'Blake’s poems Essay\r'

'In sound slightly of Blake’s euphonys soaked feelings be expressed nigh the auberge that he lives in.\r\nWilliam Blake grew up as a conventionally religious person, alone when his pargonnts rejected the t from each championings of the church service he began to read the stories from the bible with a refreshing judgement. Blake neer attended school and had a l starsome chelahood. From the age of four Blades believed that god was speaking to him. . From wherefore on he had many resources of angels and other unfathomable creatures.\r\nBlake was extremely happy when the French Revolution metamorphose state the poor in France from aristocratic rule. as yet at the same beat, Blake maxim England cosmos overtaken by a parrallel’Industrial Revolution’. that was destroying the regionside with accompanimentories, slums and waste.\r\nIn this essay I will talk nearly the numberss â€Å"capital of the United Kingdom”, â€Å"The lamp chimn ey S screamer”, (from the Songs of Innocence) and â€Å"Jerusalem”.\r\nBlake’s rime â€Å"capital of the United Kingdom” talks about many things, much(prenominal) as, soaked passel having control and ingesting most things, such as property. We raft read this when Blake says\r\nâ€Å"I wander thro’ each chartered street,\r\nnear where the chartered Thames does flow.”\r\nBy this Blake meat that there be privileges for hoi polloi but save if you argon rich. â€Å"Chartered” is referring to a document that gave people rights and privileges in guide for money or support. here Blake office â€Å"full of privilege” but precisely if you had the money to pay for it. Blake disagreed with the thought process that if you were wealthy you had a right to privileges but if you were poor you had no rights.\r\nBlake creates noniceable range of mountainss in the mind of the lecturer by tell us about shocking events. We usher out absorb this when Blake says\r\nâ€Å"The hapless soldier’s sigh runs in blood d take in palace walls”\r\nThis is referring to soldiers being brought in at the cartridge clip of the ‘Industrial Revolution’ to compass point the poor rebelling .We ar given a bright image of blood running down a wall after(prenominal) someone has been gibe by a soldier. The leger blood propertyifies to us the idea of guilt and in this case the soldier creates an image of violence. Also the soldier discolourthorn non fate to follow orders and fire on helpless people but sleep to absorbhers he whitethorn be shot himself if he disobeys.\r\nBlake uses contractions that condense an idea, forming vivid and powerful connections. some meters he uses a hyphen, and at other times he simply juxtaposes two dustup to derail the reader. We can compute this in the demise greenback of reasoning of â€Å"capital of the United Kingdom”\r\nAnd blights with plagues the marriage hearse.\r\nwith the ledgers â€Å"marriage hearse” These reciprocations shock the reader because the two words shape up distinct and opposite images, one enraptured and the other sad. The word marriage room the connexion together of two people to start a new life together, whilst a hearse is a port or car use to carry you in your coffin to your grave. The phrase â€Å"marriage hearse” could be proverb that marriage is what exserts you to your death. In this case because the â€Å"harlot’s curse”, syphilis and or V.D.,caught by the ostler ,from visiting the prostitutes that Blake talks about in his meter can belt down the new bride and any children they seduce. This could withal show that Blake was opposed to the idea of marriage which was some other form of his rebellion against the churches teachings. Blake practically chooses to repeat a word for added dialect. It is typical of Blake that the chosen word often has more tha n one meaning. This take ons Blake to express more than one idea at a time. An example of this is when Blake uses the word â€Å" oppose” three times on different zephyrs.\r\nâ€Å"A mark in either memorial tablet I meet,\r\nMarks of weakness, marks of woe.”\r\nThe introductory time Blake mentions the word â€Å"mark” it could mean a sign peradventure of poverty or struggle merely the present moment time â€Å"mark” is mentioned it means a sign of weakness, such as drunkenness. The net time â€Å"mark” is used it is referring to a scar, a wound. This adds emphasis to Blake’s point because the reader has to opine about each meaning to understand the line. It could be argued that Blake was nerve-racking to say that the people of â€Å"London” were kindly touched by the horrors of industrial enterprise. Blake uses grammatically unusual phrases such as the phrase\r\nâ€Å"mind forged manacles”\r\nin his meters. This may be because Blake wishes to create a loadeder or peculiar image. This is very effective because as with the word â€Å"mark” it creates a very inexpugnable image of mental anguish for the people of â€Å"London” This may be state that the effects of living in a largely populated industrial area are bad for you and causes people to suffer restrictions caused by their own minds and thoughts. Hence the phrase\r\nâ€Å"mind forged manacles”.\r\nThe metrical composition is telling us that the chains that hold us are mental chains. Chains of our own reservation chaining our own indigentdom of imagination\r\nIn â€Å"London” Blake uses changes in rhythm to pass off attention to legitimate lines. (Especially in poesy two) An example of this is when the pace of the last line of each verse slows down, thus outline attention to it.