The Importance of the Central Female Charater in William Blake's Nurse's Song

The struggle of women to achieve equality has been defined in literature in many different accounts. “Professions for Women” was a speech delivered by Virginia Woolf to a society of young professional women on her own experiences as a published writer, as well as a declaration about the current inferior status of women, and ways in which that status may change. “The Secretary Chant” by Marge Piercy is a poem depicting a female secretary who is defined by her occupation. The conventional standards of a woman’s place in society in accordance to men is portrayed in May Swenson’s poem, “Women”. “Professions of Women” preaches ways to push forward and advance the feminist movement, while “Women” and “The Secretary Chant” succumb to

William Blake was one of several transitionary writers between the Age of Reason and the Age of Romanticism. He saw the poverty and suffering that surrounded him and was a supporter of the French Revolution in its early days. He could not accept the neoclassical idea of a stable, orderly hierarchy in the universe, but instead viewed existence as a blending of opposite poles - good and evil, innocence and experience, heaven and hell. His magnum opus Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience is the epitome of how his work embodied his beliefs.

William Blake’s poetry touches on the religion, poverty, and child labor. The Songs of Innocence and Experience includes several poems that protest social injustices. Blake’s poem “London” examines the state of the city during this time period and how the speaker is appalled by what he sees. The mention of “…the Chimney-sweeper’s cry” (94) reveals the speaker’s stance on child labor. The child cries because he is a victim of

Initially this romantic poem is an experience poem that Blake has written. How it has experience is that it shows what the child and children that he is with has gone through. He's not innocent he has seen the cruelness of the world, the fact that he was sold to work cleaning chimneys shows experience. He and the others have to live the hardships of working to survive getting up early before the sun rises and get started on cleaning the chimneys all around. There innocence was taken away from them as soon as

They lament the ways in which the intense and harsh experiences of adulthood destroy human innocence while exposing the apparent weaknesses of the innocent perspective on life. “The Tyger,” for example, tries to confront the negative forces in life, while the innocent perspective is not even aware of such forces. These poems also question the inherent “goodness” of love and sexual morality by discussing them as effects of jealousy, secrecy, lust, and shame. In regards to religion, these poems focus much more on the institution of the Church, its role in politics, and its effect on society and the mind rather than individual faith. Blake believes that experience adds a layer to innocence that darkens its hopeful vision, while taking away from its blindness.

What is feminism? What makes someone a feminist? In today’s society, a common answer might be “an angry lesbian that hates men.” However, feminism as defined by the OED, is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” Simply put, a feminist is someone who believes that women and men should be treated equally, regardless of gender. The rise in feminism is due in part to the multiple waves of feminist movements that have raised awareness concerning gender inequalities and women’s experiences. In this essay, we will aim to explore second-wave feminism, how second-wave feminist poets used poetry to bring gender equality to the forefront of the discussion, and its ever-lasting impact on our society.

There is a women gasping for her life while trying to escape from a rose in both of the illustrations that are set for one, individual poem. Most roses represent positively-themed symbolism depending on their colour. For example, the universal symbol for a red rose is love. In relation, the two colours used in each of the pictures are deep red/crimson and white, which are not typical rose colour choices. The deep red rose is used in the original illustration of the poem and it symbolizes unconscious beauty. William Blake may uses this colour because the woman that is trying to escape from the rose, may only be internally beautiful. The woman may be very young, grotesque or unsightly. The deep red rose represents the woman because it is

