beautiful, emerald eyes. The soft smiles he gives me in the hallways light up the world. A face like heaven, but with a jawline so sharp it could cut your fingers. The way his muscles tense when I rub his arms after a long, sweaty day of baseball is like holding a bowling ball. Messing with his fluffy hair is like cotton candy I could tear into everyday. The noises he makes are so crazy they become comforting. His smell is very unique, just like a cozy house on a winter day. A mammoth’s heart is non comparable to how big of a heart he has for the ones he loves.

Nature was a theme factoring in many of his works and Blake associates nature with different elements in these poems and we find that nature is seen in communion with God in the introductory poem and throughout these poems Blake points out the relationship and harmony between Man and Nature, children and Nature and he also talks about sex in Nature in `The Blossom'.