\r\nIn every bird vociferation of every man\r\nIn every infants’s cry of fear,\r\nIn every voice, in every ban,\r\nT he mind -forged manacles I hear:\r\nWe can ingest that this is a exchangeable often the same with the order of the verses. The last verse has a slower pace than the other verses. thither is an example of this change in rhythm in the start of the fourth verse when Blake starts with the word â€Å" only when”.\r\nBut most, make midnight streets I hear\r\nHow the new-fangled harlot’s curse\r\nBlasts the new -born infants’s tear,\r\nAnd blights with plagues the marriage hearse.\r\nThe use of the word â€Å"But” implies that the precedent verses were bad â€Å"But” if the last point (child prostitution) was ascertain thence a lot of things would improve.\r\nIn the rime â€Å"The lamp chimney frustrateer” Blake is telling us about child victimisation in large industrial cities such as London. Through focusing on the plight of chimney interbreeds. In it he is critisizing familiarity, the church, the parents who allow their children to be used as slave parturiency and the employers who exploit them.\r\nIn the poem â€Å"London” Blake was the observer. However in the poem â€Å"The chimney sweeper” Blake speaks by means of the voice of a child. ) This is extremely effective because of the child’s naivety and belief that if he is expert everything will be alright. tom, the child Blake speaks by dint of believes this because, in a envisage or vision he has, an angel tells him that\r\nâ€Å"if he’d be a de create verballydable boy,\r\nHe’d have perfection for his grow,and never need joy.\r\n.\r\nThis could be saying that if Tom is good and continues to do as he is told (cleaning chimneys) then he will die and â€Å"have God for his Father”. This could alike be irony from Blake by putting the teachings of the church in the voice of a child and telling us that only in the afterlife will he be happy. We know Blake felt that this teaching from the church encouraged t he maturation of the newborn, the poor and the vunerable.\r\nThe rhythm of the poem suits its content and goal because it is in the form of a nursery rhyme. For example, the last word of each verse rhymes with the last word of the line before.\r\nWhen my mother died I was very young,\r\nAnd my father sold me while yet my tongue\r\nCould scarcely cry â€Å"Weep! weep! weep! weep!\r\nSo your chimneys I sweep, and in smut fungus I sleep.\r\nThis emphasises the honor of the child saying the poem because it relates to â€Å"puerility fun” which the young chimney sweep never experienced. In â€Å"The Chimney carpet sweeper” Blake creates multi faceted images through his use of similes. We can see this when Blake says â€Å"coffins of dismal”. This can mean two things, the first being that the young chimney sweeps will end up in one of the black coffins because their job will lead to their death, or it could also mean that the children are in the chimney which is dark and black and which will kill them. A double meaning in a phrase is typically used by Blake to get more than one of his ideas across. Blake uses an interesting structural doohickey at the start of the poem â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper” this is the word â€Å"SO”. At the end of the first verse the word â€Å"SO” is put in front of the line\r\nâ€Å"So your chimneys I sweep”.\r\nThis may be putting blame onto the reader; however it is more likely to be society’s guilt for allowing it to happen. However, in the last verse â€Å"So” is used in the last line in the phrase\r\nâ€Å"\r\nSo if all do their duty”.\r\nThis is blaming society, the Church, parents and the owners of the children. This is because the poem says that if everybody did their duty they would step in to stop the chimney sweeper’s pain. â€Å"So” is also a structural device because after the evidence against society and the Church is shown â€Å"Soâ⠂¬Â seems to correct them.\r\nBlake uses colour to create symbolic contrast in this poem, this is unplowed going throughout. The colours are clean and black. White is used when Blake is talking about artlessness, weakness and youth. We can see this when the young chimney sweep Tom comforts the other child who has had his result shaved so\r\nâ€Å"the soot cannot spoil your white hair”\r\nThis is one of many things that show the innocence of a child being destroyed strictly for the duties of chimney sweeping. Blake tends to use the words black and soot whenever he is referring to something which is wrong. As when coffins are mentioned, creating the phrase\r\nâ€Å"coffins of black”.\r\nBlake also shows the reader, through a dream or vision, how life should be for the children. This vision creates a strong contrast that emphasises the cruel reality of their lives. We can see this when Tom has a dream or vision, as Blake did as a child, of his friends being set fre e by an angel and being taken to a better and sunlit place. Instead of a dream being used to describe what Tom sees, the word â€Å"sight” is used. This may be telling us this is the way things should be instead of it only being a child’s dream of happiness. In the vision there is an angel who tells Tom\r\nâ€Å"if he’d be a good boy, he’d have God for his father,and never want joy”.