William Blake, a transitional figure in British literature, was the first romantic poet to focus on content instead of form. Blake is one of the great mystics of the world, like Henry More and Wordsworth; he lived in a world of glory, of spirit and of vision, which, for him, was the only real world. His devotion to God expresses through his lyrical poetry collection Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. This collection contains 51 poems where the poems of Innocence are counter part of the poems
AN ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE AS A RESPONSE TO THE COLLAPSE OF VALUES TIMOTHY VINES∗ Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience are a much studied part of the English canon, and for good reason. Blake’s work depicts a quandary that continues to haunt humanity today: the struggle of high-order humanity against the ‘real’ rationality and morals of institutionalised society. This essay seeks to explore both Blake’s literary reaction to the Enlightenment and the
WILLIAM BLAKE “I heard an angel singing” A Matter of Life an Death Abstract In this poem William Blake at the beginning speaks about an angel, who was singing in the small hours every day. An angel was singing all day about mercy, pity, peace, which is the world´s release. Angel was positive feature. He tried to help people. His voice is really beautiful and people feel good during his singing. Devil cursed mercy, pity and peace, because he saw all men are happy in the world and they don´t
William Blake, an unconventional writer and artist in Romantic England, was known best for his unique printing method and claim to supernatural visions. In 1789, Blake published the “Songs of Innocence,” a collection of poems attributed with an innocent, romantic viewpoint, as the title indicates. One of the poems, “The Divine Image,” was used to identify the nature of God in man. “The Divine Image” speaker identifies the Mercy, Love, Peace, and Pity found in humans to be truly divine and of God
seeking blessings and solace” (Why 7). Romantic poet William Blake questioned this human practice in his poem, “The Divine Image,” through use of personification, Biblical allusion, repetitive diction, and parallelism. Using these literary devices, Blake conveys a cynical tone towards the idea of religion in general. A foremost example of personification and Biblical allusion is found in lines 5-6, where the speaker states: “For…Love Is God” (Blake). This alludes to 1
Representation of the Female in William Blake If William Blake was, as Northrop Frye described him in his prominent book Fearful Symmetry, "a mystic enraptured with incommunicable visions, standing apart, a lonely and isolated figure, out of touch with his own age and without influence on the following one" (3), time has proved to be the visionary's most celebrated ally, making him one of the most frequently written about poets of the English language. William Blake has become, in a sense,
TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS The purpose of Text Interpretation and Analysis is a literary and linguistic commentary in which the reader explains what the text reveals under close examination. Any literary work is unique. It is created by the author in accordance with his vision and is permeated with his idea of the world. The reader’s interpretation is also highly individual and depends to a great extent on his knowledge and personal experience. That’s why one cannot lay down a fixed “model”