year 10 english protest poetry frank daly 2014
DESCRIPTION
In this magazine you'll find a wonderful analysis of William Blake's life, his poetry as well as an explanation of the Romantic eraTRANSCRIPT
Contents
3-Romantisism and William Blake
2-William Blake Continued
3– Garden of Love Analysis
4-School Boy Analysis
5-Poem-”Misunderstood Fire”
6-Bibliography
Romanticism was the largest artistic movement throughout the late 1700’s and had
major influence across multiple continents through a variety of artistic disciplines.
Many of the values and styles of romantic poetry continued into the 19th century and
can still be seen in modern and contemporary poetry. Although it’s difficult to pin-point
when and where romantic poetry started, we can still trace its beginnings to many
events through time. Romanticism was a large scale, international artistic and philo-
sophical movement that completely changed the way in which Western Cultures
thought about themselves and their place in the world. The main strong holds of the
romantic era were the English and German poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge in
1978 that wrote the first edition of ’Lyrical Ballads’, the composition of ’Hymns in the
Night’ by Novalis in 1832 and finally the poetry of William Blake and Percy Shelley. The
romantic era had a chronological spectrum of about 1770-1870 which means that that
the Romantic era coincides with the ’Age of Revolutions’ meaning that much of the ear-
ly writings were about the American (1776) and French (1789) revolutions– An age of
major political, economic and social upheaval. The romantic period also saw the begin-
ning of the Industrial revolution. These events meant that there was a revolutionary
energy present that would completely transform not only the theory or practise of po-
etry and art but how we perceive the world around us. Themes such as Imagination,
nature, Symbolism, Neoclassism and individuality came to be reshaped, enlarged, fo-
cussed upon, valued and intertwined to change how we see the world around us. In es-
sence the Romantic movement was one in which change was not only embraced but
expressed in new confounding ways.
William Blake (1757-1827) was without a doubt,
one of the greatest figures in literature as he pio-
neered poetry that was specifically crafted into ideo-
logical weapons against establishment. He believed
that poetry could be read and understood by com-
mon people, and thus made them his audience. He
was a major social critic of the Industrial revolution
and was considered a radical and wanted to change
people’s political and religious views through poet-
ry. In many ways Blake could be the most prophetic
of major western poets as he changed the way that
children were treated through famous poems such
as the ‘Chimney Sweep’ in his handmade collection
of protest poems called ‘Songs of Innocence’ and
later in ‘Songs of Experience’. He was also a major
social critic of the Church of England and he was one
of the first and more visionary and unique poets. He
arrived at just the right moment to become tremen-
dously influential changing what people thought
about the Church of England because during his life-
time more an more people were beginning to ques-
tion the "infallibility" of the Bible. If one verse could
be rendered null, that it was up to people to choose
what to believe.
William Blake was born in London, November 28,
1757. His childhood was shadowed by the early
death of two of his siblings who died in infancy.
Even from early childhood, he recalled visions of
God and angelic figures. At age four
he saw God put his head through his
window and at age 9, while walking through the
country side he saw a tree filled with angles.
Due to these reverent visions, his parents
thought it best that he was home-schooled. When
he left art school to be an apprentice to an engraver
he was exposed to a variety of gothic styles present
in Westminster Abbey that would later shape his
work. In 1782 he married Catherine Boucher, who
helped him with his books and artworks and he
taught her how to read. It’s clear that his experience
in life greatly reflect his poetic career. His upbringing
and visions was probably the reason behind him be-
ing a leading nonconformist, defiant of 18th century
neoclassical
conventions. He
believed that
imagination
should be privi-
leged over rea-
son and that
ideals should be
constructed not
from observa-
tions from na-
ture but from inner visions. Hs ideals greatly reflect
his upbringing and his experiences. Different poems
that reflect his upbringing and ideals could be the
‘Songs of Innocence’ and the ‘Songs of Experience’
children’s books as well as the different poems re-
flecting his religious views such as ‘The Book of
Urizen’ the ’Marriage of Heaven and Hell’.
