Willaim Blake

“The Sick Rose”

“London”

“Tyger”

Outline

William Blake “The Sick Rose” “London” “Tyger” (a companion

of “The Lamb” in Songs of Innocence).

William Blake an English writer, poet, and

illustrator of the Romantic period;

Had visions of angels as a child;

1787 the technique of "illuminated writing," or relief-etching.

Songs of Innocence (1789) 1797 –Songs of Innocence

and of Experience ("the two Contrary States of the Human Soul." )

Image source: http://members.aol.com/lshauser2/wmblake.html

Songs of Innocence and of Experience Both innocence and

experience are necessary states in the development of the human spirit. We are all born innocents, but when we begin to recognize evil or wrong, and are inevitably tempted by it, we pass into a state of experience.

Higher Innocence: with childlike trust and vision.

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“The Sick Rose”

1. What tone(s) can you find in this poem?

2. Are there images which are ironic?

3. And sound effects?

“The Sick Rose”

O rose, thou art sick!The invisible wormThat flies in the night,In the howling storm,Has found out thy bedOf crimson joy,And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy.

--spondee; -- trochee+ anapest

Open vowel + short [i]

sound

Irony and symbol

Rose + worm = sexual intercourse, of destruction of Nature

Context: howling storm and night

Irony The rose’s bed of

crimson joy –happy about its own destruction?

Dark secret love which is Destructive

LondonI wander thro' each charter'd street.Near where the charter'd Thames does flowAnd mark in every face I meetMarks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man.In every Infants cry of fear.In every voice; in every ban.The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cryEvery blackening Church appalls.And the hapless Soldiers sighRuns in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hearHow the youthful Harlots curseBlasts the new-born Infants tearAnd blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

(12:39)

London

1. What are the effects of repetitions?

2. What about the development of images from chimney sweepers, hapless soldiers to youthful harlots? And the contrast they make with church, palace and the Marriage hearse?

London

1. An industrialized city where everything is “chartered” (under control, in contract) – even the river (or our parks) is.

2. Repetitions of “marks” & “everyway” – constraints of mechanical life internalized mind-forg'd manacles

London

development of images: from the general (“every”) to the specific, which, in turn, is connected with the failure of some dysfunctional social institutions.

individual Social institutions

chimney sweepers

Church blackened

hapless soldiers Palace and blood

youthful harlots’ curse

new-born Infants Marriage hearse (殯車 )

THE TYGER1.  What sound effects do you

find in this poem?

2. Why are there so many unanswered questions?

3. What parts of the tiger the focuses of the speaker’s attention? 

THE TYGER Tiger, tiger, burning brightIn the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eyeCould frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what artCould twist the sinews of thy heart?And, when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand and what dread feet?  

THE TYGER (2)

What the hammer?  what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?  Tyger, tyger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Allusions

Daedelus and Icarus (line 7),

the daring Greek god Prometheus (line 8),

Vulcan the blacksmith (lines 9-10 and 13-14),

Lucifer and his angels (lines 17-18)

the God of the Old Testament.

Blake himself?