Rhyme And Rythm in Blake's A Divine Image Essay

of God as blacksmith. " seize the fire" , " twist the sinews" , " hammer" ,

The imagery used in this verse appeals to the sense sight. This helps the reader visualise what the writer is taking about. It also allows the reader to relate and connect more to the poem.

The poem suddenly becomes much darker in the last stanza and a Billy Collins explains how teachers, students or general readers of poetry ‘torture’ a poem by being what he believes is cruelly analytical. He says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it”. Here, the poem is being personified yet again and this brings about an almost human connection between the reader and the poem. This use of personification is effective as it makes the

In the poem there is also an idea of man verses nature, this relates to the survival of the fittest. John Foulcher shows this through the use of first person point of view. For example in the second stanza “Then above me the sound drops” this again possesses sensory imagery creating a deeper human aura throughout the poem. Foulcher further uses a human aura to build a sense of natural imagery for example in the last stanza : “I pick up these twigs and leave them” adding closure

The fourth stanza is the depiction of an open book. This symbolizes revelation of that which is hidden. However, like any book the judgment is based on the perception of the reader. For this reason, this becomes a moment of courage, where the revelation can be accepted by the outside world or rejected if the views are not in concordance.

For example, in “Infant Joy,” Blake demonstrates the child’s eye and sense of wonder that we find in the incorruptibility of infants. Blake presents a truly pure creature in the first stanza:

Allusion is also an important part of this poem because of the way the author uses it to connect to the outside works that may also encourage the reader to think in a certain way that goes along with the themes of the poem. The first allusion, found in lines 7 and 8, are to the Greek gods Icarus and Prometheus. This allusion requires the readers to think about gods and religion, which is a major part of the theme of this poem. Another allusion I see is in line 20, which refers to another one of Blake’s poems, “The Lamb.” This allusion is significant because the speaker asks, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (20) And he wonders whether or not the same creator who made something so gentle and pure could also make such an evil animal. The allusion itself brings the reader to think about the other poems and to contrast the two completely

However, the poem has fluidity despite its apparent scarcity of rhyme. After examining the alteration of syllables in each line, a pattern is revealed in this poem concerning darkness. The first nine lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables. These lines are concerned, as any narrative is, with exposition. These lines set up darkness as an internal conflict to come. The conflict intensifies in lines 10 and 11 as we are bombarded by an explosion of 8 syllables in each line. These lines present the conflict within one's own mind at its most desperate. After this climax, the syllables in the last nine lines resolve the conflict presented. In these lines, Dickinson presents us with an archetypal figure that is faced with a conflict: the “bravest” hero. These lines present the resolution in lines that alternate between 6 and 7 syllables. Just as the syllables decrease, the falling action presents us with a final insight. This insight discusses how darkness is an insurmountable entity that, like the hero, we must face to continue “straight” through “Life” (line 20).

The poem sits easily on a page and is visually satisfying, although this is in part due to the visual rhymes previously mentioned. This appearance though is false as the poems content is analysed but reinforces the theme of appearance and reality in the 4th stanza. Again, the "controlled" use of structure can be seen as adding to the poems "passion" showing a masterful combination of the two. The repetition of and permutations on the line: "my heart is breaking for a little love" is another structure that reinforces the poems meaning and show the despair that the poem communicates. The move away from the 1st person in the last two stanzas serves to provide a different perspective on the emotions discussed allowing a broader view than if the whole poem was in the first person, again this use of structure emphasises the underlying emotions.

The narrator speaks of what could symbolise the lower or working class "the Chimney-sweeper", crying out against the system, and the upper class "Church" subduing them. Both the chimney and church are personified to symbolise the people they represent. This dominance is also related in the personification of "Soldier" and "Palace". The soldiers fight the wars that the monarchy decides, their blood on the King and Queen's hands. They sigh as to their shared plight, but their sighs only end in their deaths. This stanza's rhythm is different in that it follows a heptameter meter. Its pace is faster, which might reflect an increase in excitement by the narrator in what might be anger.

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

The poem begins with two lines which are repeated throughout the poem which convey what the narrator is thinking, they represent the voice in

William Blake focused on biblical images in the majority of his poetry and prose. Much of his well-known work comes from the two compilations Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poems in these compilations reflect Blake's metamorphosis in thought as he grew from innocent to experienced. An example of this metamorphosis is the two poems The Divine Image and A Divine Image. The former preceded the latter by one year.

The short stanzas containing powerful imagery overwhelm the readers forcing them to imagine the oppression that the speaker went through in

William Blake is one of England’s most famous literary figures. He is remembered and admired for his skill as a painter, engraver, and poet. He was born on Nov. 28, 1757 to a poor Hosier’s family living in or around London. Being of a poor family, Blake received little in the way of comfort or education while growing up. Amazingly, he did not attend school for very long and dropped out shortly after learning to read and write so that he could work in his father’s shop. The life of a hosier however was not the right path for Blake as he exhibited early on a skill for reading and drawing. Blake’s skill for reading can be seen in his understanding for and use of works such as the Bible and Greek classic literature.