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POEMS BY BLAKE & OTHER ROMANTICS William Blake * William Wordsworth * Gordon Lord Byron * Samuel Taylor Coleridge ANALYSED AND SET TO MUSIC BY J. M. SCHROEDER |
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* Blake 1757-1827* |
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> POEM
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SONG
from Poetical Sketches, 1783, by William Blake
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structure
lexemes
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Blake began to write this "song" as early as 1769, describing how the young poet or his soul (cf. Greek mythology, in which "Psyche" is represented as a winged creature, too) *1* is lured into the Prince of Love's (Eros', Cupid's) garden and kept prisoner in a golden cage.
(1)
"encounter", (2) temptation, lexemes Negative aspects: (3) caught ... net, shut ... cage,(4) ? laughing etc. (since meant to be mocking / teasing), mocks personification:
repetition typography convention of the ballad stanza *2* sound atmosphere transfer ________________________________ *1* a butterfly; cf. OSTRIKER, p. 871 *2* if not stated otherwise, BLAKE'S "Songs" are assumed to lie within this convention; variations of the rhyme pattern and slight variations of the metrical pattern (tetrameter instead of trimeter lines and vice versa) are common; cf. BOLD, p.21; cf. MORNER, p. 18f.; OSTRIKER also draws parallels to nursery rhymes, and, in particular, to I. WATT'S "Divine and Moral Songs in Easy Language (1715), a chap book of short poems intended for children"; cf. OSTRIKER, p. 881 * found this helpful? - please pay 0,10 EUR and help cover costs for this website
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> POEM
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INTRODUCTION to
Songs of Innocence, 1789
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structure
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Rural background and pastoral imagery set the scene for this poem. The "poet-to-be" (in the role of a shepherd) plays a tune on a pipe. Urged by a "child on a cloud", he repeats the melody on the instrument, then repeats the theme by voice, and subsequently, puts it into a written form. The utensil needed for writing is borrowed from nature (a reed). All these actions reflect the close, "innocent" relationship between music, poetry and nature. Within this context even some degree of human interference (the plucking of the reed and staining of the water, actions which point to an adult's know-how, i.e. "experience") seems tolerable. The poet's "calling" (vocation, function) is the central theme of this poem: His function is to voice emotions gained through an open-hearted, i.e. innocent (note Latin origin: "not harmful") *1* experience of natural phenomena. Only an open-hearted, "innocent" listener can understand the message ("communicative" cycle: music/sound provoked by nature - song - written form - reading - perception of sound by listener). structure/perspective Initiative is with I first, then with the child, leading to a scheme of action (impulse) and reaction; the "poet", logically, has the decisive part in the end.
lexemes referring to music as a dominant subject: pipe etc. (different derivatives and word-classes); song, sing etc.; with reference to poetry: (4) write, book, read, reed (for writing), (5) pen, wrote; referring topositiveemotions/ mood/ atmosphere: pleasant, laughing, happy, merry, glee, che[e]r, joy, collocations, with a hyperbolic effect: pleasant glee (1,2), merry che[e]r (2,2), happy che[e]r (3,2); there is a natural form of human happiness, paradoxically, connected with the production of tears: wept with joy (3,4), cf. (2,4). symbolism Lamb (capitalised!), child on a cloud, (quasi-)religious undertone. collocations Collocations music + mood/emotion: piping and pleasant glee, piped and merry che[e]r, sing .. songs and happy che[e]r (second line of stanzas 1-3) collocations music + nature: piping ... valleys wild (1,1), poetry and nature rural pen (5,1), stain'd the water clear (to dilute the "ink") in (5,2); collocation poetry + person + mood + music: wrote my happy songs (5,3). repetition of lexemes mentioned above, parallelisms, anaphorae, So, in particular, introducing a reaction (see perspectives above), and, eventually, the poet's determined conclusive action (4,3), which seems to be "sped up" by the anaphoric And... in the consecutive four lines leading to the end. sound several alliterations, (varied) end-rhyme including identical rhyme (4) (playfulness?) metre: ? scansion of first 3 lines: Piping down ... Piping down... ' - ' - ' - ' (-) (downward motion?)vs. On a cloud I saw a child - - ' - ' - ' (upward motion, playful effect?) atmosphere harmony, playfulness, happiness etc.; in (5) there is a change of mood, however: the happy idleness and aimless pursuit reflected in the actions (of roaming nature, piping and playfully responding to the child's wishes) are replaced with determination. transfer Are emotional "fools on the hill" still functional in modern society? To what degree are we (still) able to be "innocent", to interact with nature and perceive emotions reflected by music, lyrics of songs, words of a poem etc.? ________________________________
*1* on the concepts of "innocence" and "experience" cf. e.g. KERMODE et al., VOL. II, p. 17f. top of analysis * BIBLIOGRAPHY found this helpful? - please pay 0,10 EUR and help cover costs for this website
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> POEM
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INTRODUCTION to
Songs of Experience, 1794
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lexemes
