William Blake+opere principali | Sintesi del corso di Letteratura Inglese

• WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

He was born in London into a lower-class family. When he was a child, he was sent to

a drawing school and studied Raphael and Michelangelo’s works. He became a poet,

a painter and a printmaker. He was born into a dissenting tradition and he remained

a religious, political and artistic radical throughout his life. He was deeply interested

in the main political and social issues of that time (French Revolution, American

Revolution, Industrial Revolution). He was always a visionary (he had visions of angels

and spirits), and associated texts to art, thus adding further meaning to his works. This

is shown in his “illuminated manuscripts”, works in which text and drawings are

combined, e.g. “The Lamb” or “The Tiger”.

Dante, Milton, Swedenborg and Boehme were his main sources of inspiration.

Blake’s main works are:

• “The marriage of heaven and hell” (1790)  A book about the importance of

contrasts and oppositions: according to Blake progress can only be achieved through

the tension between contraries. They need to coexist;

• “Songs of innocence” & “Songs of experience” (1789-1794)  Two collections of

poems, intended by Blake to be read together since they present the same themes

seen from two different points of view. They describe the opposite states of the

human soul: good and evil, purity and corruption, innocence and experience. They all

need to coexist to achieve progress. The world of innocence is full of joy and

happiness, it is almost perfect. It is represented by children, innocent and creative.

But the perfection of the world of innocence is only apparent because innocence is

soon destroyed by adulthood, which represents the world of experience,

characterized by selfishness, cruelty and injustice. Children here are exploited and

suffer.

• “The Prophetic Books”  A series of books about Blake’s own personal mythology.

“InAmerica, a Prophecy” (1793) he talks about the American Revolution; “The First

Book ofUrizen” (1794); “A vision of the Lost Judgement” (1810).

• “Laocoon” (1826-27)  One of Blake’s last works. It is a Classical image surrounded

by sentences which represent different principles. This work shows that Blake didn’t

want to give priority to the text or the image, they both have the same

importance because each part adds meaning to the other and the reader can interpret

the work freely. Some of these sentences represent the main principles of

Romanticism: in the Enlightenment the only important thing was reason, now body

Anteprima parziale del testo

Scarica William Blake+opere principali e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity!

⃟ • WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

He was born in London into a lower-class family. When he was a child, he was sent to a drawing school and studied Raphael and Michelangelo’s works. He became a poet, a painter and a printmaker. He was born into a dissenting tradition and he remained a religious, political and artistic radical throughout his life. He was deeply interested in the main political and social issues of that time (French Revolution, American Revolution, Industrial Revolution). He was always a visionary (he had visions of angels and spirits), and associated texts to art, thus adding further meaning to his works. This is shown in his “illuminated manuscripts”, works in which text and drawings are combined, e.g. “The Lamb” or “The Tiger”. Dante, Milton, Swedenborg and Boehme were his main sources of inspiration.

Blake’s main works are:

“The marriage of heaven and hell” (1790) A book about the importance of contrasts and oppositions: according to Blake progress can only be achieved through the tension between contraries. They need to coexist;
“Songs of innocence” & “Songs of experience” (1789-1794) Two collections of poems, intended by Blake to be read together since they present the same themes seen from two different points of view. They describe the opposite states of the human soul: good and evil, purity and corruption, innocence and experience. They all need to coexist to achieve progress. The world of innocence is full of joy and happiness, it is almost perfect. It is represented by children, innocent and creative. But the perfection of the world of innocence is only apparent because innocence is soon destroyed by adulthood, which represents the world of experience, characterized by selfishness, cruelty and injustice. Children here are exploited and suffer.
“The Prophetic Books” A series of books about Blake’s own personal mythology. “InAmerica, a Prophecy” (1793) he talks about the American Revolution; “The First Book ofUrizen” (1794); “A vision of the Lost Judgement” (1810).
“Laocoon” (1826-27) One of Blake’s last works. It is a Classical image surrounded by sentences which represent different principles. This work shows that Blake didn’t want to give priority to the text or the image, they both have the same importance because each part adds meaning to the other and the reader can interpret the work freely. Some of these sentences represent the main principles of Romanticism: in the Enlightenment the only important thing was reason, now body

and soul too, Romantic poets want to dig into human’s interiority. The reason plays a secondary role while body and soul, which are connected, are crucial. The body is just that part of the soul discerned by the five senses. Energy is eternal delight; it is not linked with the daily experience but with the supernatural. Imagination is fundamental because it represents the human existence itself.

