Restrictive authority figures

• The Voice of the Ancient Bard - 'They stumble all night over bones of the dead... And wish to lead others when they spoiled be led' 


  • authority figures have been misled
  • priests/ parents/ nurses have been misguided
  • they stumble over bones of those they oppress - doing it at night showing darkness/ ignorance
  • 'And they feel they know not what but care' - authority figures only know worry - they confuse worry with love & in doing so entrap themselves & those they control in society
  • in order to recapture ethos of eden we need enlightened leaders - we don't have enlightened leaders so therefore are trapped in 'endless maze'
  • first step to questioning is to question authority figures - bard frustrated with power people give to authority figures
• The Little Boy Lost - 'Father, father where are you going?' 'The night was dark, no father was there' 'away the vapour flew'


  • desperate cry - underscores vulnerability & dependency - parental figure offers no guidance or reassurance
  • night = experienced world where there is no one to take care of the child - failure of authority figures
  • vapour reflects the child chasing an illusion of parental care further into the material world
  • abandonment ruptures child's innocent perception - trust in adult figures is betrayed
  • illustrates deceptive illusion of security projected by authority figures, exposing harsh reality that concern is superficial & they will abandon duty when it no longer serves their interests
• The Garden of Love - 'And 'Thou salt not' writ over the door' 



  • transforms what was space of joy & freedom to one of restriction & prohibition
  • institution imposes rigid moral laws that exclude rather than embrace
  • Urizen promotes idea of exclusion/ enclosure
  • not opening or welcoming - people not encoruaged
  • organised religion suppresses human desires & replaces unbound spirituality with rigid doctrine that dictate & constrain human behaviour
• The Garden of Love - 'And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,/ And binding with briars my joys and desires' 


  • pastoral/ nurturing figures (like shepherds) become cold, intimidating overseers - priests do not offer spiritual care, instead acts as agents of surveillance & institutional control, patrolling sacred spaces to enforce obedience & suppress individual freedom - church functions to maintain power by installing fear & passivity
  • humanity is actively constrained by thorny weeds - church not only discourages joy, but actively wounds & suppresses it
  • tone of resignation - speaker is defeated - does not resist but instead recognises & mourns his oppression allows it to happen - individuals internalise suffering as inevitable, rather than something that can be resisted
  • What was once natural and sacred (the Garden of Love = Eden) has been corrupted by human-made rules, replacing joy with fear & rigid doctrine
• A Poison Tree - 'I was angry with my foe' anger grows to 'soft deceitful wiles' 'Til it bore an apple bright' 


  • alternative story of genesis - god is deceptive & punishing
  • speakers repressed anger grows into deceit, leading to creation of apple - symbolising how repressing emotions leads to manipulation & sin
  • apple symbolises deception, echoing Eden's forbidden fruit but reframed as a product of repression, not innate moral failure
  • tree represents corrupted knowledge or temptation, planted not for enlightenment but to maintain control through guilt & shame
  • Blake implies God intentionally set the tree to trap humanity in a cycle of manipulation - jealous of his creation - link to Urizen
  • Gods claim to be loving/ benevolent is revealed as trick - adam & eve were deceived, and humanity by extension continues to be controlled by guilt & shame
  • god set them up to ensure control & use atonement as tool to manipulate generations
• A Little Boy Lost - 'Nought loves another as itself,/ Nor venerates another so' 'Nor is it possible to though/ A greater than itself to know'


  • child trying to follow Jesus' teaching to 'love thy neighbour as thyself' - a love that recognises no one as greater or more worthy than another
  • child suggests we can't imagine anything greater than our own thoughts - our understanding of god is shaped by personal experience - implies god exists within each person, and therefore to lover another is to love the divine within them
  • belief in spiritual equality challenges church's authority which claims exclusive control over religious truth
  • child not lost because he is heretical or sinful, but because he dares to speak a truth that undermines religious power
  • punishment for this reveals church leaders as restrictive authority figures, silencing personal understanding in favour of institutional control
• A Little Boy Lost - 'In trembling zeal he seized his hair' 


  • priest violently silences individual understand of faith
  • action of extreme violence masked as priestly care & righteous punishment for heresy
  • while the child is innocently expressing love & following commands of Jesus , priests views this as dangerous heresy
• A Little Boy Lost - 'on the altar high'

  • priest turns sacred space meant for communion into a stage for sacrifice
  • abuse of religious power - instead of guiding people to personal spiritual discovery, the priesthood asserts dominance, demonstrating its own interpretation of faith & demanding conformity & obedience
  • church becomes a totalitarian institution, working alongside state to manipulate belief & suppress dissent
• A Little Boy Lost - 'burned in a holy place' 'Where many had been burned before' 


  • irony - church twists its sacred role into an instrument of punishment
  • it is not an isolated incident - reflects wider, systemic persecution of anyone who deviates from orthodoxy
  • chilling inevitability & normalisation of persecution - horror becomes almost ritualised, disguised as a form of justice or religious duty
  • public rendered powerless, either complicit through silence or crushed by fear
  • in a society ruled by restrictive authority, innocence and dissent are doomed to be destroyed again and again
• A Little Boy Lost - 'The weeping child could not be heard/ The weeping parents wept in vain'


  • highlights complete powerlessness of child & parents in face of institutional authority
  • Childs voice silenced - innocence & reason are dismissed by church
  • parents unable to protect son or challenge church's actions
  • even those who love & care deeply are helpless against the overwhelming force of religious authority - power overrides compassion & justice
• A Little Girl Lost - 'Parents were afar;/ Strangers came not near;/ And the maiden soon forgot her fear'


  • in absence of authority figures, Lyca able to experience all emotions of affection freely
  • society causes them to fear affection & true love - without presence of adults to enforce judgement or repression, Lyca is liberated from internalised fear & can live without shame
  • true affection & emotional expression are natural, and it is only the fear of social condemnation that turns them into something shameful
  • when children allowed to feel & explore freely, like Lyca here, they can live with the same openness & vulnerability as the lily - pure, unguarded & unafraid
• A Little Girl Lost - 'But his loving look,/ Like the holy book'


  • father imposes on relationship
  • love shaped by religious doctrine where it is written down & corrupted - used as tool of control - becomes entangled w repression
  • church's teachings are internalised by parents, who then feel it is their duty to impose the same restrictions on their children
  • father's desire to protect daughter is rooted in fear of sin, not cruelty - believes he must restrict her in order to save her soul
  • in fallen world, authority figures confuse repression w care
  • all authority figures install fear as a form of control - producing passivity & obedience, which benefits power structures
  • this passivity causes suffering for child but that is irrelevant to authority, whose aim is to maintain control by whatever means
  • Lyca, once free of fear, now enters reality - fallen world where parental love = survellienace & innocence is policed
• A Little Girl Lost 'Ona! Pale and weak!'


  she has now come pale and weak to him - under his authority she loses energy - becomes easier to control
• A Little Girl Lost - 'Oh the dismal care'

  • worry he has because he has a child
  • has a responsibility to mould her into the way society wants her to be
  • this care is dismal - doesn't enjoy being a parent because for him it involves him constantly saying no to do what is best for her
• Why is Lyca lost?

  • Lost in conflict between teachings and her desires
  • In limbo between innocence & experience 
  • Been lost to society - church and father view her as lost as she ventures into relationship they disprove of