The Schoolboy Flashcards
1
Q
I love to rise in a summer morn
A
- Positive natural imagery
- Links to romanticism
2
Q
The distant huntsman
A
- ‘distant’ Dangers are far from him.
3
Q
‘the skylark sings with me.
Oh! what sweet company.’
A
- Melodramatic happiness
- Creates a sharp contrast with the school
- Emphasis on nature’s beauty.
4
Q
‘But to go to school in a summer morn, Oh! It drives all joy away;’
A
- Nature cannot protect the schoolboy from the school institution.
- School begins (and the indoctrination it represents) starts at an early age.
5
Q
‘a cruel eye’
A
- Synedoche, represents the teachers.
- Teachers or school are personified.
- Children are constantly surveyed.
- Oppression
6
Q
‘little ones’
A
- Narrator is older than the children who have to go through the school institution.
- Radical voice of poet.
- Lack of nuture, maternal response versus the freedom of nature.
7
Q
‘then at times I drooping sit,’
A
- Imagery of a plant withering prematurely.
8
Q
‘the dreary shower’
A
- School is not a nurturing environment.
- The unnatural nature of the institution.
9
Q
‘How can the bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing?’
A
- There is an expectation of children to be grateful for the miserable experiences within the education institution.
- part of the semantic field of birds
10
Q
‘droop his tender wing,’
A
- ‘Tender’ The children are innocent or in pain from having their wings clipped.
11
Q
‘O father and mother!’
A
- Child pleading for escape or narrator pleading for parents to understand their childrens misery?
- Blake is warning parents about the pressures of school.
- Here, Blake is not against all forms of authority as he favours the parents right to protect their children.
12
Q
‘If buds are nipped, and blossoms blown away,’
A
- Premature transition of season imagery.
- These children are forced to grow up too fast.
13
Q
‘How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear?’
A
- Children do not have the opportunity to develop a unique identity.
14
Q
‘When the blasts of winter appear?’
A
- School is monotonus
- Winter = adulthood. School thrusts children out into the world when they are not ready, leading to their suffering and misery.
