Themes SOIAE Flashcards
Redemption
Refers to redemptive work of Christ. Emphasises that Christ became as little child’s just as men and women need to return to a state of childlike grace in other to restore the innocence lost to the social machinery of a cruel world
Religious hypocrisy
In “Holy Thursday” and “The little vagabond” Blake critiques the religious leaders of his day for their abuse of spiritual authority. The me who should be shepherds to their flocks are reinforcing a political and economic situation that turns children into short lobbed chimney sweepers and that represses love and creative expression in adults. No patience with clergy who would assuage their own or their earthly patrons guilt by parading poor children through a church on Ascension Day, reserves his sharpest verses to these men
Imagination over reason
Strong proponent of the value of human creativity, or imagination over materialistic rationalism or reason. Blake sees the poorer of art in its various forms to raise the human sir it above its earth bound more. Materialism is soul killing, uses rational thought as an excuse to perpetuate crimes against the innocent via societal and religious norms. Experience decries Reasons hold over imagination a
Nature as the purest state of man
Blake sees in the natural world and idyllic universe that can influence him an beings in a positive manner. “spring” celebrates beauty and fecundity of nature. “London” deride the sterile mechanism of urban society. Characters happiest when surrounded by natural beauty and following their natural instincts. Most oppressed when they are trapped in social or religious institutions subject to the horrors of urban living
The flaws of earthly parents
Failure of human parents to properly nurture their children. The “Little lost boy” is abandoned by his earthly gather, yet rescued by his Heavenly Father. The parents of “the little vagabond” weep in vain as their son is burned alive for heresy. Both mother and father seem frustrated by the child’s temperament in “infant sorrow”. Recurring motifs allows Blake to emphases the falsity of human communities, where parents are defined by society not natural instincts. Emphasises nature and of the divine cars in the form of God the Father.
Social reform
Innocence is a state of man that must be preserved not destroyed and the social systems that seek to destroy innocence must be changed or eliminated
Offers realistic and socially conscious critiques of existing situations. Both of his “chimney sweeper” poems highlight the anise of children by parents and employed as they are forces into hazardous, and potentially fatal situations for the sake of earning money. Both “Holy Thursday” poems decry the overt display of the poor as a spectacle of absolution for the wealthy and affluent. “The Human Abstract” points out that our virtues are predicated on the existence of human suffering.
Destruction of innocence
Society designed to use people for its own selfish needs. Romanticises the children of his pens, placing them in situations common to his day, where they find their simple faith in parents or God challenged buy harsh conditions. Experience is an attention to denounce the cruel society that harms the human soul in such a terrible way, calls reader back to innocent through imagination in effort to redeem a fallen world
