Holy Thursday

Question 1

Holy Thursday Stanza 1 - 3 techniques and analysis

Answer 1

1. ‘Is this a holy thing to see in a rich and fruitful land’

Use of religious language criticises the Church
Language of plenty in ‘rich’ and ‘fruitful’ to present greed of Britain

2. ‘Babes reduc’d to misery’
   Emotional appeal of the child to make the line more impacful
3. ‘Fed with cold and usurous hand’

‘Cold’ hand creates lack of humanity, death like imagery
‘Usurous’ phonetically similar to ulcerous, creating disgusting image
Also, Usurous related to greed and overcharging, links in to theme of inequality

Question 2

Holy Thursday Stanza 2 - 3 techniques and analysis

Answer 2

1. ‘Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of Joy’

• Reformulation of ‘trembing cry’ into ‘song of joy’ suggests corruption of government, able to ignore the people’s cries.
• Repeated rhetorical question, highlights how
  incomprehensible inequality really is.

2. ‘And so many children poor?’

• 3rd rhetorical question, links back to incomprehensibility of British class system
• However, feels less like a question, more like an accusation, links to Blake’s views on British class
• Repetition of youth, increases the shock of Blake’s message

3. ‘It is a land of poverty!’

• Poverty takes on double meaning, both in terms of wealth of the people, and the morals of the leaders.
• Exclamative suggests defiant, outraged tone

Question 3

Holy Thursday Stanza 3 - 3 techniques and analysis

Answer 3

1. ‘And their’ x3

• Use of syndetic listing conveys amount of suffering faced by poor, narrator seems as if they are surprised the list continues
• Childlike conjunction of ‘And’ as opposed to more traditional asyndetic listing creates sense of childlike horror at the situation
• Assertive anaphoric, ‘their’ replaces children or ‘Land’, either sympathetic for poor or accusation of government’s lack of care

2. ‘Sun never shine’ ‘ Bleak and bare’ ‘Fill’d with thorns’

• Semantic field of farming and infertility to represent lack of growth in poverty
• Hyperbole of ‘Sun never shine’ suggestive of Blake’s extreme anger at lack of equality
• ‘Fill’d with thorns’ suggests hostility and danger

3. ‘It is eternal winter there’

• Link to infertility again, growth impossible. Physical growth (Lack of nutrients) / Economic growth.
• ‘Eternal’ hyperbolic, suggests that class movement is impossible
• Characterisation of poverty as ‘there’ suggests seperation between classes, critical of government.

Question 4

Holy Thursday Stanza 4 - 2 techniques and analysis

Answer 4

1. ‘Where-e’er the sun does shine’

• Soft vowel sound of ‘where-e’er’ creates sense of calm
• Inversion of earlier imagery creates vivid comparison of life as poor vs rich

2. ‘Nor poverty the mind appall’

• Dual interpretation
• First, vision of idealised world in which poverty is no longer conceivable
• Second, satire of those who live in this ideal world (upper class) and choose to ignore poverty
• Reinforced by word ‘appall’, feels like disgust, rather than anger at government.

Question 5

Holy Thursday - 3 Broad Contexts

Answer 5

1. Poverty in Blake’s lifetime

• in the 1790s, over 100,000 children lived in extreme poverty
• ‘Babes reduced to misery’ a reflection on infant mortality, over 50% of impoverished children would die before aged 5
• Workhouses, which had been around for over 600 years but only officially coined in the 1830s, essentially criminalised poverty, reflecting government role in hurting the poor

2. The lives of children in Blake’s lifetime

• In factories, children as young as five were employed under the apprentice act (1768)
• Historian E.P. Thompson estimated that over 2/3 of child labourers worked in dangerous jobs, mines, factories etc.
• Blake famously saw children as the epitome of innocence which need protection, stating ‘He who shall teach the child to doubt / The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.’

3. The romantic movement

• As a part of the romantic movement, alongside Wordsworth, Shelley and Coleridge, Blake was very critical of modernity
• By the 1790s, London’s population had reached a million people
• The industrial revolution, beginning in 1760, caused huge wealth inequality and unemployment, leading to rebellion such as Luddism, a feared group of machine destroyers - Blake can be considered a paralell to these rebellions

Question 6

Holy Thursday 2 Critical quotes

Answer 6

1. Serda Güzel - Blake “questions the very idea of Britain as a rich and civilized nation,”
2. Matthew Corrigan says Blake explores the ‘harsh conditions experienced by destitute children, challenging the reader’s perception of societal benevolence.”