Once there was a movement for women to grow and expand what they wanted to do there were many poets and writers that wanted to write about the actions that were occurring in that time period. Once poet was Gertrude Stein, in Food and Objects, there is a feminist approach of seeming weak and unstable. Her use of word choice with at first thinking that nothing is making sense about her writing, along with her talking about domestic spaces and always looking outside. Her having multiple pieces of work that is talking about looking out a window and being not in the house shows the woman wants more than what she is used to. One of her pieces is called A Brown, in this I believe that she is discussing the change that is going on with women during the 20th century. She wrote, “A brown which is not liquid not more so is relaxed and yet there is a change, a news is pressing” (Stein, 1914). I believe that she is talking about the changes that women are fighting for. Another writing that was very popular in the 20th century was the Freewoman Magazine, this was for the public to “ponder on the profounder aspects of Feminism” and was considered “open” due to the risqué topics that were discussed, along with the invitation of readers to respond to the journals that were written by the editors. Motherhood was discussed in there points of view moral, mystic, and domestic. The Freewoman thought differently than the woman from the 19th century. The Freewoman’s perspective is that mothers are

Blake's poems of innocence and experience are a reflection of Heaven and Hell. The innocence in Blake's earlier poems represents the people who will get into Heaven. They do not feel the emotions of anger and

To illustrate Feminism, this approach is proving that there is more to look at than the idea of a dominant male perspective, and a masculinize Western society. This movement was developed to create a critical mass where women are just as important as men (Childs, Lecture Notes). Also, to show the hardships and the experiences that women faced growing up in past generations. Gender roles and the ideas of sex have changed drastically over the years. We now see in 2015 stay at home dads, women who have become the breadwinners for the household, and even women participating in politics. Yet, in 1945 when this poem was originally made, it does not show signs of any equality improvements. Aborting a pregnancy did not become legal in the United States until 1973. When the mother said: “in my

His enemies and critics equated Blake ‘with religious fanatics like Joanna Southcote and lunatics like Richard

William Blake was a poet, painter, and engraver, who was born in Soho, London on November 28th 1757. Blake lived in London at a time of great political and social change. The Industrial Revolution took place in 1760, the American Revolution began in 1775, and the French Revolution began in 1789, and all of these revolutions greatly influenced William Blake’s writing. Blake wrote his world famous Songs of Innocence in 1789 and later combined it with additional poems titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794. In this collection of romantic poems Blake conveyed that he is writing about innocence and happiness, but on the contrary they convey quite the opposite. Blake’s poems represent a state of the human soul and incorporate evil, suffering of human beings, injustice and a fallen world altogether. These poems represent the disease, poverty, prostitution, war, social repression, sexual repression, institutional repression that befell London at the time of his writing. Many of Blake’s poems portray the Industrial Revolution in a negative light because of all the harm it brought. These revolutions changed the way people viewed their relationships with the church, as well as the state, and William Blake was heavily affected by the greed and cruelty toward the common worker during the Industrial Revolution. His poems in Songs of Innocence were written in a child’s point of view whereas the poems in Songs of Experience were written in an adult’s point of view that was

There are two poems in Songs of Innocence that will be discussed in further detail. They are "Introduction", and "The Chimney Sweeper". In both these poems, the characteristic of a caretaker is introduced, which is shown in the relationship of a shepherd who cares for his sheep and the special world in which they live. The first poem is "The Chimney Sweeper". Although there is slight admission to the hardships faced by the innocents of the world, the main view is that of hope and a prayer for a better

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are collections of poems that utilize the imagery, instruction, and lives of children to make a larger social commentary. The use of child-centered themes in the two books allowed Blake to make a crucial commentary on his political and moral surroundings with deceptively simplistic and readable poetry. Utilizing these themes Blake criticized the church, attacking the hypocritical clergy and pointing out the ironies and cruelties found within the doctrines of organized religion. He wrote about the horrific working conditions of children as a means to magnify the inequality between the poor working class and

In this essay will be discussed how imagery and symbolism, used within the poem “The Sick Rose” by William Blake, contributes to the themes of the poem which is love, sexuality, violence and mortality. Firstly, all the themes will be discussed in detail to their meaning within this “nursery – style” type of poem. Secondly, poetic devices such as apostrophe, personification and diction will be discussed to explain how these devices contribute to the imagery in the poem. Thirdly, symbolism and the type of symbolism used within the poem will be critically discussed in the context of the poem and the era in which the poem was written in. This will help better