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The poem *1* introduces the reader into BLAKE'S "Songs of Experience". After drawing the reader's attention to an omniscient "Bard's" dramatic call pointing to the bad state of mankind and the potential power of the "Holy Word" the speaker directly appeals to "Earth" (mankind) to heed the "Bard's" warning and return from a fatal course to a new beginning, within the limited period of time granted till the break of day. Other than the "naive" shepherd-poet of the first Introduction both the Bard and the speaker are "experienced" figures claiming great power of knowledge and judgement. The complex imagery, drawing on biblical elements and imagery from medieval poetry (MILTON), demands an experienced reader, too, or the reader's experienced way of viewing things. lexemes Words etc. connected with sound (exclamations, s.b.): (1) Hear, voice, ears, heard; (Holy) Word; (2) Calling, weeping (audibly). Aspects of the dimensions time and space (see below): (1) Present ..., ancient trees; (2) evening dew, starry pole, fallen light (depth); (3) Night, morn; (4) starry floor, watry shore, till the break of day. "State of affairs": (2) lapsed Soul, evening dew, fallen, fallen light, (3) dewy grass, night, slumberous mass. "corrective elements": (1) - (2) the Bard's ... Holy Word, (2) might control, renew, (3) return, Arise, morn, rises; Significance: The Bard: omniscient messenger, harbinger, prophet, Messiah? The Holy Word: eternal truth, wisdom, the Bible, the Lord's voice among the ancient trees? *2*; the lapsed Soul a spiritually bad state, state of human evil, fallen light: bad state of knowledge, understanding etc. Earth: mankind, the planet. In this poem BLAKE sees the morn as the period or time-span open to imagination. Neither night (the "dark" Middle Ages with the lack of reason), nor the break of day (the Enlightenment, Era of Reason, Empirism etc. or the Day of Judgement ?) are positive elements in this poem. typography What appears striking at once is the deviation from the typographical convention of the ballad stanza (s. a.; *3*): instead of a third line consisting of three or four accent-ed syllables two shorter lines precede the concluding line (cf. metre below). This eye-catching phenomenon seems to slow down the reading tempo in correspondence with the imagery, and in order to give the reader or listener's thoughts a chance to trace the complex images and become aware of their range and significance; at these points the poem presents images of "universal" dimensions and implications transcending space and time: (1) the Holy Word 's timeless, universal power (its slow pace is indicated by 1,5: walk'd). In (2) its stabilizing effect on universal phenomena is also recognizable; the words controll and starry pole themselves express something static rather than dynamic, too. In (3) it is the moment of pause or suspense between night and morn[ing] which has this effect in connection with the term slumberous mass in the subsequent line. The starry floor and watry shore of (4) again demand the reader's imagining boundless dimensions. Contrastingly, the appeals ("commands" in (1), (3), and (4) as well as the "call" in (2,1) can hardly be voiced adequately without raising the tempo of speech. capitalization The capitalised words seem to sum up the main aspects: Bard (messenger), Present... (omniscience, timelessness of message) Holy Word (message), Soul (fallen state), Earth (addressee)
punctuation Exclamation marks make the appeals in (1) and (3) more dramatic, and in (2,4) emphasise the potential power of the Holy Word. In the last stanza, the absence of an exclamation mark gives the imperative phrase Turn away no more the quality of a logical conclusion to be drawn from the presentation of arguments before andafter it. Owing to the absence of a question mark, the subsequent phrase, which is introduced by a colon, is a rhetorical question in the very sense of the word. metre Counting stressed syllables results in the pattern /// + //// + (// + //) + ////, which can be considered to be a variation of the ballad stanza. The explicit commands in (1) and (3), the calling in (2), and the "weaker" imperative in (4) sound especially impressive because they are short-cut (cf. a short command with a long instruction). The last line of the poem has an "extra syllable" which reduces reading tempo (s.a.) and attributes more emphasis to this line as the conclusion of the poem. repetition etc. most remarkable: fallen, fallen in (2,4) expressing "depth" or downward movement (state of the Soul; s.a.), O Earth O Earth giving emphasis to the call (3,1). sound most remarkable: perfect end-rhymes in the di-metrical third and fourth lines (effect of pause; see under typography and metre) transfer etc. Why was the world in a fallen state at BLAKE'S time? In what respect is the world following the wrong course today? Do philosophy, religion, sciences have the keys to the solution of the problem(s)? What meaning and implications does the Holy Word have in this context? What is the value of other messages which claim to have the key to change the world and people for the better (faiths of other religions, quasi-religions, sects)? background BLAKE on imagination, vision and chief sources of inspiration : "And I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision... As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers... To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination... What is it [that] sets Homer, Virgil and Milton in so high a rank of art? Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because [it is] addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, [and only] mediately to the understanding or reason?" *4* ________________________________
*1* cf. KERMODE et al., VOL. II, p. 22f.; cf. KEYNES, p. 143; cf. OSTRIKER, p. 885 *2* "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden."; Genesis, 3,8. The Holy Bible (COLLINS), p. 9; the ancient trees here are trees "pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life ..., and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."; Genesis, 2,9; COLLINS, p. 8 *3* see footnote *2* under Introduction (Experience) *4* from a letter (1799), quoted after L. R. FURST, EUROPEAN ROMANTICISM, p. 81 top of analysis * BIBLIOGRAPHY * top of page found this helpful? - please pay 0,10 EUR and help cover costs for this website
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Juergen Matthias Schroeder (c) 7 JAN 2002 - streaming added in 2008
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