William Blake: Poems Flashcards
A Poison Tree
- The narrator does not confess his anger, and thus it grows more deadly. Like a poison tree, it finally bears fruit.
- His enemy steals into his garden and in the morning is found dead under the tree.
-The poem is a warning against holding grudges: Although the narrator wrath with his ‘friend’ ends when he tells him, the wrath he harbours toward his foe turns into a tree, that bears and apple. The narrator knows the temptation to steal the apple will be too strong; he also is aware that the apple is poisonous, thus his revenge complete to his own pleasure.
-In the world of experience there can be no genuine knowledge, only the polluted handing on of jealousy and anger which characterises fallen relations between people. In the second stanza, it is though ‘fear’, ‘tears’, ‘smiles’, and ‘wiles’ (lines 5,6,7,8) have all become the same. In this realm of hypocrisy and disguise it is no longer possible to distinguish between different emotions. All are at the service of lust and vengeance.
-This image is one of Blake’s most intricate, although closely related to the tree in ‘The Human Abstract’. Its complexity could be caused by the fact that in the world of experience it is difficult to apportion blame, for we are all afflicted, or infected by the same perversions of human value.
-Thus we may criticise the narrator; but to what extent do we have to involve the ‘foe’ (line 3) too, since he succumbs to the temptation of stealing an apple - or is he merely an innocent victim of the machinations of the protagonist?
-This is particularly eloquent example of the ways in which Blake takes up key elements in Christian imagery and develops them for his own ends. The apple is obviously the apple that causes the downfall of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden; but here the narrative position is all-important. For the temptation that was offered to Adam and Eve was, we are told in the bible, the work of the devil; here it seems to be the work of the narrator. Is Blake making a sinister parallel between the two?
-We may therefore say that in the world of experience each of us finds ourselves enacting diabolic plans and plots: it is a realm of paranoia and vengeance, and, even worse, a world in which we feel pleasure when are destructive plots are successful. Thus the position of the devil becomes something we all succumb to in this world of experience: we may have knowledge of our own motives, greater knowledge than the world of innocence, but we no not use this knowledge to improve our relations to other people, rather we use it for destructive ends, acting under the delusion that the harm of other people somehow helps us, whereas, in fact, we are all diminished and damaged by the damage we cause others.
Contextual point
-The Fall is the work of the Devil, but also the work of the serpent; thus referring back to the ‘worm’ in ‘The Sick Rose’.
Introduction poem analysis
- the poet sees a vision of a child on a cloud.
- The child instructs him first to play a tune, then to sing, then to write his poems down.
- poem introduces a certain kind of innocent writing symbolised in conventional eighteenth century pastoral terms by the shepherds pipe.
- Blake is assumed very much present as the narrator. (The I that occurs)
- the poem itself with its jaunty rhythms and simple rhymes is an example of the song the child asks him to ‘pipe (a song with merry cheat)’.
- amid the apparent simplicity of structure and narrative stance, there is something reflexive about blades work. Something that calls attention to itself as an act of writing or inscription.
- the symbol of the ‘lamb’ (line 5) points to both innocent happiness, as well as giving the poem an association with Jesus. Leading us toward the complicated arguments about religion which Blake will mount throughout both sets of the songs.
- there is a duality of reaction in the second stanza: when the song about the ‘lamb’ is first piped, we are told of the piper’s ‘merry chear’ ; but when he pipes it again we are told that the child ‘wept to hear’ (line 8). Although come the third stanza we are told that then ‘weeping with joy’ (line 12) this may not erase a different impression in the second one, where the weeping might also have something to do with the fragility of the lamb.
- The world of innocence might not be all there is to apprehend and that we need to be prepared for the very different understandings of the world which we encounter in later poems.
-critics have examined this as the most innocent of Blakes songs, however there is a word that seems to jar. What does Blake mean by ‘stain’d’ in line 18? Refer to the mutual operation of ink and water (thus to water colour) of his illuminations, or does he suggest that he will taint the subject of innocence just by writing about it.
The shepherd analysis
- Similar to ‘The Lamb’ this poem plays on conventional biblical imagery of of the ‘good shepherd’, while while at the same time adopting the equally conventional poetic identification of the shepherd with the poet.
- Interpret shepherd as an emblem of perfect natural freedom.
- he is free from the trammels of organised city life.
- He is like God in the sense he is an ultimate father figure. The lamb and ewe need his protection the most. It is on their behalf that he remains watchful.
- This means the poem places alongside the image of pure freedom the necessity to remain forever watchful and alert lest the paradisal state of affairs should come under some sudden attack.
- out of all poems in SOI, critics argue this is where Blake is most obviously speaking to children. To remind them how much in need of protection they are.
- the conclusion of the poem ends on an indirect question, what would happen if the shepherd is ‘nigh’ (line 8) is the peace they experience destined to be shattered by a coming world of experience that we all must enter and one stage at another.
- Might also want to think about the work strays that concludes the second line. May connote to the pleasure of freedom, but also might refer to the notion of getting lost. If lost the shepherd can no longer protect. Blake presents strong images of loss or freedom in other poems of SOI, suck as ‘A Dream’, ‘Little Boy Lost’, Little Boy Found’, ‘Little Girl Lost’, ‘Little girl Found’, Blake presents us with a powerful array of images of loss and straying. Critics are puzzled as to why these poems are in innocence as the topics they touch on are dark and that of experience.
The Lamb
The Lamb could be interpreted as a metaphor for a child, the child is asking the narrator to tell them who created them. The first stanza is the question about who made ‘thee’, the second is the answer. Where the narrator says that the Lamb of god (Jesus is the creator)
- This is the understanding at a child like level, which the poems simple sentence and rhyme structure intends it to seem.
- At a more philosophical level, it can be interpreted as Blake asking the question to mankind in the world of experience if they have forgotten who created them, as they are caught up in war and industrial labour, they must remember that there remains a more innocent world we can see if we want to.
