Year 10 English Protest Poetry

William Blake and Romanticism

Frank Daly 2014

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).

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