EX-the Clod and the Pebble Flashcards
The poem begins with a _____ declaring that love is about selflessness however the _______ suggests love is entirely selfish
clod
pebble
What does the pebble say about love?
that love “built a Hell in Heaven’s despite” as it is wholly selfish and makes a lover bend the other person to their desires
What does Blake suggest the clod represents, the clod which is “trodden with the cattle’s feet”?
passivity and victimhood
Blake presents two contrasting views of love whereby one serves as the inverse or mirror-image of the other. What type of pair are the Clod and the Pebble?
they are a binary pair
In the prior poem, Earth’s Answer, the love that is bound by Reason which must be renewed in order to free Earth from her chains, is examined in this poem to ask what?
if love is selfish or selfless
the difference in perspective to the clod and the pebble align with the experiences of the two inanimate speakers. The clod has been “_______________” so that it is malleable, but easily shaped to the will of others. Whereas the pebble “____________” must remain in its place on the bottom of the brook.
“Trodden with the cattle’s feet,”
“of the brook”
The pebble has been hardened by its time in the brook and therefore offers resistance to any who would seek to us it for their own ends. What quote suggests this?
“Warbled out these metres meet”
What does Blake use his ironic voice of experience to point out about love?
that if done according to the edicts of Reason, it “builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite”
Although Blake uses his ironic voice of experience to point out that if done according to the edicts of Reason it “builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite”, why does the reader not side completely with the Clod and its view of love?
this is because the clod too experiences loss and rejoices in its loss of ease (‘But for another gives its ease”)
-links to the Little Black Boy who is complacent to his struggles
Although Blake uses his ironic voice of experience to point out that if done according to the edicts of Reason it “builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite”, the reader does not side completely with the Clod and its view of love because the clod too experiences loss and rejoices in its loss of ease (‘But for another gives its ease”). Where is this positioned in the poem?
as even the Clod’s Heaven is built on the despair of Hell
The word “but” in which line is the turning point from the Clod’s argument to that of the Pebble.
line 6
the word “but” in line 6 is the turning point from the Clod’s argument to that of the Pebble. While the former argument is one of Innocence, the second shifts to Experience. Why may Blake have chosen to end the debate with the Pebbles argument?
as the Pebble’s argument lends to this poem an interpretation that favours the Pebble’s hardened point of view regarding love.
The pebble suggests that love is an excuse for the aggrandisement of the self. By putting them in this order, what does Blake clearly show?
this shows which experience is dominant in the world
The Clod takes the imprint of the “cattle’s feet” while the Pebble is hard and resistant, unchanging, and is thus a fitting emblem for the soul. Why?
as the soul cannot change nor adapt to other minds
The Pebble suggests that love is used to “blind another to its delight.” where in the poem?
in the last stanza
