1a. Blake’s attitude in The Chimney Sweeper (p 63) and The
Chimney Sweeper (p 63) can be assessed through word choice and tone.
While the first “The Chimney Sweeper” poem, from Songs
of Innocence, seems to be represented as a somewhat naïve
young boy, in the latter poem Blake has created the perception that
the narrative voice is of an older, worldly, and disillusioned boy.
Blake’s attitude is obvious through word choice and tone. In
each poem, the tone is set by using words associated with dark and
light colors, thus urging the reader to think of gloom, or death, and
hope.
1b. The contrast between Blake’s attitude in the opposing poems
“Holy Thursday” and “Holy Thursday” are
created by word choice and also by form. One excellent example of
word choice differences is in line 2 of Songs of Innocence’s
poem, Blake refers to bight images of children following a beadle
wearing bright colors, but in line 10 of Songs of Experience’s
Holy Thursday he chooses words like “bleak” and “bare”
to describe their lives. Songs of Experiences, Blake instead
describes In Songs of Innocence’s “Holy Thursday”
the tone and form suggest a resemblance to that of a nursery rhyme,
while “Holy Thursday” in Songs of Experience has
the measured, metered, and cold rhythm.
2a. “The Lamb” The lamb is clearly intended to be
understood as representative of believers in Christ. Line 1 indicates
he has created his followers, lines 3-8 indicate that he takes care
of his believers, and 18 clearly defines the symbol that “we
are called by his name” which he has previously defined as
lamb.
2b. “The Blossom” Blake seems to establish that the
sparrow is a symbol of joy. This association is created in line one:
“Merry, Merry sparrow!”
2c. “Sick Rose” The rose in this poem seems to indicate
love, particularly a love lost or troubled.
3. Blake's two essays on religion, There is No Natural Religion
and All Religions are One both demonstrate Blake’s
outspoken views regarding the Christian beliefs and traditions.
Rather than grasping the bible as a living text and the church as a
living body, Blake perceived, perhaps justifiably so in turn of the
century England, that the Church was empty, and the Bible was not
regarded as a living text. These works illuminate that Blake did not
believe "God" was a real, like man. Blake in a thesis
almost completely opposite to the later thinker Nietzsche, stated not
that "Man killed God" but that and man created God as a
product of our own "poetic imagination", (Principle VII)
and thus, the differences we perceive in religions are not a product
of those religions, but of our own perception via our poetic mind
(Principle V). Blake obviously disregards Judeo-Christian texts, as
he states that "The Jewish and Christian Testaments are an
original derivation from the Poetic Genius," in Principle VI. In
There is No Natural Religion, Blake counters the theory that
man naturally "knows" God. Blake obviously believes that we
cannot have comprehension of the religious without being instructed.
Almost seeming to contradict himself, however, Blake continues on in
section B to discuss how perceptions are merely the very beginning of
what we can know. Blake obviously believed spirituality is important,
but no spiritual truth could ever be regarded as utterly true except
that which he saw within himself.
4. The Book of Thel concludes with a list of unanswered questions as
Thel reflects upon the full scope of mortality she has just
witnessed. Unable to deal with what she has encountered, the maiden
enters a soliloquy of questions, and then, faced with their weight
and gloom, “starts” and “shrieks” (124) and
flees back to her relatively safe place in Har. The book of Thel,
particularly the ending of this piece, calls into question innocence
and experience. At first impression it might seem that Thels exodus
from the world of her grave indicates she somehow “chooses”
to remain innocent, but it is much more likely that Blake intends for
the reader to understand this book as one of innocence tainted by
experience.
