William Blake
Although William Blake wasn’t widely known during his day, he was very well known during the modern counter-culture. In addition to being an artist with words, Blake was also an artist with the brush. Some of his famous art works include Red Dragon and Dante’s Inferno which are both very striking pieces. Blake’s ways of expressing himself, through his art and poetry, were viewed as eccentric and rather intense. Some people even believed him to be mad in his day. Even though his works were out of the ordinary, his expressiveness and creativity are what made him stand out amongst other poets.
In one of his two most famous works, Songs of Innocence and Experience, he expresses the ‘innocence’ of life through the voice of children (as in The Chimney Sweeper) and the observations of children as well (Nurse’s song).
In Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper, the voice of a young boy tells the story of the life of sweepers. Most of them came from impoverished homes and the working conditions were horrible. No place for a child to be to say the least. Beside the work being unfitting for a child, sickness and death were common from the children getting black lung from breathing in soot. The children were constantly surrounded by misery and distress, but somehow still managed to gather some kind of happiness, even if it was by thinking of their friends passing on to go to heaven…
And by came an Angel who had a bright key
And he open’d the coffins and set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping and laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in a sun
The thought of being in a better place, even if by death, was all they had to go for. Their innocence had been taken from them and Blake did a wonderful job expressing their despair with his style (rhyme schemes and imagery).
In contrast, Blake’s Nurse’s Song captures the true innocence of children. In this piece he speaks through an observation…
When the voices of little children are heard on the green/….
My heart is at rest within my breast…
and through the voice of the children…
No no let us play, for it is yet day…
I enjoyed Blake’s work, both the expression of his societal awareness and his writing style.
3 comments:
LaDonna,
I am glad you enjoyed Blake. You refer in this post to several poems and many topics (of form, style and content). I think your post would be more successful had you focused on one of his poems and explored it in more depth and detail, though.
I also enjoyed Blake, especially the "Chimney Sweeper" that you mention. It was interesting to see how young chimney sweepers were during that time and how horrible the lives they lead were. I like to think that maybe Blake's poems had some influence and maybe made a difference on how they were treated during that time.
LaDonna,
i thought you did a great job discussing Blake and his unique style of writing. He really does have a way of connecting with the reader and getting his point across. I agree that much of it is dark and satirical but i think that he is most effective this way. Nice job
Post a Comment