The little vagabond

Question 1

summary

Answer 1

Blake uses a naive speaker and antithetical imagery to posit the radical idea that a warm, cheerful pub would be a better place to have religious services than a cold, inhumane church.

Question 2

(‘Church is cold’, ‘used’, ‘usage’)

(‘dame Lurch’, ‘bandy children’, ‘fasting’, ‘birch’)

Answer 2

The imagery of poverty and institutional exploitation as well as the imagery of the harshness of parish education all suggest the extent of the misery of a church and how it represses individuals.

Question 3

(‘sing’, ‘pray’, ‘preach’)

Answer 3

The verbs of religious praise suggest the paradoxical holiness of the pub.

Question 4

‘happy as birds in spring’

Answer 4

The simile of the joy of alehouse depicts its alignment with nature, implying its goodness and unity.

Question 5

‘cold’, ‘fasting’ and ‘birch’

‘kiss’, give ‘drink’ and ‘apparel’,

Answer 5

The antithetical symbols of treatment of children depict the Church and local schools as ‘cold’, ‘fasting’ and ‘birch’ whilst the charitable, hospitable pub would ‘kiss’, give ‘drink’ and ‘apparel’, to suggest how smaller institutes are more loving than large powerful establishments.

Question 6

repetition of ‘dear mother’

Answer 6

establishes the speaker as naive and innocent (combined with the diminutive ‘little’ in the title).

Question 7

The naive speaker, ‘devil’ and ‘barrel’.

Answer 7

suggests that the pub as a place of congregation would, therefore, end the church’s obsession with the ‘Devil’ and the ‘Barrel’, highlighting its ascetic drive for temperance and abstinence which Blake views as inhumane.