Presentation on The sick rose by william blake.

1. Analysis of poem: “The Sick Rose”
Laraib Zahra
Presented By:

2. “The Sick Rose”
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

3. Introduction
"The Sick Rose" is a poem by William
Blake. The poem mentions through the
symbols of the rose and the worm, how
intense experience preys upon unpolluted
innocence. The first publication was in
1794, when it was included in his
collection titled Songs of Experience as
the 39th plate.

4. Summary
The speaker, addressing a rose, informs it
that it is sick. An “invisible” worm has
stolen into its bed in a “howling storm”
and under the cover of night. The “dark
secret love” of this worm is destroying the
rose’s life.

5. Like in many of Blake’s poems, an exclamation mark
in used where he comments on an issue that seems
obviously atrocious to him, but the rest of the world is
seemingly oblivious to it as they do nothing to
change it. “Rose” – could symbolize the natural
world.
Could symbolize virginity and purity, as corrupted by
a new societal norm of chaos and promiscuity that
came with industrialization.

7. Poet

8. Blake's artistic ability became evident in his youth, and by
age 10, he was enrolled at Henry Pars's drawing school,
where he sketched the human figure by copying from
plaster casts of ancient statues. At age 14, he apprenticed
with an engraver. Blake's master was the engraver to the
London Society of Antiquaries, and Blake was sent to
Westminster Abbey to make drawings of tombs and
monuments, where his lifelong love of gothic
art was seeded.
The Young Artist

9. The Maturing Artist
In 1779, at age 21, