william blake

Blake once said "To generalize is to be an idiot"

• This says a lot about who Blake is as a person.
• This quote is saying that there is always an exception. Details that are used to prove general ideas is where truth resides. When an idea is more specific it contains more meaning.

Fun Facts!

• He said his first vision was of a "tree of angels" when he was age ten.
• Two of his six siblings died in infancy.
• Although his Songs of Innocence may seem straightforward, many believe there may be a parody or critique hidden within.

Fun Facts! (cont.)

• He suffered from a recurring, diagnosed disease near the end of his life that he called "the sickness to which there is no name."
• He sketched historical people and claimed that they would appear before him and sit in front of him.

EVen More Fun Facts

• He was accused of "uttering seditious statements" which was very serious at the time. He was tried and found not guilty.
• He believed strongly in individualistic thinking, saying that he "must create a system or be enslaved by another man's."

Still More fun facts

• For most of his life, his works were either unknown or received negatively. It wasn't until after his death that he was appreciated.
• His last words were "Stay Kate! Stay just as you are - I will draw your portrait - for you have ever been an angel to me." He then died while singing.

Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience)
Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns.
It is eternal winter there.
For where-e'er the sun does shine,
And where-e'er the rain does fall:
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.

What is Blake's tone in the first stanza (lines 1-4)?
1. playful
2. bitter
3. mocking
4. apathetic

Discussion topics

• How does Blake use the imagery of barren fields, no sun, and "eternal winter" to show his ideas on poverty?
• How do Blake's views show Romantic ideas of individual liberties?

More discussion

• How does this poem relate to the church? (give examples)
• What is the main message of the poem?

Modern Connection