William Blake was a very radical thinker and his
protest poetry was associated with defiance of
neoclassical conventions. He wrote many poems
on a variety of topics through the French Revolu-
tion in the ’French Revolution’ as well as the
American revolution and the stability of Europe
on ’America, a Prophecy’ and ’Europe, a Prophe-
cy’. His strongest or most radical views were
against the Church. His poem ’The Garden of
Love’ received major criticism because it suggests
that the Church of England usurped a once peace-
ful land and is denying people of their earthly
pleasures. Because his was such a visionary, his
views were ahead of his time. For much of his life
Blake was largely un-recognised much like other
famous painters and musicians. In the last twenty
years of his life Blake struggled financially. Now,
in modern times he is recognised as being the 2nd
best British poet throughout
history (after Shakespeare) and receives world-
wide praise and acclaim. Alexander Gilchrist,
Blake’s first biographer, called him a “Man of ab-
solute genius” and an “extraordinary man”. Wil-
liam Wordsworth said that the “madness” of
Blake and his writing interested him more than
the relative calm of Lord Byron and even Walter
Scott.
In his poetry and writing style, Blake was very
much influenced by Milton, another English poet.
Blake tended to use long words and would very
rarely use a ‘blank Verse’. The four of his prophe-
cies (e.g. Jerusalem) mostly went un-rhymed but
had small rhyming fragments. For most of his po-
etry, particularly his poetry that is well known, he
uses a more dry and actually a subtly sarcastic
voice whose rhythm mostly derives from counting
accented syllables per line. Blake also commonly
wrote very traditional and beautiful poetry.
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the
green.
And the gates of this Chapel
were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over
the door;
So I turned to the Garden of
Love,
That so many sweet flowers
bore;
And I saw it was filled with
graves,
And tombstones where flowers
should be;
And Priests in black gowns were
walking their rounds,
And binding with briers my joys
and desires.
In the first of three stanzas there is strong personification in the voice of
the reader e.g. ‘I went’, ‘I saw’ and ‘where I’), there is also clever use of
language such as ‘Garden’ and ‘love’ which are both words in which we
associate a place that is sweet, fresh, quiet, and beautiful and the word
love is deeply imbedded in our society. ‘Garden of love’ is a phrase that
represents protection and care, and it’s also very clear that the garden is
a very special place to the speaker from the last line ‘where I used to
play’. The phrase ‘used to’ and ‘play’ are incredibly important to the
meaning of the stanza as you can only assume that the speaker was a
child (from the word play) and the phrase ‘used to’ meaning that he
doesn’t play anymore. This adds power to the poem as we associate a
child’s playtime with the joy and innocence of youth and this is contrast-
ed with the maturity of the speaker (connotations of knowledge and ex-
perience).
In the second verse, the chapel is obviously a simile for religion as a
whole and most likely the Church of England as that was what influenced
Blake the most throughout his life. (A chapel has strong religious connota-
tions, house of god and prayer). The speaker has come back to a place
that he dearly loved as a child and found a chapel erected in the middle of
it, possibly ruining his beloved paradise. The garden of love could be an
internal state, where the garden only exists ‘inside’ the reader, as a state
of mind when he was a child. The garden could symbolically represent the
joy and wonder of his childhood where the chapel/religion on the other
hand, is what he finds in his adult life as his primary source of wonder and
love. The best part of the stanza is Blake’s use of short and long sounds to
create a prancing rhythm. In the first two lines the stanza sets up a two
short sounds (I-went | to-the) and then a longer phrase/sound finishing
with a short sound (Gar-den of | love). This creates a sweet, joyous pranc-
ing rhythm to match the happy tone of the words.
Blake also sets up his typical rhyming scheme of ABCB that continues into
the second stanza. As the speaker approaches the chapel he finds the
doors shut and the words “Thou shalt not” written on the door, this is
where Blake’s protest against the Church of England comes to light. The
shut doors and the deeply religious phrase ‘Thou shalt not’ represents
how Blake feels that the Church is intentionally forbidding people from
enjoying their natural desires and pleasures. An alternate interpretation
of the 1st line could be that the doors represent the barring of access be-
tween the speaker and the wonder or religion and god
The Garden of Love is a short, beautiful poem that conveys
a meaningful and powerful protest through a very tradi-
tional style of poetry and emotional language. William
Blake’s main audience for the poem, much like his other
poetry, was the common people of England. In this poem
he writes with heartfelt concerns regarding the Church of
England and its problems. In this poem from the ‘Songs of
Innocence’ collection, you find that Blake utilizes some
techniques to the Romantic period such as nature, Neo-
classism and emotion.
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the
green.
And the gates of this Chapel
were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over
the door;
So I turned to the Garden of
Love,
That so many sweet flowers
bore;
And I saw it was filled with
graves,
And tombstones where flowers
should be;
And Priests in black gowns were
walking their rounds,
And binding with briers my joys
and desires.
“Thou shalt no is an incredibly powerful phrase as it has connotative
meaning to the 10 commandments and is linked to Jesus and his
preaching’s, the phrase is also a staccato in the poem as it breaks the
prancing, happy rhythm set out in previous lines. It also slows the
reader down as the mouth reforms every symbol. This is to emphasize
the gravity of the statement. Blake returns to the same pattern of
short and long sounds in the third line and repeats the powerful
phrase ‘garden of love’ for effect and contrast against the horror
painted vividly through powerful language in the third and final stan-
za. The speaker then turns to find consolation in the place that he
cherished deeply as a youth only to find dark morbid horror.
Blake’s typical rhyming scheme is continued in the 2nd stanza before
being completely abandoned in the third stanza for emphasis on the
vivid horror that the speaker feels against the Church of England re-
flecting William Blake’s on views towards religion. Suddenly the
speakers childhood rose-coloured paradise is transformed into a ma-
cabre place of death, as a result of the presence of the chapel and the
influence of the Church. There is powerful imagery and language used
to create a resounding emotional response with the reader e.g.
“Priests with black gowns running their rounds and “Binding with bri-
ers by joys and desires’’. “Priests with black gowns running their
rounds “-Is a clever phrase as it suggests that that this nightmarish
event is not infrequent but rather routine and “Binding with Briers my
joys and desires” reinforces the message of the Church conveyed earli-
er in the line “Thou shalt not”. The last stanza is powerful as it uses
rhyming, alliteration and rhythm incredibly well to nail home the mes-
sage of the poem, that the church of England is usurping a once joyous
world and filling it with nightmarish horror and death. William Blake
felt that the church of England is forbidding people from their natural
joys and desires . The ‘prancing’ rhythm set out in the 1st and 2nd stan-
za is completely abandoned along with the ABCB rything scheme, to
emphasize the power of the language and the meaning of the words.
In conclusion, the garden of love is a sweet-turning bitter poem that
showcases the brilliant craftsmanship of William Blake. By carefully
analysing the poem we found a possible double meaning/
interpretation to the poem, a wonderful use of rhythm and most im-
portantly, powerful use of language.
The Schoolboy"
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!
But to go to school in a summer morn, -
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.
Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!
The language used throughout the poem is simple but powerful and the
tone is rather melancholic. In the first stanza a multipart structure is
established which continues as a kind of theme for the rest of the po-
em. The structure mainly involves laying out the beginning of two meta-
phors that are explored in subsequent stanzas. It’s clear that nature has
major influence on William Blake’s writing as symbols such as plants and
birds feature heavily throughout the poem. An example of this is in line
2 where the birds and the trees represent the need for a connection
between children and nature. In line 4, this balance and connection is
again evident, the skylark singing with the speaker in harmony
The primary goal that Blake wanted to achieve in the first stanza was to
lay out an idyllic, almost utopian scene, to contrast with the darker
more powerful imagery in the stanzas to come. This devise is powerful
to highlight further Blake’s protest against disciplinary education. The
harmony and peace set up in the 1st stanza is shattered at the begin-
ning of the 2nd stanza where the is an obvious shift in tone. On one lev-
el, the change is apparent through the use of the conjunction, ‘but’,
however, in terms of meaning, there is a change in scene as the peace-
ful environment changes to the dark foreboding of the classroom. In the
2nd stanza Blake also uses repetition of certain phrases to subtly en-
courage the readers to make comparisons between the first and 2nd
stanzas contextually e.g. “Summer Morn” and to a lesser extent “O” in
the 2nd line. By repeating the phrase “Summer Morn”, Blake ensures
that the 2nd stanza will also have a
similar rhyming scheme thus mak-
ing it sound similar but different
in tone. This is definitely the case
with “worn” in line 3 rhyming
with the inverted term
“outworn”. Blake highlights the
difference in tone with powerful
language and adjectives such as
‘droopy’ and ‘anxious’.
The School boy is a highly complex, provocative and sincere protest
poem by William Blake that carefully explores his heartfelt concerns
and worries regarding the English education system in the 17th cen-
tury, a topic that he has personal experience as he was so opposed
to the harsh disciplinary system that he was home-schooled.
O father and mother if buds are
nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay, -
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what grief’s
destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?
