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William Blake Research Paper

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Recommended: Songs of innocence and experience by William Blake analysis

William Blake (1757-1827) lived during the romantic period of literature. However, much of his poetry did not share the same romantic aspects of many of his fellow poets at the time. Blake focused primarily on real human experience. His poetry focuses on the differences of an innocent perspective and an experienced perspective. By focusing on the naive and experienced mindset of mankind, Blake explores both the values and the limitations of both perspectives. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience demonstrate the individual perspectives between children and adults. While one is more joyous and innocent, the other is experienced and much less spontaneous (Bloom). A child’s perspective observes the world with innocent eyes and thinks about their desires rather than the reality. In other words, a child’s view is clouded by illusion while an adult would see the harsh reality. Blake’s use of symbolism in The Lamb portrays mankind’s biased, innocent view. The lamb in the poem is a common symbol for Jesus Christ. Jesus is often portrayed in religion as a symbol of peace and gentleness. However, according to Blake’s own personal beliefs we see that he sees Jesus as an active …show more content…

The speaker is a child who addresses a lamb. By speaking to the lamb, Blake uses an apostrophe to make the confrontation believable. The speaker asks an innocent question of “who made thee?” (Blake 1) but in doing so touches on a popular question for all human beings concerning creation. The speaker proceeds to answer this question with a religious answer. By accepting the idea that the lamb was created by God, the child is shown as innocent and naive. Blake embraces the positive of Christianity in this poem just as the child. It does not focus on the negative, more experienced mindset of an adult. Just as the child in the poem, Blake does not question his own answer and accepts it as it

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In the poem “Spoken Into Creation,” the writer uses symbolism, similes, and metaphors to indicate that God’s words have a powerful meaning in life. Song compares with a simile to portray that people can influence someone else's life with their words. People have to be careful because words can have a very big impact in life. Song uses, “Gouged out by a single sentence like a lion licking every gazelle bone clean.” (Song, 13).

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He became a little child:” [2] In this poem, Jesus has been compared to the lamb as he is mild, meek, gullible and naive. The same is reflected in the novel through Hassan, moreover, Hassan is called The

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Now, lamb has come to represent innocence and peace and the meaning of a lamb has come to change in this story where it is used to murder the woman’s husband. In the bible, lamb is

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Poem number eleven within his notebook starts with the lines, “‘The shepard blew upon his reed a strange fragility of notes’” which is a clear imitation of the first few lyrics of Blake’s Songs of Innocence. It was also discovered that the twelfth poem titled The Shepherd to His Lass contained early imitations of pastoral lyrics, which can be reasonably attributed to Blake’s influence, given Thomas’s great interest in Blake (13-14 Grant). Dylan Thomas’s concept of the Divine Image can also be given credit to Blake’s influence from Vala; much of the imagery used in Thomas’s In the Beginning is very Blakean and can be traced to similarities in The Book of Urizen. The use of imagery that incorporates blood and anatomy is consistent with both poets while they tend to see the world in human form.

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Blake was extremely open and straight forward, the vision of Christ that he described is the one he sees through his own enlightened eyes and he found out that the vision is completely distorted and is opposite of what Christ was. Blake tried to make the common people divine. He wanted to bring forward the vision of divinity which Christ saw.

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The third stanza reveals what happens when the shepherd gets back through the eyes of the dog. He says that he hears them talking about all of the gifts that the baby was brought. We learn that they are not the type of gifts that a dog would like, like treats to be eaten, but things that would be considered gifts by humans. The speaker tells that the shepherd has brought baby Jesus a lamb as a

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In multiple works found in this collection, the speaker or the character often questions and suggests that humanity is ignorant to its very own objective. In the poem, The Lamb, the speaker includes the repetition of line "Does thou know who made thee," to portray its significance. The speaker hints that one does not know their purpose until one acknowledges their purpose, as provided by line "We are called by His name," to which one is told of the path they must follow. Blake concludes that God, a supreme being,  has a plan for the whole, who may never concede their own

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In his book The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience by William Blake, he tries to imply the innocence of youth, which is caused by the society because of the adult’s religion and culture—rein children’s life. Furthermore, Blake uses an ironic tone to criticize the church leaders and the

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However, as the passage progresses the tiger begins to embody a symbolic meaning, such as to exemplify that of a symbolic or holy creature. When Blake states, “What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry”, he is referring to this tiger’s sense of spiritual identity that God has created in him for the time being

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E. Housman, William Blake’s “The Lamb” focuses strongly on developing the mood and the first person point of view in order to reveal his theme of the simplicity of faith and its presence in all aspects of the world. He communicates to the reader the limited viewpoint of a faithful child and effectively creates a buoyantly light and innocent mood that reflects the simplicity of faith that Blake wants his readers to perceive. In the second stanza, the speaker speaks to the lamb about the connection between them and Jesus saying: “I a child, and thou a lamb/ We are called by his name” (Arp and Johnson 793). Using the mood that he creates with the innocent voice of the speaker, Blake shows how, in its simplest form, faith connects humans and nature and gives people a clear position in the world in relation to nature and God. The simplicity of the theme strengthens the innocence of the message that Blake effectively conveys.

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This essay will discuss how William Blake represents poverty and suffering throughout his poetry in Songs of Innocence and Experience. “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence and “London” from Songs of Experience are the two poems that will be discussed in this essay. Both poems express poverty and suffering that concern with people, particularly the people who are more vulnerable in society. They also represent suffering and the hardships that are associated with it. They also reflect on what the hierarchy of England was and how it affected people, which would have also been an influenced as to why people and children were living in poverty.

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In the next line Blake asks, “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” (20) suggesting that he understands God, first, as the creator of peace. Additionally, each stanza in the poem obeys an AABB rhyme scheme except for the repeated stanza. The word which disrupts the rhyme scheme is “symmetry,” which magnifies its significance in interpretation. The word “symmetry” suggests that God will always maintain a balance between the dark violence of the Tyger and the peaceful sweetness of the

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Authors have always used different techniques to get their points across in their poems. Most authors also have a certain idea they are known for writing about. William Blake is a brilliant English author that is an influential figure in the Romantic Age. Blake is known for his unique thoughts and his writings has influenced many other authors. The Garden of Love and The Divine Image are two poems that William Blake has written that has so much similarities as well as differences.

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The final contrast between “The Tyger and “The Lamb” is the symbol that the tiger and the lamb represent. When you think of a tiger, you might feel fearful of it, along with other emotions. Blake noted that, in line 4, the tiger has a “fearful symmetry”. This line, along with the fact the the book this poem was called the Songs of Experience and the feeling the symbol of a tiger expresses toward the reader,

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