blake

• Introduction (innocence)


  • Repetition of "Piping down the valleys wild / Piping songs of pleasant glee," creates clean alliterative /p/ sounds
  • Wider-spaced repetitions weave the poem
• The Lamb


  • Repetition of "piped with merry cheer" underscores how closely linked speaker and child are, and how their joy comes from creative interplay
  • Repetition of "song about a Lamb." He "wept to hear"
  • Imagery complicates the speaker's picture
  • Allusion to the old symbol for Christ, the lamb, who is meek and gentle, and because he gets sacrificed
• The Tiger


  • The final stage of creation is an experience transmitted
  • Imagery of "I pluck'd, I stain'd" to write his "happy songs
  • Imagery of "damage to the landscape" and "loss, injury, and sacrifice—the unavoidable perils of an imperfect world"
  • Rhetorical questions create a kind of echo, each question answered only by a further question
  • Personification of the tiger, equating the creator's efforts to humans
• The Ecchoing Green


  • Repetition of "On the Ecchoing Green" describes an echo using an echo, creating an infinite hall-of-mirrors effect
  • Imagery connects the poem's philosophy to tangible experience, like the song of the "birds of the bush" colliding with the "bells' cheerful sound"
  • Imagery of the "darkening Green" suggests an image of endless expansion and repetition of greenery
• Earth's Answer


  • Assonance lacks harsh consonantal sound, which expresses overall delight in God's creation
  • Apostrophe allows the speaker to appeal to the Earth directly and answer the question of who made it
  • Epizeuxis in lines 11 and 12 provides the answer to the question posed by the first, and in lines 19 and 20 contains a subtle hint of the big, wide—dangerous—world beyond this pastoral paradise
• The Tiger


  • Rhetorical questions create a kind of echo, each question answered only by a further question, suggesting that the tiger's creation may lie beyond the reaches of human understanding
  • Personification of the tiger, never implying that it can reply, but rather a paternalistic (father-like) presentation of God
  • Paradox in the speaker's difficulty reconciling the tiger with the idea of a loving God, suggesting that human understanding has limits
• "Ecchoing Green": 'to the "darkening Green," endless cycle as springy new life "our sports," games are as time-worn and consistent as the seasons'
• epizeuxis when they say "Such, such were the joys" of their childhoods
• sky-lark and thrush, The birds of the bush, sun/ birds in their nest
• The natural world around these scenes is joyful repetition. The first stanza uses parallelism to suggest that nature is in rhythmic harmony on this lovely spring morning:
• Imagery


  Connect the poem's philosophy to tangible experience
• the song of the "birds of the bush"

  collides with the "bells' cheerful sound"—so the birds sing "louder," making a joyful ruckus.
• The idea of an echoinggreen


  Suggests an image of endless expansion and repetition of greenery
• More than just one day on one particular "green," this poem deals with symbolic greenness, representing the infinite renewal of life itself.
• "darkening Green."
• This vivid word


  Paints a picture of the green as dusk falls, evoking the idea of green fading into darkness. This darkening, like the cycles of nature, is part of the poem's imagery.
• "The Ecchoing Green" was first published in Songs of Innocence (1789), later expanded into Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), exploring "the two contrary states of the human soul" according to Blake.
• Some interpret "The Ecchoing Green" as a counterpart to "The Garden of Love," critiquing repressive religion and its suppression of natural joys and desires.
• The poem reflects a Romantic belief in the connection between people and nature, echoing Wordsworth's idea that nature teaches more than sages.
• Romanticism emerged partly in response to the Enlightenment, which prioritized order and reason, epitomized by Carl Linnaeus's taxonomy.
• Romantics valued nature's mystery and humility, contrasting with the Enlightenment's emphasis on clarity and control.
• The Romantic love of nature was influenced by the Industrial Revolution, leading to concerns about humanity losing touch with the natural order and their own humanity.
• Blake criticized child labor during the Industrial Revolution, attributing it to mechanization and conformity stifling natural imaginations and independence.
• "Rose, thou art sick."
• the rose is helpless, unaware of its own violation
• that the rose is more than a rose- profound insight into society, love, and sexuality.
• The illustration depicts a woman entwined with a worm in a rose, her arms raised in helplessness, beyond anyone's reach.
• Enjambment


  Pulls the reader through the poem- and mirrors the swift flight of the invisible worm.
• flies in the night
• worm, That/ Storm: Has/ Love Does
• Lines 7 and 8 end and start on stressed syllables, "love" and "does," highlighting the destructive worm's desire and the power it exerts on the rose's life.
• Personification


  Dramatizes the relationship of the rose and the worm.
• commentary on an aspect of humanity-attitudes towards sexuality/ desire
• Roses


  Feminine beauty/ sexuality
• illustration-a female figure
• "bed"


  Pun, bed (indulge their desires) and flower bed.
• easily read as a symbol for human sexuality
• worm is male
• "dark secret love" which finds its "joy" by violating the rose
• desirous acts -Blake's criticism of institutionalized religion