Night Flashcards
Summary
Night is a poem that describes two contrasting places: Earth, where nature runs wild, and Heaven, where predation and violence are non-existent.
form and structure
The poem comprises six eight-line stanzas, with lines that shorten towards the end as Blake builds to a dramatic conclusion within each stanza.
The metre is irregular to create rhythmic changes that make this a more complex poem than it first appears. Broadly each stanza stars with iambic tetrameters, but the second half of each stanza has shorter lines make up of a more jaunty rhythm to reflect the positive message.
“The sun descending in the west, The evening star does shine; The birds are silent in their nest, And I must seek for mine.”
“moon like a flower”
Blake introduces the night-time in terms of the natural world through nature imagery (sun, star, bird, nest) rather than the human world.
The speaker is led by nature, rather than the other way round.
Ambiguous speaker, we are unaware of who “I” is.
The moon is described as being like a flower and this simile is used as a way to emphasize its beauty. The moon is then personified which makes it almost like a character in a play rather than a static object.
“Farewell, green fields and happy groves, Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves”
“The feet of angels bright”
“blessing” “bud” “blossom” “bosom”
the tone of the poem is calm and peaceful, reinforced by the pastoral imagery.
“happy groves” they are personified to heighten the grove’s joy and contentment that nature is happy
“lamb”- symbolic of innocence and peace”
“angel”- sense of serenity and creates this otherworldly atmosphere
plosive “b” sound is a harsh contrast to the stressed penultimate syllables which have a softening effect- unpredictability of nature
“Where birds are covered warm; They visit caves of every beast, To keep them all from harm.”
Dissonance of “warm” and “harm”- foreboding and unsettling
In Harold Bloom’s interpretation of “Night,” Bloom notes the melancholy tone of the poem Adams also mentioned in his interpretation of the poem. Bloom believes this melancholy is caused by the speaker’s awareness of the delicate balance of innocence. The speaker realizes that the harmony of innocence can be easily corrupted.
“And there the lion’s ruddy eyes Shall flow with tears of gold, And pitying the tender cries”
Leader recognises that the poem does not try to “explain away” any of the suffering that those in the poem endure, suffering that does not sway the faith of the speaker.
Leader argues that the poem suggests that earth contains “our angels and heavens,” not a divine world. He claims that Blake uses the lion to show that heaven is earthly. The ruddy and crying eyes of the lion depict heaven as “a place of tears,” showing that the world need not be transcended to achieve innocence.
Leader’s view is similar to Gillham’s in that it argues Blake is showing that Heaven is more like earth than a different, new world.
