DOCSLIB.ORG

The Politics of Abstraction: Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Poetry of William Blake

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Politics of Abstraction: Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Poetry of William Blake University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 8-2006 The Politics of Abstraction: Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Poetry of William Blake Edgar Cuthbert Gentle University of Tennessee, Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gentle, Edgar Cuthbert, "The Politics of Abstraction: Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Poetry of William Blake. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2006. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/4508 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Edgar Cuthbert Gentle entitled "The Politics of Abstraction: Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Poetry of William Blake." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Nancy Goslee, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: ARRAY(0x7f6ff8e21fa0) Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I amsubmitting herewith a thesis written by EdgarCuthbert Gentle entitled"The Politics of Abstraction: Race,Gender, and Slavery in the Poetryof WilliamBlake." I have examinedthe finalpaper copy of this thesis forform and content and recommend that it be acceptedin partialfulfillm ent of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Nancy oslee, Major Professor Acceptance forthe Council: an of THEPOLITICS OF ABSTRACTION: RACE, GENDER, AND SLAVERY IN THE POETRY OF WILLIAM BLAKE A Thesis Presented forthe Master of Arts Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Edgar CuthbertGentle August 2006 11 Acknowledgments I would firstlike to thankmy formerteachers at Rhodes College, who helped to develop and inspire my thinking during those pivotalyears. Thankyou to Tina Barr, Gordon Bigelow, MarshallBoswe ll, JenniferBrady, Rob Canfield,Thomas F. Cohen, RalphHanna, Michael Leslie, CynthiaMarshall, Stephen Schottenfeld, and BrianW. Shaffer. Myteachers andadvisers at the University of Tennessee have also given me a great deal of advice and support during each stage of this process. For this, I would like to thankMatthew Abraham, Misty Anderson, Janet Atwill, Jenn Fishman, NancyM. Goslee, David Ikard, Michael L. Keene, and John P. Zomchick. I would also like to thankthe University of Tennessee forproviding me with fundingfrom the fallof 2004 until the spring of 2006. Finally, thankyou to my parents,Edgar and JannGentle, fortheir constant love and encouragement throughout my life. I owe everythingto their example of compassion and virtue. lll Abstract This study examinesthe relationshipbetween the poetry of WilliamBlake and the abolitionist movement gainingforce in Englandfrom 1789-1793. The poems The Visionsof the Daughters ofAlbion (1793) and"The Little Black Boy" (1789) express sympathywith this movement, depicting racialprejudice andoppression in unsparing ways. However, other aspects of the poems threaten to undercutthis message, such as the equation of corruptionwith black imagery and puritywith white imagery. This is a sign of Blake's limited scientificand theologicalunderstanding of race, which leads to an inadequate portrayalof enslaved Africans. Because his interests lie primarily in universal andChristian definitions offreedom, the poetfails fullyto engage theproblem of slavery. This paper will describe these limitations in Blake's poetry and in the critical response by Blake scholars, which oftenfails specifically to mention issues of enslavement. Chapter One will outline these problems and describe the poet's connection to the abolitionist project. ChapterTwo will explain the relationship between The Visionsof the Daughters ofAlbion andthe writings ofJohn Gabriel Stedman, analyzing studies by Anne Rubenstein, Camilla Townsend, Eugenie R. Freed, and David V. Erdman. In Chapter Three, the utopian readings of Visionsoffered by Erdman and Steven Vine will be countered using the arguments of Anne Mellor andNancy Goslee. Finally, Chapter Four will attempt to explain Blake's specificstance with regard to racial difference andintegration, primarily citing David Bindman, Ngugi Wa Thiong' o, andthe text of"The Little Black Boy." These readings will reveal the perspective of a gifted artistwhq was nevertheless limited by the biases ofhis ownculture andtime period. IV Table of Contents Chapter Page I. William Blake and the Limits of Racial Knowledge . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 II. · The Influenceof John Gabriel Stedman .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 10 III. The Visions of the Daughters of Albion and the Politics of Abstraction ....· 29 IV. LiberatoryChristianit y and the Perception of Race in "The Little Black Boy".......................................................... 