The Poetry Of Infant Sorrow And Infant Joy And Infant Joy

who had fallen in love with him at first sight. He taught her to read and write, also instructed her in draftsmanship. Although William Blake is seems characterized by; a self reliant person, ambitious, and inspiring, on Catherine's authority there is a description of his appearance: short with a large head and shoulders; not handsome but with a noble and expressive face; his hair yellow-brown, luxuriant, and curling like flames.

William Blake had a strict standard on how his poems should appear. In his poems, he was not very concerned with grammar or spelling, even though he was writing in a time much after the official English language had been created. Much of his spellings are very old-fashioned to us and at times can sound very awkward. Even his readers in his time found that the wording and spelling of phrases and words was quaint. William Blake also used forms of punctuation that were not considered to be standard. He used the ampersand &, instead of the word "and.” Following his unorthodox style, William Blake did not print his poems in type, instead he engraved them on an illustrated background. Engraving is now usually referred to as handwritten,

William Blake was a renowned poet whose works continue to be recognized long after his death. Blake was more than a poet he was also a painter and printmaker. Often his engraving art would act as the accompanying image to his poetry. Throughout his lifetime the British poet wrote several poems. The vast majority of Blake’s work was centered on strong religious themes or human existence itself. However in the works Sick Rose and London neither of these common themes is present. Though the two poems are different in content they both share an

A Mother to her Waking Infant was first published in 1790; the poem is narrated by a mother who is focusing her thoughts and words towards her newborn baby. The poem is directed solely at the child of the title, with the mothers words starting as the child awakes, Now in thy dazzling half-oped eye. Joanna Baillie uses a number of techniques to mirror and represent a new mothers emotions and affections for her child. The meter and form of the poem help to emphasise these emotions and the various other uses of language contribute to the effect of the piece on a reader.

The voice in this poem is one of pure happiness and innocence. In this state of joy, the infant is unaware of the world in which he lives and that awaits him. In these opening lines, we see Blake revealing the everyday modeling and structure that categorizes the world, but is absent in the simplicity and purity of childhood. The child has no name because joy needs no other name. Labeling and classification are products of organization and arrangement that the world uses to assimilate innocence into experience. Blake demonstrates that it is through this transition, that the virtue of child’s play is destroyed. Blake utilizes specific emotions such as “happy,” “joy,” “sweet,” “pretty,” “sing,” and “smile” to describe this uncorrupted state of being. There is no danger, darkness, or struggle for the infant. Instead, he exists in a care free state, free of guilt, temptation, and darkness. The birth of a child is celebrated by Blake and it stirs in us powerful emotions of peace, love, and hope.

William Blake was deeply aware of the great political and social issues during his time focusing his writing on the injustices going on in the world around him. He juxtaposed the state of human existence through his works Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), showing differentiating sides of humanity. The contrast between Songs of

Simple, limited, and unadventurous all describe William Blake’s life (Greenblatt, Abrams, Lynch, Stillinger). Blake was born November 28, 1757 in London, England and his artistic ability became evident in his early years. Blake had a very simple upbringing and had little education. His formal education was in art and at the age of fourteen he entered an apprenticeship with a well-known engraver who taught Blake his skills in engraving. In Blake’s free time, he began reading writing poetry.

In the first stanza it is the semantic field of water: ‘waters’ (twice), ‘sea’, ‘drowning’ and ‘being drawn’. As I mentioned earlier, water is often the symbol of life but it also evokes tears, sadness and despair.

William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in the city of London, where he spent most of his life. His family lived in a respectable, but not pretentious, lifestyle. He was one of seven children of James and Catherine Harmitage Blake, but only five lived into adulthood.

At first glance, William Blake’s “Infant Joy” shows readers that the mother is extremely happy and delighted to have had a baby. The first two lines of the poem, “I have no name: I am but two days old.” Gives readers the impression that babies represent a sense of purity and innocence as the baby doesn’t even have his own name. A more in depth look would be to see the baby as a clean canvas which has yet to be painted on by society and how the environment of a child

The journal article Blake’s Infant Sorrow, by Ricks Carson, an english professor at Pace Academy, enlightens, “The child at the mother’s breast is an archetype of innocence, vulnerability, and spontaneous affection.” Even though Carson addresses the baby as innocent and finds the child to be a archetype relating to his mother, the infant also can be seen as suffering. In a way, this poem is laughing at the idea of Songs of Innocence. Blake, or the speaker, is harsh about the experience of being a child and refuses to be handled by his parents. Blake further states that the parents of the child treated him poorly throughout his childhood. The parents did not want the kid and was upset that they had a child. The father cried, the mother groaned, and the child was fussy. The poem is not very uplifting or positive, which means it fits perfectly with Blake’s collection, Songs of

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.

The works of William Blake cannot be entirely discussed, so my project particularly focuses on 'Songs of Innocence and Experience'.

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'.

Some of William Blake’s poetry is categorized into collections called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake explores almost opposite opinions about creation in his poems “The Lamb” and “The Tiger.” While the overarching concept is the same in both, he uses different subjects to portray different sides of creation; however, in the Innocence and Experience versions of “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake uses some of the same words, rhyme schemes, and characters to talk about a single subject in opposite tones.