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Analysis Of William Blake's Poems: Songs Of Innocence And Experience

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How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?

The study and analysis of how authoritative figures are represented in William Blake’s poems from Songs of Innocence and Experience

Emily Macnamara
000678 -0017
Written Assignment
English Literature HL
Tampereen lyseon lukio
May 2015
Word count: 999
The study and analysis of how authoritative figures are represented in William Blake’s poems from Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience was published when Great Britain’s society was ruled by the monarch as well as the Christian Church. In his poetry Blake presents numerous social issues and injustice, caused by these repressive religious and political authoritative figures. …show more content…

As he turns to the garden itself, he saw “tomb-stones where flowers should be” and “Priests in black gowns were walking the rounds/And binding with briars [his] joys and desires.” The poem implicates how organized religion, the Christian Church represented by the “chapel” and “priests”, has become a restrictive institution that forbids people from enjoying their natural and instinctive “joys and desires” by binding them in thorns and replacing them with “graves”. Blake is frustrated by how the Church restricts human beings from expressing and enjoying the freedom of love, symbolised by “flowers”, and forcing them to reject their instincts and true nature. The imagery of death and darkness associated with the Church creates a clear juxtaposition between the “green” and “sweet flowers” which are destroyed by it, and emphasises how beautiful and good things are destroyed by the Church’s control over …show more content…

The “streets” and river “Thames” are “charter’d” by the government, thus also restricting the natural flow of life in London and the freedom of people. “Mind-forg’d manacles” are the restrictive morals and beliefs of the Church and political system set on human behaviour that people are incapable to see beyond. The imagery of physical chains are again illustrated to evoke the feeling of repression that the authoritative figures impose on humanity. The Church’s reputation is being blackened: “Every blackning Church appalls”, by their lack of response to the corruption of society concerning the ignorance towards child labour, represented as “blackning” soot and the “Chimney-sweepers cry”. This and the “cry of fear” establishes how people are afraid: “appall[ed]” by the Church. The line "the hapless Soldier 's sigh runs in blood down palace walls" similarly illustrates strong imagery, as the symbolical “blood” represents the suffering of soldiers who had to serve under difficult conditions and marks the walls of the monarch, making it clear to the whole society of the death and pain that is present and who is

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In addition, weeds symbolize secrecy and impurity of society. For example, when Chillingworth and Dimmesdale converse about “the powers of nature call[ing] so earnestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manifest an unspoken crime” (118; ch. 10), it illustrates the idea of weeds stuffing the heart with sin and guilt. In contrast, flowers symbolize purity and righteousness. For example, when Hester and Pearl visit the governor’s house, “Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose…” (96; ch. 7).

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In the age of Romanticism, using nature to express ones feelings was one thing that poets loved to do. Focusing on the “London” by William Blake and “Mutability” by P.B. Shelley, one will see the comparison of how both authors used nature and emotion to depict the situations and experiences that they saw during this time. But meanwhile, the emotion and comparison to nature is not always positive, neither is it always negative and in these two poems one can see the differences. Romanticism was a period of time in the 18th century where literary movements was such an ideal trend in Europe. For the most part romanticism was about individualism and human emotions and not so much about power of the hierarchy over the population.

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