54 List of References . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 67 Vita ............................................................ 72 1 Chapter One William Blake and the Limits of Racial Knowledge As demonstrated in his "The LittleBlack Boy"1 (1789) and The Visions of the Daughters ofAlbion 2 (1793), themesrelated to slavery andrace are animportant characteristic in the poetry of WilliamBlake. In both pieces, theauthor expresses his sympathieswith the abolitionistcause gaining forcein England from1789-1 793. Written at the opening and the temporaryconc lusion of the debates, respectively, these poems depict steadily growing conflicts that could no longer be suppressed by white authority. There are also, however, aspects of thesepoems that threaten to undercut Blake's message of liberation, such as theexpre ssion of corruptionthrough black imagery and purity with white imagery. This is a signof the author's limited understandingof race, which leads to an inadequate portrayal of enslaved Africans. In Visions, the consideration of femalesexual freedomin the West takes precedence over a more specific discussion of race and slavery. For Oothoon, Theotormon, and Bromion, human captivity is primarilya state of hellish abstraction, "eternalfire" (Vi sions of the Daughters ofAlbion, plate 7, line 23) and"eternal chains" (Visions, plate 7, line 23) representing the inescapable fate of the unredeemed. In "The Little Black Boy," the narrator's dream of a raciallyequitable heaven places him in a position of subservience, "shad[ing] [the English child] from the heat" (Songs of Innocence and ofExperience, plate 10, line 25) in order to win his affection. Both poems display the biases of the 1 Readings of "The Little Black Boy" will referto copy Z of Songs ofInnocence and of Experience. 2 Readings of The Visionsof the Daughters ofAlbion will referto copy J. 2 poet's culture and time period, revealing insularassum ptions about theorigins of racial sufferingand the predetermined nature of enslavement. Theauthor defines restriction andliberty for his charactersthrough Christian notions of humanfallibility and salvation, which come beforea direct indictmentof the slave trade. Each narrativeattempts to criticize literaland metaphoric forms of slavery, but these critiques place universal concepts of freedomabove specific solutions. This paper will attempt to address these inadequacies as theyexist in the very formof the poetry andin the critical response by Blakescholars, which often failsto mention these issues. Chapter Onewill brieflyoutline these limitations and describe Blake'simpression of andinvolvem ent with the abolitionist project. Chapter Two will explain the complex relationship between The Visionsof the Daughters ofAlbion and the writings of JohnGabriel Stedman, analyzingstudies by Anne Rubenstein, Camilla Townsend, Eugenie R. Freed, andDavid V. Erdman. In Chapter Three, the utopian readings of Visions offeredby Erdmanand Steven Vine will be countered using the arguments of Anne Mellor andNancy Goslee. Finally, Chapter Four will attemptto explain Blake'sspecific stance with regardto racialdifference andintegration, primarily citing David Bindman,Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, andthe text of"The Little Black Boy." This poem precedes Visions chronologically but also offers the clearestinsights into theissues raised by Mellor andGoslee, describing racial conflictin a more concise, lyric form. In these ways, the paper will present the views and artistry of a giftedindividual and the politicalforces that inspired and shapedhis work. WilliamBlake's personal concern with the British slave trade can be traced back to his involvement in the New JerusalemChurch, a Swedenborgiansect of heretical 3 Protestants. In 1789, he and his wife officiallyembraced the teachings ofthis sect, which advocated establishing coloniesin Africafor the conversion of newly freedslaves (Rubenstein andTownsend 279-280). ThoughBlake's affiliation with thissect soon dissolved aftera more conservative leader came into power (Rubensteinand Townsend 279-280), the abolitionist ideas ofthe New Church would continue to inform his thinking. In 1791, free-thinkingbook publisher Joseph Johnson presented Blake with John
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Checklist of Publications and Discoveries in 2013
