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Blake Critical context - Coggle Diagram
Blake Critical context
Innocence Re-called by Deborah Guth 1989
the songs of innocence, rendered through lilting childlike rhymes dramatise the enchanted inner world of the child
although the stated purpose of these songs is to portray the state of innocence, almost all contain forebodings and insights form the world of experience
The argument that innocence is not merely joy but equally the capacity to imaginatively overcome pain and fear
The pervasive presence of experience elements has also been seen as a foreshadowing of experience to come and a means of highlighting the vulnerability and transience of innocence
Experience is the defining framework through which the state of innocence is both perceived and invested
infant joy: the two voices are at odds. As the mother's voice modulates towards a wistful end, the child's vibrant tones recede to the imaginative background
in some poems distance is achieved through the evocation of hidden doubts or fears within the adult protagonist's mind eg. the cradle song
in other poems distancing is effected through the presence of an adult narrator revealing himself as such behind the childlike voice eg. the lamb or little boy lost
in poems such as "The Little Black Boy and The Chimney Sweeper, distance is achieved through the child's unwitting integration of experienced into the very vision that is designed to oppose it
THE CRITIQUE OF MORAL LAW IN BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE (2018)
To be innocent is to open yourself to the creative world around you, while experience shuts you off from the playful freedom that comes with innocence.
Blake evidently sees true worship of God to be one person’s active grace towards another- The Poem “The Echoing Green” is representative of not only the grace towards one another, but toward nature as well
in the setting of the echoing green there is this sense of welcoming, specific to the open mindedness that comes with the innocence perspective.
Blake believed that moral law, enforced by churches, restrained desire, and that faith was enough
The garden of love: The church here is a looming presence of experience. Its doors are shut, just like how experience shuts out creativity and life.
The actual text in the engraving is woven with snakes, furthering this imagery of how the Church preys on the innocence of the people of England
When moralistic forces, such as the Church, start imposing on innocence, it closes them off leaving experience as the only perspective.[...] leaving no room for a fulfilling life
Fourfold Vision by Goddard 1968
A hardheaded, common-sensed, rational man sees with his single vision. The idea that imagination could create reality would be sheer nonsense to him
Twofold vision occurs when everything is seen as an image-all things transient, are but symbols
Blake saw everything in his life as a symbol. To him the sun was not a round disk in the sky, but a host of angels singing
Threefold vision is yours when the images begin to dream
Capture a mood which would imply the fulfillment of your desire, then become so intense in that threefold vision that you enter your fulfilled desire, and you will move into fourfold vision.
Thoreau once said: the truest life is to be in a dream awake
The power to change anything will lie dormant unless we operate it, as Imagination does not operate itself.
Blake confessed that his greatest ecstasy was in fourfold vision because it is the fulfillment of scripture, of which he was a great student
Passion and Mysticism in William Blake by Mcquail (2000)
many of the poems in SOE condemn sexual repression (garden of love, a little girl lost, the sick rose, earth's answer) which is perhaps problematic to readers in the age of AIDS
society's repressed attitude towards sexuality is expressed in the condemnation of and refusal to acknowledge homosexuality
the church's condemnation of sexuality leads to the breaking of the marriage bond [...]. The harlot in London is hardly a representation of free love: she is on the same level as the chimney sweeper- just another victim
Blake advocates the rejection of a carnal doctrine that focuses the female as primary bearer of the burden of guilt
My Pretty Rose Tree seems more clearly misogynistic because it implicitly blames the jealous woman symbolised by the rose tree
jealousy is the typical state of humanity and is not always confined to female for instance "Earth's answer"
in To Tirzah it stresses the spirit over the body, it is not the mother who is under attack but corporeal life
in Blake's work is expressed a deep animosity towards women linked with a feeling of material deprivation against which he defends himself by idealised masculinity
In The Book of Thel, Thel is held back from exploring a realm other than innocence suggesting females should keep in a state of perpetual childhood
Blake's work is an astonishingly translucent description of the unconscious [...] he reveals it at a level of reality that even the most courageous minds have not been able to reach