August 22, 2021
From Gerald R. Lucas
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Notes & Commentary
- ↑ From the Songs of Experience, 1794. In the fallen world of experience (see “Introduction” and “Earth’s Answer”), nature is in disharmony, or divided against itself, undermining the rose’s health (Tomlinson 1987, p. 33). The dominant theme here suggests that secret love because of morality is unhealthy and unnatural, causing shame in sexual desire and ultimately rot. The rose symbolizes “experienced love”: the “love in the garden of Urizen, fostered and tended with a sense of guilt and shame, protected from other men, open to intrusion” (Gardner 1969, p. 51). The rose in Blake is a protected flower, only appearing in SE, and victim to man’s jealousy, morality, and thus his sickness. The garden in SE is walled off from others, where man tends to his own private desires, and is not a paradise, but recalls only temptation, mystery, forbidden knowledge, and “religious and sexual tyranny” (Gardner 1969, pp. 51, 55).
Compare this poem to its contrary, the “The Blossom” from Songs of Innocence. See also the introductory note on “The Lamb” for more background into Blake’s poetic composition and philosophy. - ↑ The worm symbolizes mortality, decay, or impermanence. Also, of course, the penis. This is the “germ of moral disease” that corrupts desire and makes love—especially women’s love—a sin (Gardner 1969, p. 127).
- ↑ The rose is complicit in trying to hide the immoral love, causing psychological, and perhaps, physical sickness. Found out suggests an attempt to hide or deceive. Blake’s critique extends to what he saw as an immoral marriage law that had less to do with love than it did in prolonging loveless relationships and glorifying possessiveness (Gardner 1969, p. 127).
- ↑ Yes, the red rose symbolizes passion, but also the female sex and genitals.
Works 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.
