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Blake themes - Coggle Diagram
Blake themes
Indutrialisation
realistic and socially conscious critiques of existing situations
in the throes of the Industrial Revolution in which industrial
magnates were making money on the backs of the proletariat
poems
The Tiger, London, The Chimney Sweeper (I+E), To Tirzah
children were forced to work from a young age and physical punishment was considered normal.Blake felt very strongly about the way the Industrial Revolution was doing more harm than good and should be stopped
London became highly urbanized, factories were built with the promise of better commodities for its citizens.
vast industrialization had already begun in London in 1760, causing massive changes in England’s social and economic structure
The Chimney Sweeper serves to understand the difference between the establishment and its oppressed people while veiling it under the guise of industrialization
The children’s age has nothing to do with innocence, it just simply means they have not been exposed to experience yet, just as this country and its people had not been exposed to this level of industrialization.
Religion and organised church
Blake critiques the religious leaders of his day for their abuse of spiritual authority.
Poems
poems: A Cradle Song, Holy Thursday (I), Little Black Boy, The Lamb, The Shepherd, The Voice of the Ancient Bard, The Divine Image, Little Boy Found (I)
To Tirzah, A Little Boy lost (E), The Garden of Love, Holy Thursday (E),
figures of authority in the church repress love and creative expression in adults
explores the emotional power of rudimentary Christian values, he also exposes Christianity’s capacity for promoting injustice and cruelty.
In Songs of Innocence the divine usually takes the form of God or of Jesus. Through the lens of childlike innocence, these two manifestations of divinity are perhaps meant to be simpler and more approachable.
Innocence's representations of religion are used to control or condition children into socially appropriate behaviours or into accepting their lot in life.
in SOE Blake seeks the divine in love, in the human spirit, and in the predatory tiger but not in the organised church
Blake's eyes the church is complicit in the subjugation of the poor by its indifference to their treatment.
Freedom/ loss of
Poems
laughing song, introduction (E), little girl lost/ found (I), Infant Joy, Nurse's Song (E+I), A Poison Tree
addresses the destruction of childlike innocence, and in many cases of children's lives, by a society designed to use people for its own selfish ends
Songs of Experience is an attempt to denounce the cruel society that harms the human soul but it also calls the reader back to innocence, through Imagination, in an effort to redeem a fallen world.
Experience thus adds a layer to innocence that darkens its hopeful vision while compensating for some of its blindness
childhood freedom is a state of “innocence” and virtue, but is not wholly protected from the world. In contrast, events which lend “experience” are those which mark a loss of childhood freedom by fear and inhibition
he champions the freedom of the individual and condemns those who wield power
Blake was a libertarian who cherished beliefs about free will and individuality
He celebrates both the free and creative imagination and also the life force that exists throughout the natural world
Parents and children
children's simple faith in parents or God challenged by harsh conditions
the failure of human parents to properly nurture their children
poems
A Little Boy Lost (E), Chimney Sweeper (E), Infant Sorrow
A Cradle Song, The Chimney Sweeper (I), A Dream, Little Boy lost, found (I), Little Girl Lost/Found (I), Infant Joy
emphasises the frailty of human communities, in which the roles of mother and father are defined by society rather than by natural instincts
emphasises the supremacy of Nature and of divine care in the form of God the Father.
juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression
The Songs of Innocence dramatises the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and trace their transformation as the child grows into adulthood
Pastoral and nature
poems
A poison Tree, The Garden of Love, Earth's Answer, Introduction (E)
Night, Laughing Song, A Dream, The Schoolboy, Introduction (I), Blossom, The Echoing Green,
Blake sees in the natural world an idyllic universe that can influence human beings in a positive manner.
In Songs of Innocence, nature is mostly a benevolent force, often connected with divinity or different manifestations of innocence.
versions of the natural world tend to be harmless, gentle aspects of nature, reminiscent of heaven
Songs of Experience treats nature with more wariness. The introduction of the predatory or potentially harmful aspects of nature gives the poems a sense of worldliness
The earth itself, as well as a clod of dirt and a pebble are given voices and speak of human emotions such as love and jealousy
Using elements of nature as stand-ins for people allows Blake to explore universal human traits and experiences. It provides an avenue for exploring how humans are connected to nature and the divinity of natural elements.
Power and authority
Poems
The voice of the ancient bard, The Schoolboy, The Little Girl Found (I), Little Black Boy, Nurse's Song (I), Holy Thursday (I)
The Tiger, Nurse's Song (E), Holy Thursday (E), Earth's Answer, Little Boy Lost (E)
In Songs of Experience poverty and society's treatment of the poor are directly critiqued. The innocent speakers of the poems of Songs of Innocence often just bear their poverty or try to look beyond it to better things.
Blake had a deep-rooted anti-establishment ethos and he constantly questioned and attacked the actions, motivations and legitimacy of the authorities of his day
Blake directly attacks the repressive arm of
government.
The country was in the hands of a few powerful men who ensured control remained where it was
In the Clod and the Pebble Blake suggests the political world is motivated by selfishness; those who have power to bind others to their own delights building a "hell in heaven's despite
The church is seen as a powerful organisation which does nothing to help the powerless and disenfranchised
Blake frequently employs the familiar meters of ballads, nursery rhymes, and hymns, applying them to his own, often unorthodox conceptions. This combination of the traditional with the unfamiliar is consonant with Blake’s perpetual interest in reconsidering and re-framing the assumptions of human thought and social behaviour.