William Blake: opere

WILLIAM BLAKE: OPERE

William Blake.
POET’S PECULIARITYES
•    Visionary poet: he claimed to see visions from heaven.
•    He is a poet and a painter at the same time.

He believes that poetry should be accompanied by paintings. Quite peculiar writer: he stands apart from the romantic literature for his extravagant personality.
•    Revolutionary poet: He believes in total freedom. He get married with a girl completely illiterate and he tries to educate her. Blake strongly believe in a revolution because it can establish a better world.
•    He is religious himself but he’s against the church as an institution.

Vita e opere di William Blake: riassunto

WILLIAM BLAKE: OPERE LETTERARIE

SONGS OF INNOCENCE & SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
•    Published in two different period, but they were collected together.
•    Contraposition, union of discordant elements (childhood, adulthood, good part, bad part). Blake does not put them in contrast: there’s a continuity.
•    The poems are paintings, they were printed in copper plates pages. (originality)
•    Musicality: simple language(only apparently). Songs of innocence are easier than songs of experience.
LOVE SEEKETH NOT ONLY HIMSELF TO PLEASE
•    3 stanzas: there is a symmetry between the first and the last stanza(they have the same structure and a lot of terms in common), but they’re in contrast.
•    Ring composition.
•    Metaphor: the clod(lump of earth, unselfish love) and the pebble(a small stone, selfish love).[contrasting words of innocence and experience]

WILLIAM BLAKE: POESIE

THE LAMB
•    Rhythm: slow and calm (songs of innocence)
•    Archaic words (are giving the idea of being in an ancient world)
•    Wild use of repetition
•    Sense of serenity
•    It seems a song made for children, a nursery rime. The language is apparently simple: behind this simplicity we have to consider that the lamb is something deeper. We realize the importance of the word “childhood” a period revalued in the romantic age (Blake, Wordsworth).
•    Lamb is the symbol of a child, Christ and the poet. Is a mild, innocent, tender animal.
TYGER
•    Hammering rhythm (alliteration of the dental “t” that is scanning the hammering rhythm)
•    Oxymoron: burning bright. All the poems are dealing with the contrast between two different natures. The tiger is beautiful and fearful at the same time.
•    “the forests of the night” a reclaim of a Dante’s expression.
•    Tiger: the power o creation: he becomes the symbol of an overreacher who tries to create something over the limit (Frankenstein)
•    Icarous and Prometeus: two dreamers (in a romantic point of view). Also William Blake is a dreamer.
LONDON
•    It describes the look of London after the industrial revolution. Utilitarianism: all the society is in function of the production.  Utilitarianism is a philosophical view(adam Smith) and  was applied to the social and the economical context.
•    “I wander”(he’s walking without a specific destination): the poet is the main protagonist.