The Garden of Love

Question 1

The Garden of Love Stanza 1 - 2 key techniques and analysis

Answer 1

1. ‘A chapel was built in the midst’

• ‘In the midst’ suggests invasive nature of church
• ‘Chapel’ could be synechdouche, commentary on religion as a whole

2. ‘Where I used to play on the green’

• Colour imagery of ‘green’ suggestive of nature
• Imagery of childlike joy, now being invaded by the church
• Past tense shows has this has been taken away by the building of the church

Question 2

The Garden of Love Stanza 2 - 3 key techniques and analysis

Answer 2

1. ‘And the gates of this Chapel were shut’

• Presents religion as keeping people out rather than accepting by the metaphor of the ‘gates’
• ‘this’ Chapel suggests not all chapels are like this, Blake dissaproves of a certain type of institution, not religion as a whole

2. '’Thou shalt not’ writ over the door’

• Subversion of usual religious message
• Portrays christianity as restrictive by nature, condemning people based on their views
• Use of quotes seperates this line, feels taken from church or perhaps God himself

Question 3

The Garden of Love Stanza 3 - 4 key techniques and analysis

Answer 3

1. ‘It was filled with graves’ / ‘And tombstones where flowers should be’

• Semantic field of death replacing ‘love’ creates sense of darkness and evil connected with church
• Represents the fearmongering of organised religion, replacing the joys of life (flowers) with fears of hell

2. ‘And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds’

• Use of colour black to suggest sin and corruption, Suggests priests are made to cause fear not joy.
• ‘Walking their rounds’ suggests patrolling, creates an almost militaristic sense of authority.
• Reflected by Meter, Iambic tetrameter, to sound like footsteps.

3. ‘Binding with briars my joys and desires’

• ‘Briars’ = Thorns, creating sense of violence and suffering
• Verb ‘binding’ furthers the sense of restriction seen in the poem
• ‘Joys and desires’ traditionally associated with the heart, creating violent image of thorns plunging into a heart

Question 4

The Garden of Love - 2 Broad Critics

Answer 4

1. John R Mabry: “symbols which are ordinarily considered benign turn on us, becoming monstrous and wicked”.
2. Raymond Williams: Blake is ‘Part of a group of poets who sees themselves as agents of the revolution of life’

Question 5

The Garden of Love - 2 Broad contexts

Answer 5

1. Organised Religion

• throughout the 1700s, simony was practiced, selling high ranking church positions to the highest bidders
• Many used the bible as a defence of slavery during the 1800s, particularly Ephesians 6:5. Many American churches were invested in plantations
• Even in the modern day, Blake’s critiques ring true, such as the catholic sexual abuse scandal - where many incidents of sexual abuse were covered up to protect the institution

2. Blake’s faith

• Blake’s faith was famously controversial, explicitly rejecting a majority of the old testament, particularly the virgin birth
• He said that the Bible was a ‘great code of art’ but not historically accurate, rather an analogy
• Jesus dissapeared from his work for over a decade after ‘innocence’, Leo Damsroch argues this was ‘probably because he saw Jesus as coopted by organised religion’