' Sun-Flower, And A Poison Tree, By William Blake

The poet, painter and engraver, William Blake was born in 1757, to a London haberdasher. Blake’s only formal education was in art. At the age of ten, he entered a drawing school and then at the age of fourteen, he apprenticed to an engraver. ( Abrams & Stillinger 18). Although, much of Blake’s time was spent studying art, he enjoyed reading and soon began to write poetry. Blake’s first book of poems, Poetical Sketches, "showed his dissatisfaction with the reigning poetic tradition and his restless quest for new forms and techniques" ( Abrams & Stillinger 19). Poetical Sketches, was followed by many other works including, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. These series were accompanied by etchings, which depict

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

Blake conveys the theme of another's actions being the reason for sadistic tendencies through characterization as well. The poem “A Poison Tree” tells of a man whose anger festers until he

Through “A Poison Tree,” William Blake shows that life is not easy and mistakes will be made, but if people do not move on, things will not get better. In this particular poem, the author uses personification to show their anger growing by giving it the characteristics of a plant. Blake uses personification in phrases such as “my wrath did grow. / And I watered it in fears” and “it grew both day and night. / Till it bore an apple bright” (4-5 and 9-10). This shows how this person becomes angrier over time, fueling their feelings with fear and sadness. The poem ends with the person using their anger to hurt someone else, only making things worse. This device expresses the theme because the person in the poem did not do what they should have done. What they should have done was let things get better on their own, instead they chose to let their feelings take over. In turn, they became bitter and thirsty for revenge. Another device Blake uses is imagery because it shows again how this person let their anger grow. Blake combines the use of personification and imagery in stanza two by saying,“And I watered it in fears, / Night & morning with my tears: / And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles” (5-8). By using these two literary devices, he creates an image of someone watering this plant with evil, while also having a Grinch-like smile on their face. One could even go more into detail and say that the nutrients in the soil are the evil ideas that the plant thrives off of to grow. This shows that people should not let their anger get the best of them, but instead should move on to better things.

Being one of the most influential poets during the Romantic Period, the religious status of Blake has long been as controversial as his own literary works. Nonetheless, the fact that he is indeed a Christian is doubtless - such can be easily illustrated from many fragments of his works such as ‘I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little Lamb, God Bless thee! Little Lamb, God Bless thee!’ from his poem The Lamb. This singsongy excerpt from the Song of Innocence not only appears to readers as Blake’s direct praises of God but also an evident reference to ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’(Eg. Psalm 23) from the Holy Bible. However, it can also be easily argued that Blake is not an ordinary, churchgoing Christian. A great portion

Both Gerald Manley Hopkins and William Blake explore the conflicts between one’s opinions and the faith which they devoutly believe. The poems The Garden of Love and Hopkins’ Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord each show the persona doubting the philosophical qualms of life surrounding Catholicism and whether spending “life upon thy cause,” is meaningful. As a child, Blake read the Bible to enhance his reading skills, however developed views correlating to the Swedenborgian church which holds the Catholic church’s views without the institutionalised feeling which Blake despised of in Catholicism. The Garden of Love intertwines his beliefs into the poetry, as depicted with the strong imagery between the vibrant childhood memory of the surroundings in comparison to the older man’s views. However,

“In the morning, glad, I see, My foe outstretched beneath the tree.” In the poem, Poison Tree, William Blake uses different types of figurative language like imagery, allegories, personification, and metaphors to show us, the reads, about how grudges can weigh you down, or if your grudge towards your enemy is strong enough, it can lead you to murder. It can lead you into a dark path if you don’t let it go. People don’t seem to notice, but when you’re angry with someone, and you tell them, it gets better. If you don’t tell them, it will drag you down a dark path. Disguising himself as the poison tree, William Blake, shows that hatred and grudges will turn you into a poisonous person. Someone who spits in the face of laughter, someone who

We are often taught to be able to forgive others in order to live happily and continue on with our lives. For if we do not, we will live bearing grudges and being bitter. In the poem “A Poison Tree,” author William Blake conveys the major idea that if we hold in our anger and negativity, it will eventually come out as a physical manifestation of violent actions. With the use of imagery, sinister diction, and allusion to convey the theme of what occurs when one holds their anger inside and lets it build up, death.

