Blake Poetry- Innocence

The Lamb
1. Lamb- biblical 'unblemished lamb', Jesus, sacrifice
  1. Lamb- innocence= softest, bright, tender, little
2. AABBCC, nursery rhyme, repitition of 1st and last couplet 'Little Lamb who made thee?'
  1. 'Little Lamb'- soft vowel sound, song/ child like
Nurse's Song
1. Nurse is the Guardian and gives them freedom
  1. 'go and play'- learns from the children, children have a voice, Symbionic relationship (learn from each other
2. ABCB, last stanza changes to past tense 'laughed'
  1. Internal rhyme until last stanza 'sky' and 'fly' but 'shouted' and 'laughed'
3. Lost innocence 'heard of the green' to 'the light fades away'
4. 'hills echoed'- experience, grown up,
Introduction
1. Pastoral- lamb, cloud, valleys, reed, rural, water
2. 'Plucked a hollow reed'- unnatural, destroying nature
3. ''stained the water clear'- destroying purity of children and his vision
The Little Girl Lost
1. AABB, rhyming couplets, regular rhythm (undermines the danger of situation)
2. world tamed by God/ biblical expression
  1. world slumbered, awake to return to Garden of Eden 'earth from sleep'
3. Female Sexuality- 'moon rises' (cycle), 'virgin', 'sweet sleep' (sexual awakening)
  1. Against taming of oppression sexual desires
  2. 'seven summers old'- since birth or puberty
Little Girl Found
1. Lycas' parents feelings-'weep', 'tired and woe-begone', 'weak', 'famished' 'trembling'
2. Biblical imagery- 'deserts weep'= Moses in the desert, 'seven days'= God creating world
3. Blake= danger is people's perceptions of reality
  1. Lion= 'bore them to the ground' but 'licks their hands'
The Shepard
1. Innocence- 'sweet' x2, 'innocent call', 'ewe's tender reply', 'peace'
2. Bible/ Christian teaching, Shepherds receives praise from his sheep- but not in the poem
  1. 'He shall follow is sheep all day'- opposite to biblical shepherd
    1. Doesn't force the sheep to follow him, Anti-organised religion
Infant Joy
1. new born child- 'two days old' and 'I have no name'
  1. Romantics believed babies retained memories of God
  2. Christians believed babies came into the world contaminised, need to be Baptised
2. 'What shall I call thee?'- Biblical conotations for Moses 'what is thy name?'
The School Boy
1. Pastoral- 'summer morn', 'birds sing', 'every tree', 'skylark', 'blossom'
2. stanza 3 dreary shower' contrasts stanza 1 'summer morn'
3. Blake= no formal education, learn through play
4. 'tender plants are stripped of their joy'- Metaphor, can't grow
The Little Black Boy
1. ABAB, Iambic pentameter- Marxist think its Capitalist, doing same as everyone else
2. guardianship- 'my mother bore me' and 'my mother taught me'
  1. Themes- God, light, Pastoral, Guardianship
3. White people power- 'white as an angel', 'white cloud free', 'I'll shade him from the heat'
4. slavery- 'sun-burnt face', 'learned the heat to bear'
  1. William Wilberforce
5. Messages- his life made him strong, work hard for God's love, passive acceptance, both ended up in the same place, religion is racist, too focused on the afterlife
The Echoing Green
1. 3 stanzas, AABBCCDD, child narrator, couplets, enjambment
2. happiness- 'happy', 'merry', 'sing', 'cheerful', 'laugh'
3. religion- 'merry bells ring',
4. 'on the darkening green'- play tomorrow, innocence ended, children sleep so nature does
  1. nature images- birds, echo, sun
Holy Thursday
1. Maundy Thursday- children in charity schools sing in church
  1. 3 stanzas, 4 lines, like a hymn structure
2. multitude repetition- 'hum of multitudes', 'multitudes of lambs
  1. power in numbers
3. 'Beneath them sit aged men'- Blake puts children above the guardians
The Chimney-Sweeper
1. Dark imagery- 'soot', 'night', 'coffins', 'dark'
  1. Light imagery- 'lamb', 'angel', 'bright key', 'shine in the sun', 'white', 'God'
    1. Harsh contrast between reality and dreams
2. Narration is a sweeper, dramatic monologue
  1. Last stanza half rhyme- 'warm', 'harm' (reality not perfect)
A Cradle Song
1. 'sweet' and 'sleep' repeated
  1. Sibilance 'ss', nursery rhyme
2. Mary and Jesus
3. 'Heavenly places that smiles on thee!'- see God in baby, if he suffers it doesn't matter

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Blake Poetry- Innocence

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	Created by Victoria Pickles over 6 years ago