August 31, 2021
From Gerald R. Lucas
Notes & Commentary
- ↑ From Songs of Innocence, 1789. This is a poem of harmony, the child speaker, likely a girl here, brings nature to her heart—birds, plants and humans (Tomlinson 1987, p. 33). Compare this poem to its contrary, the “The Sick Rose” from Songs of Experience. Unlike in its contrary poem, the blossom here is in the wild, free of the confines that humans would impose upon it.
See also the introductory note on “The Lamb” for more background into Blake’s poetic composition and philosophy. - ↑ This phrase is repeated and suggests that the child speaker of the poem is a girl (Tomlinson 1987, p. 33). Bosom, too, suggests near her heart, where the poetic intuition is strong.
- ↑ Sobbing is unlikely sadness, but an overflow or an abundance of joy, like in weeps with joy.
Bibliography
- Ackroyd, Peter (1995). Blake: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books.
- Battenhouse, Henry M. (1958). English Romantic Writers. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.
- Bloom, Harold (2003). William Blake. Bloom’s Major Poets. New York: Chelsea House.
- Frye, Northrup (1947). Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Gardner, Stanley (1969). Blake. Literary Critiques. New York: Arco.
- Green, Martin Burgess (1972). Cities of Light and Sons of Morning. Boston: Little, Brown.
- Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. (2018). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Major Authors. 2 (Tenth ed.). New York: W. W. Norton.
- Makdisi, Saree (2003). "The Political Aesthetic of Blake's Images". In Eaves, Morris. The Cambridge Companion to William Blake. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. pp. 110–132.
- — (2015). Reading William Blake. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Paulin, Tom (March 3, 2007). "The Invisible Worm". Guardian. Retrieved 2021-09-04.
- Thompson, E. P. (1993). Witness Against the Beast. New York: The New Press.
- Tomlinson, Alan (1987). Song of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake. MacMillan Master Guides. London: MacMillan Education.
- Wolfson, Susan J. (2003). "Blake's Language in Poetic Form". In Eaves, Morris. The Cambridge Companion to William Blake. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. pp. 63–83.
Links and Web Resources
- Blake at the Internet Archive.
- Blake’s Notebook at the British Museum.
- William Blake Study Questions
