Blake+01

**Katie & Samantha **


The Divine Image and the Human Abstract are companion poems. The Divine Image is from Songs of Innocence while The Human Abstract is from Songs of Experience. __**The Divine Image ** __

**__Analysis __**
==== The poem examines the qualities that God shares with human beings including Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love and essentially states that God is Mercy, Pi t y, Peace, and Love. The poem also says that Mercy, Pi t y, Peace, and Love also make up man, God's child. Therefore the poem is stating that man is made in the "divine image" of God because he also possesses these qualities.The poem then personifies Mercy, Pity, and Love by giving them human qualities such as a heart, a face, and clothes. The poem concludes by saying that all who have Mercy, Pi t y, Peace, and Love within them also have God within them due to these being the qualities that God gave to man.This poem exemplireie romantic literature due to its reflective nature. The poem has a spiritual angle due to the reference to God. ==== __
 * The Human Abstract** __

**__Analysis__**
====The Human Abstract serves as the melancholic companion to the Divine Image. Within the poem, there is no reference to God with the exception of the man in the poem having "holy fears". There are only references to the "gods of the earth and the sea". Blake discusses the not so glorious qualities of humans including cruelty, mystery, and deceit. Blake also traces back all of these poor qualifies not to God but to man by stating that the tree that bears the "fruit of Deceit" lives within the human brain. The poem also contains Romantic elements. The reference to a raven making a nest in a tree refers to nature. Also, the freedom of man within this poem to make himself corrupt is another element of Romantic literature. He furth exempliflies the idea of unciviled man. ====




Comparative Analysis of the Plates for The Divine Image and The Human Abstract
====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Divine Image plate contains a variety of colors. Due to the contrast between the maroon and the yellow, the yellow colors used throughout the poem really stand out. There are many different instances of organic lines. There are seven human like figures on the thick line that winds throughout the poem. The emphasis is the thick line that winds throughout the poem. Within this line, there are different tints of blue and maroon. The contrasting colors of the line and the sheer thickness of the line make it stand out. The lines within the poem are all curved even with lines surrounding the outside of the plate. The implied texture of the plate is smooth. The way the colors blend together and the softness of the lines exemplify this. In addition to tints of blue, there are shades of blue in the upper portion of the plate. In contrast, the plate for the Human Abstract has one organic figure. Also, the emphasis is placed on this figure. Unlike the Divine Image plate, the blues, the reds, and the yellows are muted tints while the main colors used are shades of brown and green with tints of black. Like the Divine Image plate, the implied texture is smooth. ====

=__ The Chimney Sweeper __= William Blake wrote //The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence// and //The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Experience// as companion pieces with the intention that the two works would be analyzed jointly in order to portray the great influence that experience has on one's prospective on life. //The Chimney Sweeper// highlights the optimism of a young boy who has not witnessed hardships compared to the resentment of a young man who has had a taste of the world's cruelty and has learned to view his life differently. Blake does not propose a life of innocence to be more favorable than one of experience, but rather recognizes both stages of life as inevitable and inseperable. Innocence cannot last a lifetime because the anguish of experience is unavoidable in the progression through life.

Songs of Innocence __Summary__ The narrator of this poem is an optimistic, young boy whose youth and natural innocence has made him unaware of the terrible life he has been left with. After his mother died, the narrator was sold by his father into an apprenticeship as a chimney sweep. The boy was too naive to understand that being alienated by his parents at such a young age was a painful and severe situation. Rather than living a life of miserty and despair, the narrator eagerly accepts his job as a chimney sweep and is unable to realize that slowly but surely his innocence is being ripped away from him.

In order to emphasize how young the narrator was when he was sold into working as a chimney sweep, Blake declares that the boy could barely pronouse the word "sweep"; it sounded more like "weep" (line 3). Blake included the mispronunciation of the word to show that the boy was too young to understand that he would be sad and weeping the death of his mother and his abadonment by his father, rather than being encouraged to live a life of a sweeper.

This version of the poem serves as a contrast between the optimism and innocence of youth and the severity of the reality that the inexperienced child is oblivious to. After analyzing a dream of a boy by the name of Tom Dacre, the narrator comes to believe that as long as the boys continue their hard work, they will be rewarded in heaven. In reality however, the dream serves helpless to the boys. The dream will not prevent the boys from the repression or hardships associated with their life as chimney sweeps.