Surely the most important part of the poem is Blake’s use of
metaphor. In the third and fourth stanzas the bird and plant
metaphors that were established in the 1st stanza come fully
to life. Blake chooses to represent the child with symbols
from nature rather than portraying him in a conventional
figurative manor. One example of his use of metaphor is in
the third stanza in line 1 where the word drooping evokes
the image of a dying plant but it is more obvious in stanza 4
where the child is likened to a caged bird and how he can’t
fully express itself in such an environment. In the last few
stanzas Blake explores how the education system can be
damaging to the child and He also explains that he isn’t
against authority figures by appealing the child’s parents in
stanza 5- ‘O father and mother if buds are nipped’. When
read in its entirety, it’s clear that Blake isn’t against educa-
tion as in the third stanza he mentions reading, but propos-
es a new kind of learning which is more focused on nature
than the classroom.
In conclusion, ‘The Schoolboy’ is a great
example of a branch of William Blake’s
poetry that is more traditional. The six
stanza poem is much more common in
William Blake’s ’Songs of Innocence’ and
the poem is also rather provocative in
the way that it uses symbolism through-
out the poem such as the bird trapped in
the cage and the plant drooping at it’s
seat.
"Misunderstood Fire"
I went to my sweet quiet town,
And saw what I never had seen:
A riot was boiling in the street,
Where poor Michael Brown had
been.
But the people in protest were
peaceful,
And “Please don’t Shoot’ writ on
their sign,
So I turned to my sweet quiet town,
Now filled with fire of cloud nine;
And I saw it explode with fury,
And guns where flowers should be;
And Police in armor were walking
their rounds,
And destroying the name of justice.
The ‘Misunderstood Fire’ a protest poem in the
style of William Blake’s three verse ‘Songs of Innocence’ poetry. The same layout for each verse has
been incorporated as well as the rhyming scheme of ABCB. I my protest poem I wanted to take a top-
ic completely different to Romanticism, such as Racism and police injustice in the US. Recently an
African American teenager was shot dead by a police officer, in Ferguson Missouri, while surrender-
ing according to eye witnesses. The killing and the relative lack of punishment to the police officer
has sparked days of calm protests that turn violent during the night. Police in Ferguson responded to
the protests with tear gas, rubber bullets and a 12am-5pm curfew. In my poem I tried to express the
anger and emotion in the event by setting up a contrasting scene of a peaceful quiet town and a vio-
lent protest and justice system. I also tried to use powerful language and symbols such as cloud nine,
‘exploding with fury’ and destroying justice
Songs of Innocence (London: Printed by William Blake, 1789); revised and enlarged as Songs of Innocence and of Expe-
rience (London: Printed by William Blake, 1794; facsimile, London: William Blake Trust, 1955).
Poetical Sketches (London: Privately printed, 1783; facsimile, London: William Griggs, 1890).
An Analysis of William Blake's 'The Schoolboy' 2010, Enzine Articles, accessed24 August 2014, <http://
ezinearticles.com/?An-Analysis-of-William-Blakes-The-Schoolboy&id=4711451>. Dover, R 1995, Songs of Innocence by William Blake, Hypertext, accessed 26 August 2014, <http://
www.glyndwr.ac.uk/rdover/blake/songsinn.htm>. Maybry, J 2001, Garden of Love, N.A, accessed 22 August 2014, <http://www.apocryphile.org/jrm/
articles/garden.html>. Romanticism 2009, English Department, Brooklyn College, accessed 24 August 2014, <http://
academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html>. Sinning, R 2008, Garden of Love, N.A, accessed 21 August 2014, <http://www.unc.edu/~rsinning/>. ‘William Blake Biography’ 2014, A&E Television Networks, 9 August, accessed 25 August 2014, <http://
www.biography.com/people/william-blake-9214491#later-years>. William Blake: Influences and Reference to Pop Culture n.d., TheHyperTexts, accessed 26 August 2014,
<http://www.thehypertexts.com/William%20Blake%20Influence%20References%20Popular%
20Culture.htm>. William Blake 2014, The Poetry Foundation, accessed 12 August 2014, <http://
www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-blake>.
William Blake n.d., Painting, Gallery, accessed 28 August 2014, <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/0/00/William_Blake_by_Thomas_Phillips.jpg>.
Image29 n.d., Painting, Gallery, accessed 28 August 2014, <http://mural.uv.es/carmapa2/arte8_img/
Image29.jpg>.