William Blake's Religion Essay

"The Tyger" by William Blake, has many different translations, however its primary reason for existing is to address God as a maker. Its graceful style produces a striking picture that urges the reader to picture the Tyger as a scary and terrifying creature. The speaker keeps the theme, regardless of whether a similar God who made the lamb, a delicate animal, could have additionally framed the Tyger and all its dark sides. This idea is used through numerous tools including rhyme, redundancy, allusion, and imagery, all of these appear through all of the poem and are built up to make a solid picture of the Tyger and a not as much as extensive translation of its maker.

Before watching your presentation, I only knew the basics regarding William Blake. There are various interesting things that you mentioned that I did not know about. For example, you mentioned how he was more commonly known for his art rather than his poems. His art as a whole is really interesting. You mentioned how he took his encounters with the people around him, his brother’s death, and visions and reflected them into his work. One thing from that list that stood out to me the most were his visions. He was able to take his visions and portray them in his paintings even when many people found it difficult to understand the meanings behind it.

By the time William Blake emerged, the Christian Church had been manipulating the people of England for centuries. People were moved by fear of damnation and hope for redemption, thanks to the Church, and these emotions controlled the actions and values of this society. The Church enforced fear and inflicted punishment where ‘necessary’. Romantics recognised the atrocity of these actions and rebelled; a dangerous notion in a society where acceptance and normality was of paramount importance. Blake wrote

The child questions the lamb as to where he came from and asks, “Little Lamb, who made thee?/ Dost though know who made thee?/” (Blake 1-2) Throughout the poem the speaker continues to argue the lamb about its nature, as if to repress the lamb’s self worth. When the child receive no answers, he decides that he will tell the lamb where he came from. He says, “Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee!” (12). Jesus was a child once and the speaker relates saying, “I a child &ump; thou a lamb/ We are called by his name.” ( 17-18), meaning we are all Lambs of God. The child then ends the poem by sending God’s blessings to the lamb. Blake is speaking of what he sees are the positive aspects of the common beliefs of Christianity. However, it is not an accurate picture of the world because there it does not speak about the presence of evil in our world, which is followed by his poem "The Tyger".

William Blake was a visionary; although his work was often misunderstood during his lifetime, posthumously he is regarded as a very influential poet, artist, and engraver. Blake was scarcely noticed in his lifetime, and when he was he was considered mad, or called “an unfortunate lunatic.” Born in 1757 in London, England, Blake’s thinking was ahead of his time. He did not have much of a formal education, and gained his knowledge from his mother and apprenticeships.

During the midst of the French Revolution, many people began writing and several became famous. Some of these authors wrote about experiences, and others just formed an imagination with the help of their surroundings. William Blake was influenced by both of the strategies and excelled in the art of poetry. He was also influenced by many of the other poetry authors of the day. Among his greatest works was his collection of poems known as Songs of Innocence and Experience. Although this is not all of his poems in a collection, it is one of the most famous collections of poems in history. Blake uses a great amount of complicated symbols in his poetry which are difficult to decipher, and he also

William Blake’s radical thoughts and unconventional ideals led him to a life full of ridicule by critics. However, despite being unappreciated during the eighteenth century, he was quite a brilliant man who was ahead of his time. As a man who questioned the social norms of his period, his poetry pushed the boundaries of literature. He criticized slavery, religion, and the monarchy and he even analyzed human psychology in many of his works. Some of his famous poems include “Garden of Love”, “The Tyger”, “A Poison Tree”, and “The Little Black Boy”. Each of these poems depict Blake’s strong opinions and observations of the world around him. For instance, “Garden of Love” is interpreted as a poem where Blake expresses

William Blake’s poetry contains many themes of religion. Examining Blake’s works, The Chimney Sweeper and The Little Black Boy shows an example of this. In The Chimney Sweeper Tom dreams an angel comes to him and tells him “If he’d be a good boy, he’d have God for his father & never want joy” (122). Upon waking the next day, despite the cold temperatures, Tom feels warm even though he had to work hard in a potentially deadly job that he was forced into. Could this be because he had a great dream? An angel came to him and essentially told him he would be okay and as long as he works hard, God will love him. Could this be a coping mechanism for Tom? He suffers while being exploited but maybe the way he deals with this is by feeling that he won’t

William Blake was a forerunner in the world of poetry in the 18th century that produced works that are being studied to this day. Along with many other greats; poets, artists, and musicians, Blake did not receive the recognition deserved to him until after his death. Many of these poems written by Blake are ordinarily focused on religion while heavily influenced by his imagination. The impact of his imagination in addition to his focus on religion is evident in his work “The Lamb” as well as The Tyger”. “The Lamb” is a poem about a child who is asking the lamb about his creator, then asks if the lamb is aware of his identity. The child already knows the identity which leads to the end of the poem. This poem comes from an album called Songs

William Blake’s collection of poetry reflects greatly on the distressed life he had. The view that he had of the world, 18th century Europe in particular, affected many people throughout literatures history. He spoke of innocence but also of experience which gave the impression he was once deeply involved with each, although they are very different.

William Blake was born in London, England on November 28, 1757. Blake left school at a young age, only staying to learn how to read and write. The Bible was a primary source of inspiration for him, he claimed to have received visions from God at a young age. Blake was multi-talented in the arts, not only was he a poet, but he was also a painter and an engraver. He also taught his illiterate wife to read and write. Blake’s work was considered a very influential figure of the Romantic Age. He worked hard on projects up until his death on August 12, 1827, some were left unfinished. Though his work went unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake’s creations have remained a heavy influence for modern-day writers and

Throughout recent decades there has been a clear shift in moral rationale with many of the practices found within western society, particularly those involving children performing dangerous labor intensive activities. Although child labor may seem like a thing of the past to those living in the first world, it is well and alive around the globe. Child labor is prevalent in various developing nations throughout Asia, Africa, and South America; where both child labor and child slavery run rampant today. In his work The Chimney Sweeper, William Blake elucidates the experiences of young boys in England who were sold off by their parents to work as chimney sweepers. Similarly, Sandy Tolan of the Huffington Post investigates the widespread presence

As the dream continues, the boys are still covered in the black soot until there “came an Angel who had a bright key / And he opened the coffins & set them all free” (13-14). Here Blake is referencing a male Angel with the use of the pronoun “he” in line 14. Instead of being an Angel from the Christian faith, this Angel could be Tom’s father for, in the next stanza the Angel beings to speak to Tom as if he is dreaming of the conversation he had with his father before being sold to the chimney sweepers. This Angel however, presents to Tom a “bright key” (13), which allows the young boys to escape from their misery, serving as a symbol of purity that the boys long to go back to. The “bright key” is their exit from the miserable future ahead of them. In lines 15 and 16 Blake writes, “Then down a green

The aim of my current art practice is to cultivate a more positive attitude towards Western Christianity, spirituality and the church as a whole, and examine what it means to be a child within the church and having a voice that is not necessarily always heard. In order to fully realize these objectives, a thorough research into the scope of religion, play and brain development in childhood in conjunction with each other is required. Particular attention needs to be paid to the Gospel of Mark, which is primarily influential to the body of work I intend to produce.

Before being good or bad, human beings are just humans who have to live with their own nature, which they sometimes cannot control. Man can do good or evil but he always makes it with a unique purpose, his personal satisfaction, because it is simply in his nature. Thus, human beings aware of good and evil are confronted with conflicting choices but they never act against their will. The poem, “The Human Abstract”, written by William Blake reflects on these characteristics of human beings and demonstrates how they are unconsciously corrupted by their own nature in a selfish way.