    ARTICLE Part II: Reproductions of Drawings and Paintings Section A: Illustrations of Individual Authors Section B: Collections and Selections Part III: Commercial Engravings Section A: Illustrations of Individual Authors William Blake and His Circle: Part IV: Catalogues and Bibliographies A Checklist of Publications and Section A: Individual Catalogues Section B: Collections and Selections Discoveries in 2013 Part V: Books Owned by William Blake the Poet Part VI: Criticism, Biography, and Scholarly Studies By G. E. Bentley, Jr. Division II: Blake’s Circle Blake Publications and Discoveries in 2013 with the assistance of Hikari Sato for Japanese publications and of Fernando 1 The checklist of Blake publications recorded in 2013 in- Castanedo for Spanish publications cludes works in French, German, Japanese, Russian, Span- ish, and Ukrainian, and there are doctoral dissertations G. E. Bentley, Jr. ([email protected]) is try- from Birmingham, Cambridge, City University of New ing to learn how to recognize the many styles of hand- York, Florida State, Hiroshima, Maryland, Northwestern, writing of a professional calligrapher like Blake, who Oxford, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Voronezh used four distinct hands in The Four Zoas. State, and Wrocław. The Folio Society facsimile of Blake’s designs for Gray’s Poems and the detailed records of “Sale Editors’ notes: Catalogues of Blake’s Works 1791-2013” are likely to prove The invaluable Bentley checklist has grown to the point to be among the most lastingly valuable of the works listed. where we are unable to publish it in its entirety. All the material will be incorporated into the cumulative Gallica “William Blake and His Circle” and “Sale Catalogues of William Blake’s Works” on the Bentley Blake Collection 2 A wonderful resource new to me is Gallica <http://gallica.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstraction and the Origin of General Ideas with Broadly Nominalistic Scruples, While Others (E
    Philosophers’ volume 12, no. 19 1. Introduction 1 Imprint december 2012 Given their opposition to innate ideas, philosophers in the empiricist tradition have sought to explain how the rich and multifarious representational capacities that human beings possess derive from experience. A key explanatory strategy in this tradition, tracing back at least as far as John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, is to maintain that the acquisition of many of these Abstraction and the capacities can be accounted for by a process of abstraction. In fact, Locke himself claims in the Essay that abstraction is the source of all general ideas (1690/1975, II, xii, §1). Although Berkeley and Hume were highly critical of Locke, abstraction as a source of generality has Origin of General Ideas been a lasting theme in empiricist thought. Nearly a century after the publication of Locke’s Essay, for example, Thomas Reid, in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, claims that “we cannot generalize without some degree of abstraction…” (Reid 1785/2002, p. 365). And more than a century later, Bertrand Russell remarks in The Problems of Philosophy: “When we see a white patch, we are acquainted, in the first instance, with the particular patch; but by seeing many white patches, we easily learn to abstract the whiteness which they all have in common, and in learning to do this we are learning to be acquainted with whiteness” (Russell 1912, p. 101). Stephen Laurence Despite the importance of abstraction as a central empiricist University of Sheffield strategy for explaining the origin of general ideas, it has never been clear exactly how the process of abstraction is supposed to work.
    [Show full text]
  • Blake's Re-Vision of Sentimentalism in the Four Zoas
    ARTICLE “Tenderness & Love Not Uninspird”: Blake’s Re- Vision of Sentimentalism in The Four Zoas Justin Van Kleeck Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 39, Issue 2, Fall 2005, pp. 60-77 ARTICLES tion. Their attack often took a gendered form, for critics saw sentimentalism as a dividing force between the sexes that also created weak victims or crafty tyrants within the sexes. Blake points out these negative characteristics of sentimen­ "Tenderness & Love Not Uninspird": talism in mythological terms with his vision of the fragmen­ tation and fall of the Universal Man Albion into male and fe­ Blake's Re­Vision of Sentimentalism male parts, Zoas and Emanations. In the chaotic universe that in The Four Zoas results, sentimentalism is part of a "system" that perpetuates suffering in the fallen world, further dividing the sexes into their stereotypical roles. Although "feminine" sentimentality BY JUSTIN VAN KLEECK serves as a force for reunion and harmony, its connection with fallen nature and "vegetated" life in Blake's mythology turns it into a trap, at best a Band­Aid on the mortal wound of the fall. For Mercy has a human heart Pity would be no more, For Blake, mutual sympathy in the fallen world requires the Pity, a human face If we did not make somebody Poor: additional strength and guidance of inspired vision (initiating And Love, the human form divine, And Mercy no more could be, And Peace, the human dress. If all were as happy as we; a fiery Last Judgment) in order to become truly redemptive, William Blake, "The Divine Image" Blake, "The Human Abstract" effective rather than merely affective.
