Blake: Songs of Innocence: The Schoolboy: Flashcards
Plot summary:
What is the plot summary?
A school boy expresses the boy’s frustration with the restrictive education system, contrasting it with the freedom and joy of childhood.
The poem critiques how formal schooling gets rid of creativity and connection with nature.
Key Quotes:
What are the key quotes?
‘Many an anxious hour , nor in my book can I take delight’ - children shouldn’t know anxiety - innocence is stripped. Education is constraining the joy and discovering.
‘Sit in a cage and sing? (…) child when fears’ - questioning authority - rhetorical question - the curriculum is corrupt - students are taught obedience not freedom.
‘How shall we gather what gather what griefs destroy (…) when the blasts of winter appear’ - we need joy, otherwise how can we recover from grief. Life needs contrasts.
Form and Structure:
What is the form and structure?
The Schoolboy has a regular four line stanzas and iambic tetrameter (8 syllables).
The structure is repeated through the 6 stanzas with the first 4 expressing the boy’s frustration with school and the last two showing his longing for freedom and nature.
Key Themes:
What are the key themes e.g. loss of childhood innocence
The poem highlights how the structured education system suppresses the natural joy and freedom that children experience
Key Themes:
What are the key themes e.g. freedom v confinement
The boy longs for the freedom of nature which contrasts with the confining nature of school and its rigid routines.
Key Themes:
What are the key themes e.g. critique of formal education
Blake critiques the dehumanising effects of traditional schooling which gets rid of creativity and the child’s connection to the natura world.
Context:
What is the context?
The Schoolboy originally written with Experience.
It critiques the rigid educational system of the time which Blake saw as getting rid of children’s natural joy and creativity.
The poem reflects his Romantic ideas emphasising the importance of freedom, nature and individual expression while contrasting innocence with the constraints of societal norms.
Other poems it links to:
What other poems it links to?
The Lamb (SOI) - This poem contrasts with the Schoolboy by celebrating the innocence, purity and connection with nature that Blake associates with childhood which is got rid of in the Schoolboy
Chimney Sweeper (SOI and SOE): Both versions of this poem deal with the harsh realities faced by children e.g. exploitation of child labour. The contrast between innocence and experience is explored and the Schoolboy critiques the loss of childhood.
The Garden of Love (SOE) - This poem explores how societal institutions restrict natural human desires and freedoms which is similar to The Schoolboy educational institutions that limit children’s natural instincts.