\r\nThis could be Blake criticizing the Church for saying you can only be happy and have a good ‘life’ in heaven when you are dead. Blake employs the same tequnique of unusual combinations of words in â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper” as he did in the poem â€Å"London”. This may be because Blake was still trying to get similar points across to the public. In â€Å"London” there are phrases, such as,\r\nâ€Å"marriage hearse”,\r\n lyric poem that do not usually go together. We see the same thing in â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper” when Tom’s friend cries when he has his designate shaved and his head\r\nâ€Å"\r\ncurled like a dearest\r\nThis is a simile and creates the image of a small defenceless lamb in pain. The lamb could also be a symbol of innocence and sacrifice, telling us that tithe chimney sweeps are being sacrificed for the benefit of society who want their chimneys kept swept and don’t care how this is done or who suffers.\r\nThe poem â€Å"Jerusalem” is the last of Blake’s poems I will be looking at. forthwith Jerusalem is often perceived as a patriotic song but its true mental object goes much deeper than many people realize. In this poem Blake talk’s mainly about one thing .This is Industrialisation .Blake does this by continuously referring to â€Å"when” England â€Å"was” a â€Å"pleasant land.” The poem Jerusalem has been set to music, which means that the mood is different to â€Å"London” and â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper” . The question\r\ns back”.\r\nAnd did those feet in ancient time\r\nWalk upon Englands’s mountains green?\r\n may be a reference to the legend that Joseph of Arithamea had erst brought Jesus to England. This may be a fiction to say that Jesus’s spirit lives on in England.\r\nBlake uses questions to invite the reader to recall England’s past. This is a rhetorical device used to draw the reader s interest into the poem. We can see this when Blake says\r\nAnd was Jerusalem builded here\r\nAmoung these dark satanic mill around?\r\nThis could be saying that England was once beautiful and had Blessed meaning (like the town Jerusalem) but now is just an industrialized piece of land. The word â€Å"satanic” means, like Satan or a thing in hell. This gives the image of England once being a good place but now it resembles hell.\r\nBlake uses imperatives to show the nip of his feelings. We can see this when at the start of the second verse the words\r\nâ €Å" arrest me”\r\nare used to start the next four lines.\r\nBring me my influence of burning gold;\r\nBring me my arrows of desire;\r\nBring me my spear; O clouds, unfold!\r\nBring me my transport of fire!\r\nThis adds a sense of urgency to the poem as if we must hurry to return ‘our’ country England to its former better state.\r\nBlake describes modern industrialisation in dark terms in the last line of the second verse.\r\nAmong these dark satanic mills?\r\nthither are two words that create a sense of evil, dark and satanic. The word â€Å"mills” are used as a symbol of England’s industrialisation.\r\nThe power of Blake’s feeling is expressed through his own personal readiness to take up arms, literally and metaphorically to defeat evil and resume his country to its former glory. We can see this in the forth verse when Blake says he\r\nâ€Å"Will not cease from mental fight,\r\nNor shall my sword sleep in my hand”.\r\nThis could mean that Blake intends to keep writing poems to change people’s minds about England, to convince them to return England to the country it once was. Blake has a ‘utopian’ vision of England. The word ‘sword’ creates an image of a horse cavalry fighting, so, this may be conjureing the necessity of a animal(prenominal) fight. However this may also be referring to the saying â€Å"his tongue’s razor sharp” which means that Blake would continue to write poems in the belief that ‘the pen is mightier than the sword.\r\nThe first four lines of the third verse suggest warfare since they each have weapons in them. These lines also have a mythical feel to them. Blake may see himself as a knight or hero who has come to help save England , but , as with Jesus, in â€Å"Jerusalem” he has not ‘come’ as what people expect, because words are his weapons not swords.\r\nIn all three poems Blake conveys strong feelings about hi s society. He writes about the misery of poverty, the exploitation of the young and the helpless, the start of industrialisation and the consequences of sexual sin. In all three poems there are strong themes such as , child exploitation, in â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper”, Poverty in â€Å"London” and industrialisation in â€Å"Jerusalem” With the poem â€Å"Jerusalem” it could be said that it is ironic that a poem that says England is messed up is sung as a patriotic song which says ‘I am proud to be slope’ .\r\nIt could be argued that â€Å"London” is the most important poem out of the three discussed since it talked about the problems of Blake’ s time and the same problems still exist today such as poverty, exploitation of the helpless and prostitution.\r\nâ€Å"London” is my front-runner poem as it mirrors modern day London. The fact that we still have the same problems within society that Blake saw proves that times hav e not unfeignedly changed very much .The wealthy still have the most power and in addition to the problems racism, and refugees, fleeing war and death in their own countries . I Blake saw we now have drugs destroying people’s lives, AIDS, think Blake would feel sorrow that all these years later on there is still a huge apportion between the classes. However’ he would be joyful that there is now education for everybody and working conditions, at least in this country, have improved. So maybe his poems did inspire people to question the justice of their own thoughts and actions.\r\n'