Week 9: William Blake, The Poet

• This week, we will investigate the life of William Blake (1757-1827) and the time in which

he was alive

• We will try to recall and build upon knowledge that we already know from GCSE poetry

• Understanding the context in which these poems were produced will help us to develop a

clearer understanding of their meanings

• As with all lessons, take notes and complete the tasks when prompted to do so

What do you already know about William Blake and his poetry? Use the below images to generate ideas.

William Blake: what you may already know!

• Blake wrote A Poison Tree (a poem often studied at the GCSE level)

• The poet was a deeply religious person and his poems often invokereligious symbolism

• For example, in ‘A Poison Tree’, the apple could be read as a biblical allusion to the apple from The Garden of Eden

• ‘A Poison Tree’ has a nursery-rhyme-like quality when read aloud; however, despite its deceptive simplicity, the poem conveys a difficult cautionary moral regarding the consequences of repressed anger

• The poem comes from a collection called Songs of Innocence and Experience

Top Tip!

The best practice when it comes to poetry is to read poems out loud. In fact, this is how they are meant to be read!

This is especially true of Blake’s poems. When reading any poem out loud, you will find yourself naturally detecting such poetic features as rhyme, alliteration, plosives, consonance etc.

Top Tip 2!

Another good strategy is to hear how the poem sounds when read by another speaker.

As we’ve covered in last week’s lesson, Youtube and librivox.org are good resources to find readings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqB43x6qP1c

Songs of Innocence and Experience

• For this course, we are studying poems from Blake’s famous collection Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794)

• Please keep in mind that we are studying many of these poems, but not all of them

• As you will come to grasp more fully later on, there are two sets of poems, the ‘Innocence’ (I) poems and the ‘Experience’ (E) poems

• These poems juxtapose the innocent world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression

• Many poems act as counterparts to one another; for example ‘The Lamb’ (I) represents a meek virtue, while ‘The Tyger’ (E) exhibits opposing, darker forces

• The collection as a whole explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world.

Have a glance at the poems you are meant to study this year. You don’t need to read every poem thoroughly until next year. However, read a few and try to get a sense of some general impressions you have.

Answer

1) What are your general impressions about these poems?2) What kinds of imagery continue to appear? 3) Are any of the poems similar to ‘A Poison Tree’? Dissimilar? Explain.4) What can you observe about the titles of the poems?

To get a copy of the poems, email me at eguglietti.310@hhsweb.org

This will also tell me that you’ve made it this far in the course!

William Blake: Context

Read the article pictured to the right. It is entitled ‘Week 9 Attachment 1’

It explore aspects of Blake’s life and the society in which he lived.

• During his own lifetime, Blake was a pronounced failure, and he harboured a good deal of resentment and anxiety about the public's apathy toward his work and about the financial straits in which he so regularly found himself

• Blake was known as an eccentric, and he did not quite fit the mould of other poets at the time, a group that became known as ‘The Romantic poets’ or ‘The Romantics’

• Blake also had a troubled relationship with organised religion, although he had a profound sense of inner spirituality

Watch the video below produced by The British Library. In bullet points, jot down information you learn regarding Blake’s character and his sense of spirituality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8hcQ_jPIZA

As you may have already realized, Blake did not simply write his poems, but he also created designs or engravings to accompany them.

The poet invented a printing technique known as relief etching and used it to print most of his poetry. He called the technique illuminated printing and the poetry illuminated books.

Through a careful examination of the engravings, we may begin to see the poems in a new light, as meaning is conveyed through the relationship between image and text

ChallengeWhat kinds of connotations does the word ‘illumination’ contain? How might this link to his ideas on spirituality?

Task

Have a careful look at the some of the engraving on the next few slides and, for each one, answer the questions:1) What can you see?2) What impression does this image convey?3) Is there anything unusual or interesting? (optional)

Image 1 Image 2

Image 3 Image 4

Image 5 Image 6

Over to you • Using the internet, conduct your own research on William Blake to answer the questions

below

• While you are free to use any credible source, these two are recommended:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-blake

https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Blake

William Blake key facts - Born: Died:

Where did he grow up?

Upbringing and childhood?

Style of poetry?

3 key historical events in his lifetime?

Impact these events would have had on society of the time?

Overview of his beliefs –

Most famous collections of poetry?

Name 6 poems he wrote –

How was he perceived by others? (find quotes)

What did he rebel against/find impossible to cope with?

What did he achieve in his lifetime?

Did you know…St. Paul’s Cathedral was lit up with Blake’s Ancient of Days last year for four nights in order to celebrate his birthday?

Read about it further by copying the link below.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/nov/28/william-blake-final-work-ancient-of-days-projected-st-pauls-cathedral