    [Show full text]
  • William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience: from Innocence to Experience to Wise Innocence Robert W
    Eastern Illinois University The Keep Masters Theses Student Theses & Publications 1977 William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience: From Innocence to Experience to Wise Innocence Robert W. Winkleblack Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in English at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Winkleblack, Robert W., "William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience: From Innocence to Experience to Wise Innocence" (1977). Masters Theses. 3328. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/3328 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PAPER CERTIFICATE #2 TO: Graduate Degree Candidates who have written formal theses. SUBJECT: Permission to reproduce theses. The University Library is receiving a number of requests from other institutions asking permission to reproduce dissertations for inclusion in their library holdings. Although no copyright laws are involved, we feel that professional courtesy demands that permission be obtained from the author before we allow theses to be copied. Please sign one of the following statements: Booth Library of Eastern Illinois University has my permission to lend my thesis to a reputable college or university for the purpose of copying it for inclusion in that institution's library or research holdings. �S"Date J /_'117 Author I respectfully request Booth Library of Eastern Illinois University not allow my thesis be reproduced because ��--��- Date Author pdm WILLIAM BLAKE'S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE: - FROM INNOCENCE TO EXPERIENCE TO WISE INNOCENCE (TITLE) BY Robert W .
    [Show full text]
  • Georgia O'keeffe Museum
    COLLABORATIVE ABSTRACTION Grades: K-12 SUMMARY: Georgia O’Keeffe is known for her abstract flowers, landscapes, architecture and the sky. She would find the most interesting lines and colors in the world around her and simplify nature down to a series of organic shapes and forms. In this fun and fast-paced lesson, students will consider the concept and process of abstraction, collaboratively creating a line drawing that will become an abstract painting. This lesson is meant to be flexible. Please adapt for the level of your students and your individual curriculum. GUIDING QUESTIONS: Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow, 1945 What is abstraction? Georgia O’Keeffe Oil on canvas MATERIALS: 36 1/8 x 48 1/8 (91.8 x 122.2) Extended loan, private collection (1997.03.04L) Watercolor paper © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Watercolor paints Paint brushes Cups of water LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Students will… Closely observe, analyze and interpret one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s abstract paintings Define the word abstraction and how it relates to visual art Work together to make collaborative abstract line drawings Individually interpret their collaborative line drawings and create a successful final composition Present their final compositions to the class Accept peer feedback INSTRUCTION: Engage: (5 min) Ask students to sketch the shapes they see in Pelvis Series, Red and Yellow by Georgia O’Keeffe (attached or found at https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/education/teacher-resources/) and write a short paragraph on what they see in the painting and what they think might be happening in the painting. Compare notes as a class and share the title of the painting.
    [Show full text]
  • Choose the Appropriate Level of Abstraction
    SAGE Flex for Public Speaking Choose the Appropriate Level of Abstraction Brief: Using abstract words can make a concept easier to communicate, but it breaks the connection to the specific meaning that we want to convey. Learning Objective: Understand how to choose the appropriate level of abstraction. Key Terms: • Abstraction: The process of perceiving similarities from our direct, specific observations of things around us, organizing the similarities, and then assigning a word label for the more general concept. • Abstraction Ladder: A concept developed by communication theorist S.I. Hayakawa, who compared levels of abstraction to a ladder, with the most specific concept at the bottom rung and the most abstract concept at the top rung. What is Abstraction? One of the ways we can attempt to make difficult information easier to understand is to simplify our word choices. To make our words more general, we use a higher level of abstraction. Abstraction is the process of perceiving similarities from our direct, specific observations of things around us, organizing the similarities, and then assigning a word label for the more general concept. From Granny Smiths to Produce Apples, oranges, bananas, pears…. Imagine how time consuming and confusing it would be to name each of these ingredients every time you talked about a fruit salad. Thankfully, you can use the general term fruit when you describe this dish. Now, imagine you’re trying to direct someone where to find fruit in a supermarket. Instead of using the name for each individual fruit or the general category of fruit, you’ll probably suggest they look in the produce department.