An example of the narrator's immaturity is his inability to comprehend the hardships of life as a chimney sweep that he would be forced to face. Turning this time period, children chimney sweeps had to work in the small spaces of the chimney where their lives were constantly threatned by toxic fumes and suffocation. As the narrator of the poem goes on to describe the story of Tom Dacre, he makes reference to sleeping in the soot (line 8), which symbolizes the children's inability to escape the miserable surroundings of their lives.

The story of Tom Dacre is representative of the transformation from youth to maturation. In the poem, Tom's hair is compared to a lamb's back. The lamb is a universal symbol of innocence (commonly referenced as being the Lamb of God). Tom's white hair is shaved in the poem, which is representative of his innocence being stolen from him.

Another disheartening element of the poem is the way the optimistic narrator interprets Tom’s dream. Tom dreams of chimney sweepers that were set free from their coffins by an Angel who promised them peace in heaven for being such good boys. After analyzing Tom Dacre's dream, the narrator comes to believe that as long as the boys continue their hard work, they will be rewarded in heaven. In reality however, the dream serves helpless to the boys. The dream will not prevent the boys from the repression or hardships associated with their life as chimney sweeps.

__Elements of Romanticism__ The following elements of the Romantic Period are exhibited by William Blake in these pieces:

Nature: Blake uses elements of nature in Tom's dream to set a propitious tone: “Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run and wash in a river, and shine in the sun” (line 15-16).

Individualism: Blake highlights the importance of the individual by giving Tom Dacre a name and a voice that distinguishes him from the ambiguous, nameless, sweeper.

Common Man/Society: The narrator of this poem directs his story to the audience of upper class society. In line 4 of the poem ("So your chimneys I sweep...") Blake blames the upper class for forcing the youth to give up their childhood and enter the dangerous world of laboring in order to make money.

<span style="font-size: 110%; color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Songs of Experience** Summary The main difference between this poem and the first poem is the perspective of the narrator. The narrator of this poem is no longer a carefree, optimistic chimney sweep that has yet to witness the difficulties of his occupation. The narrator is rather an experienced worker who has matured and witnessed many hardships of his job. He now resents his parents for the life they forced upon him and blames them for his misery.

In this poem, the narrator tells a story of a nameless chimney sweep, more aptly described as “Little black thing among the snow” (line 1). The narrator has grown up to realize the meaningless existence of life as a chimney sweeper and no longer acknowledges the boy as human. Society's lack of appreciation for the chimney sweep and inhumane actions toward the chimney sweep have left the narrator bitter and disgusted with society.

Another indication of maturation is that the boy in the poem now cries "Weep!" as words of despair rather than as a mispronunciation of the word "sweep." Throughout his life, the narrator has come to appreciate the feelings of pain, woe, and misery. Blake uses contrasting black and white imagery in this piece (black figure in the white snow) to greater emphasis the purity and innocence of childhood that has been spoiled by the darkness and despair that had resulted from natural progression through life. Both of //The Chimney Sweeper// selections work together to give a deeper understanding of the transformations that accompany maturation from childhood to adulthood as the youth is forced to surrender their innocence.

From //Songs of Innocence:// From //Songs of Experience:// Comparison of Art from //Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience:// The most obvious difference between the two works of art is the different hues of color used in each of the pieces. The artwork from //Songs of Innocence// includes bright shades of green and blue while the artwork from //Songs of Experience// is mainly created using black and white. The use of color in the first piece of art gives the artwork a more lively tone and portrays positive feelings, which coincides with the optimistic feelings of the narrator in //The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence.// The value of black and white in the second piece of art adds a dreary mood to the piece. The rigid, diagonal lines that Blake used in the second piece of art adds a harsh and more severe tone to the piece as well. The emphasis in the artwork from //Songs of Experience// is on the boy. The boy is dark and shaded in, which attracts most of the attention in the composition. The use of shading to highlight the boy as the most important aspect of the piece of helps create unity between the artwork with the poem. Both pieces suggest the isolation and abandonment that the chimney sweeper faces from the rest of society. In the artwork from //Songs of Innocence,// many boys are together and appear to be protected by an angel of some sort. The lighter tones used in this piece of art coincides with the lightness and carefree lifestyleassociated with innocence and youth. The two pieces of art clearly depict a transformation from the naivety of childhood to the awareness of adulthood.

Bibliography: [|The Chimney Sweeper] [|The Chimney Sweeper from the Songs of Innocence image] [|The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Experience image] [|Norton Anthology of English Literature] [|Romanticism] [|The Literature Network]