Grief and loss is a universal human experience. No one experiences it in the exact same way. The more significant the loss the more intense the feelings. Many associate grief with the death of a loved one, which often causes the most intense grief but any loss can cause grief. When people have issues processing grief “normally” than complicated grief and unresolved grief issues may develop. This can become problematic, resulting in a reduced quality of life. The risk factors for experiencing serious symptoms of grief can be connected to the physical and emotional health of the individual. Rather it is due to complicated grief or unresolved grief it is

William Blake was a painter, engraver and poet of the Romantic era, who lived and worked in London. Many of Blake’s famous poems reside in his published collection of poems titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This collection portrays the two different states of the human soul, good and evil. Many poems in the Songs of Innocence have a counterpart poem in the Songs of Experience. The poem “A Poison Tree” is found in the Songs of Experience and it delves into the mind of man tainted with sin and corruption that comes with experience. In a simple and creative style, the religious theology of the Fall of Man is brought to life. The poem tells the story of how man fell from a state of innocence to impurity, focusing on the harmful repercussions of suppressed anger. Blake utilities many literary devices to successfully characterizes anger as an antagonist with taunting power.

Blake wrote these same lines in his poem The Divine Image. In his innocence, "…Mercy has a human heart,/ Pity a human face:/ And love the human form divine,/ And Peace the human dress." This represents the acts and feelings associated with Heaven. To be with God and obtain peace, humans must show mercy, pity, and love for others. That is the direct opposite of the secrecy of cruelty, jealousy, and terror humans begin to feel.

The poem “A Poison Tree” by William Blake discusses human nature’s true form. Someone who is furious with a friend would obviously want to mend the friendship, so they let their anger simmer. However, someone who is upset with an enemy has no reason to tell him or herself to not be mad because all they are to you is an enemy. Therefore, your hatred eventually takes over and you do something dreadful. This literary composition shows the readers how anger can take a toll in two different directions. The poet writes with such ease, that it makes us readers believe he’s gone through it already.

Have you ever experienced such a strong, developed emotion towards someone that cause them to quickly transform from a close friend to your worst enemy? In the first few lines of the poem, “A Poison Tree” written by William Blake, it says, “I was angry with my friend; / I told my wrath, my wrath did end. / I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow.” In this part specifically, we can see that the narrator of the poem did not address the fact that he was angry with his friend and just pushed it to the side. However, by further procrastinating, the narrator’s anger and hate towards his friend quickly turns him into his enemy. When the narrator allows so much emotion to build up, causing him to turn against his friend, we are shown that trapping your emotions inside of yourself and not expressing them only let's them become bigger and more prominent in our lives. With the original title of this poem being “Christian Forbearance,” I believe it's original title provides a better insight to what the poem is really about rather than the new one of “A Poison Tree.” Forbearance meaning self-control and the Christian religion believing strongly in peace, I believe it is best to say that the original title most likely means to keep peace and have self-control. This definition is very well incorporated into the meaning of the poem because the poem’s narrator needs to learn peace and self-control in order to avoid this situation he is in in the first place. In the poem, “A Poison Tree,” the author, William Blake, uses a rhyme scheme, a hidden meaning, an unlikely metaphor, as well as multiple tone shifts in order to get across to the reader that holding in your emotions, rather than expressing them, only allows for them to grow and become stronger.

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.

The meaning of the poem A Poison Tree is how hatred can be a powerful weapon that can lead to both physical and mental injuries if not controlled on time. In the first stanza of the poem the speaker gets angry with a friend and a foe. The speaker seizes their wrath with the friend, however, the speaker allowed their wrath to grow with their foe, “I was angry with my foe; / I told it not, my wrath did grow.” Throughout the second stanza, the speaker grows their wrath with mixed emotions, “And I water’d it in fears, / Night & morning with my tears: / And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles.” As the speaker kept growing their wrath, it blossomed to form new anger, new tricks and plans for destruction, “And it grew both day