    [Show full text]
  • Issues) and Begin with the Summer Issue
    BLAKE AN . ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY Blake in the Marketplace for 2010 / J VOLUME44 NUMBER 4 SPRING 2011 AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY www.blakequarterly.org VOLUME44 NUMBER4 SPRING 2011 CONTENTS Article Review Blake in the Marketplace, 2010 Mind-Forg'd Manacles: William Blake and Slavery, By Robert N. Essick 116 Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, 26 January-6 April 2008; Blake's Shadow: William Blake and His Artistic Legacy, Whitworth Gallery, 26 January-20 April 2008 Reviewed by Jeremy Tambling 142 Newsletter Blake Goes Online 143 A D V I s 0 R y B 0 A R D G. E. Bentley, Jr., University of Toronto, retired Nelson Hilton, University of Georgia Martin Butlin, London Anne K. Mellor, University of California, Los Angeles DetlefW Dorrbecker, University of Trier Joseph Viscomi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Robert N. Essick, University of California, Riverside David Worrall, The Nottingham Trent University Angela Esterhammer, University of Zurich CONTRIBUTORS David Worrall, Faculty of Humanities, The Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG 11 SNS UK E-mail: [email protected]. uk ROBERT N. ESSICK has been collecting and writing about Blake for over forty years. JEREMY TAMBLING ([email protected]) is professor of literature at the University of Manchester and INFORMATION author of Blake's Night Thoughts (2004) and of several other monographs on nineteenth- and twentieth-century moder­ nity. BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY is published under the sponsorship of the Department ofEnglish, University of Roch­ ester. Subscriptions are $66 for institutions, $33 for individu­ als. All subscriptions are by the volume ( 1 year, 4 issues) and begin with the summer issue.
    [Show full text]
  • Issues) and Begin with the Summer Issue
    AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY BLAKE SALES, BLAKE RESEARCH: THE ANNUAL CHECKLISTS VOLUME 34 NUMBER 4 SPRING 2001 £%Uae AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY VOLUME 34 NUMBER 4 SPRING 2001 CONTENTS Articles Newsletter Blake in the Marketplace, 2000 Met Exhibition Through June, Blake Society Lectures, by Robert N. Essick 100 The Erdman Papers 159 William Blake and His Circle: A Checklist of Publications and Discoveries in 2000 By G. E. Bentley, Jr., with the Assistance of Keiko Aoyama for Japanese Publications 129 ADVISORY BOARD G. E. Bentley, Jr., University of Toronto, retired Nelson Hilton, University of Georgia Martin Butlin, London Anne K. Mellor, University of California, Los Angeles Detlef W. Dbrrbecker, University of Trier Joseph Viscomi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Robert N. Essick, University of California, Riverside David Worrall, St. Mary's College Angela Esterhammer, University of Western Ontario CONTRIBUTORS SUBSCRIPTIONS are $60 for institutions, $30 for individuals. All subscriptions are by the volume (1 year, 4 issues) and begin with the summer issue. Subscription payments re• G. E. BENTLEY, JR. has just completed The Stranger from ceived after the summer issue will be applied to the 4 issues Paradise in the Belly of the Beast: A Biography of William of the current volume. Foreign addresses (except Canada Blake. and Mexico) require a $10 per volume postal surcharge for surface, and $25 per volume surcharge for air mail delivery. ROBERT N. ESSICK is Professor of English at the University U.S. currency or international money order necessary. Make of California, Riverside. checks payable to Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly. Address all subscription orders and related communications to Sarah Jones, Blake, Department of English, University of Roches• ter, Rochester, NY 14627.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Full Book
    Respectable Folly Garrett, Clarke Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Garrett, Clarke. Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.67841. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/67841 [ Access provided at 2 Oct 2021 03:07 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. HOPKINS OPEN PUBLISHING ENCORE EDITIONS Clarke Garrett Respectable Folly Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England Open access edition supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press Published 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. CC BY-NC-ND ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3177-2 (open access) ISBN-10: 1-4214-3177-7 (open access) ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3175-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-4214-3175-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3176-5 (electronic) ISBN-10: 1-4214-3176-9 (electronic) This page supersedes the copyright page included in the original publication of this work. Respectable Folly RESPECTABLE FOLLY M illenarians and the French Revolution in France and England 4- Clarke Garrett The Johns Hopkins University Press BALTIMORE & LONDON This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the Andrew W.
