class 8 (english)

3. Another critique of human societal restrictions on
the nature-loving human spirit, this poem is less
harsh and more playful than most of Blake’s other
such works. The boy loves “to rise in a summer
morn, /when the birds sing on every tree.” He enjoys
nature in its entire splendor, “But to go to school in
a summer morn, /O! It drives all joy away.” The boy
longs for the freedom of the outdoors and cannot
“take delight” in his book. He asks, “How can the
birds that is born for joy, /Sit in a cage and sing.” His
youth and innocence are suited to playing in the
summertime fields, not to sitting captive to a dreary
educational system.

5. THE SCHOOL BOY

9. "The School-Boy" is a six-stanza poem of
five lines each. Each stanza follows an
ABABB rhyme scheme, with the first two
stanzas using the same word "morn" to
rhyme in the first lines. The repetition of the
word “morn” as well as similarly low-
sounding words such as "outworn," "bower,"
"dismay," and "destroy" lend the poem a
bleak tone in keeping with the school-boy's
attitude at being trapped inside at school
rather than being allowed to move freely
about the countryside on this fine summer
day.

10. Blake suggests that the educational system of his
day destroys the joyful innocence of youth; Blake
himself was largely self-educated and did not endure
the drudgery of the classroom as a child. Again, the
poet wishes his readers to see the difference between
the freedom of imagination offered by close contact
with nature, and the repression of the soul caused by
Reason’s demands for a so-called education.

12. William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827)
was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely
unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now
considered a seminal figure in the history of both the
poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His
prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in
proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in
the English language". His visual artistry has led one
contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the
greatest artist Britain has ever produced". Although he
lived in London his entire life except for three years
spent in Felltham he produced a diverse and
symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the

13. imagination as "the body of God", or
"Human existence itself".
Considered mad by contemporaries
for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is
held in high regard by later critics for
his expressiveness and creativity, and
for the philosophical and mystical
undercurrents within his work. His
paintings and poetry have been
characterized as part of both the
Romantic Movement and "Pre-
Romantic", for its large appearance in
the 18th century. Reverent of the
Bible but hostile to the Church of

14. England – indeed, to all forms of organized religion –
Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of
the French and American revolutions, as well as by
such thinkers as Jacob Bohme and Emanuel
Swedenborg. Despite these known influences, the
singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to
classify. The 19th-century scholar William Rossetti
characterized Blake as a "glorious luminary," and as
"a man not forestalled by predecessors, or to be
classed with contemporaries, or to be replaced by
known or readily survivable successors".