The Ecchoing Green

Question 1

The Ecchoing Green Stanza 1 - 3 Key techniques and analysis

Answer 1

1. ‘Make happy the skies’ ‘The merry bells ring’

• Personification of the world give a sense of childlike wonder about the poem
• Edenic setting

2. ‘To welcome the spring’

• Traditional connotations of spring as renewal, positive setting
• Harmonious personification, the world welcomes spring - Links back to Edenic setting

3. ‘Our sports shall be seen on the Ecchoing Green’

• Certainty of ‘shall’ creates sense of harmony, nothing can go wrong seemingly
• Collective pronoun of ‘our’ offers sense of community, continuation of edenic setting
• Misspelling of titular green perhaps creates sense of uncanniness, something not quite right? Uncertainty of changing times?

Question 2

The Ecchoing Green Stanza 2 - 3 Key techniques and analysis

Answer 2

1. ‘Old John with white hair does laugh away care’

• John characterised as happy and at peace
• ‘White’ suggests wisdom and purity, Blake does not demonise age, rather embraces it
• ‘Laugh away care’ very positive characterisation

2. ‘Among the old folk’

• Elders are given a similar sense of community to the children
• Furthers idyllic setting, all generations have their place, and are all at peace

3. ‘In our youth time were seen on the Ecchoing green’

• Sense of nostalgia, poignant moment
• Unique misspelling of ‘Ecchoing’ helps to bind the generations together, both enjoying exact same place

Question 3

The Ecchoing Green Stanza 3 - 3 Key techniques and analysis

Answer 3

1. ‘Round the laps of their mothers’

• Comforting imagery
• Maternal figure furthers the comforting final stanza

2. ‘Like birds in their nest are ready for rest’

• Animal imagery to convey unity with nature
• Continues to push importance of community
• Analeptic to joyful birds in first stanza, creates sense of harmony

3. ‘Sport no more seen on the Darkening Green’

• ‘Darkening’ can be seen as foreshadowing of the end of ‘Sport’, as experience overtakes innocence
• Age presented as an encroachment on the edenic peace seen in the poem

Question 4

The Ecchoing Green - 2 Broad Contexts

Answer 4

1. Blake’s views on children

• Blake viewed children as incredibly valuable and saw their protection as one of his key endeavours
• This poem could be a response to the brutal conditions children as young as 5 were working under due to the apprentice act 1768
• Blake famously said ‘He who teaches the child to doubt shall ne’er the grave get out’

2. Blake’s views on nature

• As a romantic poet, Blake opposed the industrial revolution due to its destruction of nature
• The enclosure acts, 1604 - 1914 - over 5200 seperate acts leading to the private ownership of over 6.8 million acres of land previously considered common, eliminating many ‘greens’

Question 5

The Ecchoing Green - 3 critics

Answer 5

1. Harold Bloom – “Blake’s pastoral innocence in ‘The Ecchoing Green’ is shadowed by the inevitability of experience, subtly foreshadowing the transition from childhood to old age.”
2. Northrop Frye – “The poem’s cyclical structure mirrors the natural rhythms of life, blending joy with the quiet reminder of mortality.”
3. David Erdman – “Though celebratory in tone, ‘The Ecchoing Green’ hints at the constraints of time, as the ‘darkening green’ suggests the encroachment of experience upon Edenic bliss.”