August 3, 2021
From Gerald R. Lucas
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Hear the voice of the Bard![2] |
Notes & Commentary
- ↑ The introductory poem from the Songs of Experience, 1794, which defines the “emotional conditions” of the poems in this book Tomlinson 1987, p. 27).
Compare this poem to its contrary, the “Introduction” from Songs of Innocence. See also the introductory note on “The Lamb” for more background into Blake’s poetic composition and philosophy. - ↑ The Bard is the voice of Blake in the songs of experience—the prophet who has heard the translated the word of God from the beginning and who now calls to the Earth to reawaken with a new vision (Gardner 1969, pp. 131–132).
- ↑ The Bard is able to trace the entire history of humanity through his imagination, from the Biblical original sin to the world that’s reflected through his imagination: “to Blake poetry was simply translated vision: the artist was the seer” (Bellenhouse 1958, p. 52).
- ↑ Genesis 3.8: Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of day.” The Bard has heard the word of God in Eden (Greenblatt 2018, p. 54). The trees here could also bed the “forests of the night” from “The Tyger” that have confused and obscured innocence (Gardner 1969, p. 132).
- ↑ The syntax is unclear: is it the Bard or the Holy Word that calls upon the lapsèd, or fallen, Soul (and in the next stanza the fallen Earth) to renew the light? Perhaps the Holy Word does not have the power to bring light on its own, but only with the help of the Bard.
- ↑ I.e., the Soul might control.
- ↑ For Blake, the sky represents rational order, while the sea is chaos (Greenblatt 2018, p. 54).
Work Cited
- Battenhouse, Henry M. (1958). English Romantic Writers. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.
- Gardner, Stanley (1969). Blake. Literary Critiques. New York: Arco.
- Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. (2018). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Major Authors. 2 (Tenth ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 9780393603095.
- Tomlinson, Alan (1987). Song of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake. MacMillan Master Guides. London: MacMillan Education.
Links
- Blake at the Internet Archive.