• THE LAMB

STRUCTURE: A blend (miscela) of verse and art, the poem is accompanied by a beautiful drawing. The poem is quite short and very musical (some verses are repeated). It is composed of 20 lines divided into 2 stanzas. We can find a type of refrain that makes it similar to a nursery rhyme (filastrocca). The rhyme is easy, they are couplets (AA BB CC DD AA AA EF GG FE AA). The rhyme scheme in the 2nd stanza is less regular than the 1st^ one.
LANGUAGE: The language employed is very easy (very different from “The Rape of the Lock” by Pope, characterised by a very elaborate and elevated language), however there are some archaisms which show the poet’s cultural background and his attention to the poetic form.
FIGURES OF SPEECH:
Repetitions, in order to focus on the main issue (the question the poet makes);
Enjambements (feed-by, delight-softest, thy name-for) = It is when a line ends in the middle of a phrase and it continues in the next line;
Anaphors (Little Lamb… Little Lamb, Gave…Gave, He…He) = It is the repetition of the same words at the beginning of nearby verses;
Alliterations (Little Lamb, thou…thee, meek…mild) = Repetition of a consonant;
Assonances (I a child and thou a lamb) = Repetition of a vowel;
Inversions (bid thee feed) = Inversion of the normal word order;
Archaisms (thee, thou, dost);
Contractions (o’er) = A word or phrase that has been shortened;

LANGUAGE: The language is very easy, however there are some archaisms which show the poet’s cultural background and his attention to the poetic form. The language is more concrete in the 1 st stanza, more abstract in the 2nd one (as in “The Lamb”).
FIGURES OF SPEECH:
Enjambements (worm-that, night-in, storm-has, bed-of, love-does), apart from the first line the rest of the poem is composed of enjambements because the poet wants to represent a scene, a sort of narration;
Archaisms (thou, art, thy);
Alliterations (that flies in the night);
No anaphors;
Synaesthesia (crimson joy) = one of the five senses is described using terms from another;
MEANING: The 1 st stanza is more realistic and describes a natural scene; the 2 nd one is more symbolic. The main subject is the Rose, a natural object (realistic level) and the symbol of love (symbolic level). The worm (verme) is instead an element of danger and corruption. The Rose, symbol of love, is the opposite of crimson joy, symbol of pleasure and shame, this shows the conflictual idea of love of Blake. The Rose is personified: it begins with a capital letter and it owns a bed (thy bed) so it is treated as a human being. The atmosphere is that of a storm, which symbolized strong emotions of a restless soul. The worm tries to attack the Rose (as it is shown in the drawing), it is invisible and it flies (these are features that a worm cannot possess). The red colour of joy (associated with the Rose) contrasts with the dark colour of secret love (associated with the worm). So, the worm owns a dark secret love which can end the rose’s life. Unlike “The Lamb”, the level of symbolism starts from the 1 st stanza and the level of realistics is limited (the worm is invisible and can fly, the Rose is sick).

There are different interpretations of this poem: the first one is that it is about the relationship between men and nature. It can also be interpreted in a religious way: the worm could represent the sin that creeps into men’s life and destroys it. The most reliable interpretation is that the innocence (represented by the Rose) is corrupted by the worm so it represents the passage from innocence to experience. In the passage from childhood (innocence) to adulthood (experience) there’s a moment in which we lose our innocence, that is love, a love that is not innocent anymore but physical. The poem would therefore symbolize the passage from pure love to physical love.

William Blake+opere principali, Sintesi del corso di Letteratura Inglese

Documenti correlati

Anteprima parziale del testo

Scarica William Blake+opere principali e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity!

⃟ • WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

Blake’s main works are:

• THE LAMB