    [Show full text]
  • Protective Pastoral: Innocence and Female Experience in William Blake's Songs and Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market June Sturrock
    Colby Quarterly Volume 30 Article 4 Issue 2 June June 1994 Protective Pastoral: Innocence and Female Experience in William Blake's Songs and Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market June Sturrock Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq Recommended Citation Colby Quarterly, Volume 30, no.2, June 1994, p.98-108 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Quarterly by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Colby. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sturrock: Protective Pastoral: Innocence and Female Experience in William B Protective Pastoral: Innocence and Female Experience in William Blake's Songs and Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market by JlTNE STURROCK IIyEA, THOUGH I walk through the valley ofthe shadow ofdeath, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staffthey comfort me." The twenty-third psalm has been offered as comfort to the sick and the grieving for thousands ofyears now, with its image ofGod as the good shepherd and the soul beloved ofGod as the protected sheep. This psalm, and such equally well-known passages as Isaiah's "He shall feed his flock as a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs in his arms" (40. 11), together with the specifically Christian version: "I am the good shepherd" (John 10. 11, 14), have obviously affected the whole pastoral tradition in European literature. Among othereffects the conceptofGod as shepherd has allowed for development of the protective implications of classical pastoral. The pastoral idyll-as opposed to the pastoral elegy­ suggests a safe, rural world in that corruption, confusion and danger are placed elsewhere-in the city.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Introduction The notes which follow are intended for study and revision of a selection of Blake's poems. About the poet William Blake was born on 28 November 1757, and died on 12 August 1827. He spent his life largely in London, save for the years 1800 to 1803, when he lived in a cottage at Felpham, near the seaside town of Bognor, in Sussex. In 1767 he began to attend Henry Pars's drawing school in the Strand. At the age of fifteen, Blake was apprenticed to an engraver, making plates from which pictures for books were printed. He later went to the Royal Academy, and at 22, he was employed as an engraver to a bookseller and publisher. When he was nearly 25, Blake married Catherine Bouchier. They had no children but were happily married for almost 45 years. In 1784, a year after he published his first volume of poems, Blake set up his own engraving business. Many of Blake's best poems are found in two collections: Songs of Innocence (1789) to which was added, in 1794, the Songs of Experience (unlike the earlier work, never published on its own). The complete 1794 collection was called Songs of Innocence and Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Broadly speaking the collections look at human nature and society in optimistic and pessimistic terms, respectively - and Blake thinks that you need both sides to see the whole truth. Blake had very firm ideas about how his poems should appear. Although spelling was not as standardised in print as it is today, Blake was writing some time after the publication of Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • William Blake (1757-1827)
    William Blake (1757-1827) Poet, Painter, & Printer A radical thinker (called insane by some) with a strong interest in religion, albeit not orthodox religion. • Published together in 1794. • The Songs of Experience are darker, and often echo the Songs of Innocence in contrast. For example, Songs of Innocence contains “The Lamb” & Songs of Experience includes “The Tyger.” • The work reflects the period’s interest in childhood, nostalgia, and transformation (going from one state of being to another). It also shows some attention to those suffering in the midst of the industrial revolution. THE TYGER Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger,Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? A few thoughts Blake’s Tyger brings to mind: • People view things from their own perspective. • What people say (and how they say it) often says more about themselves than what they mean to say.
    [Show full text]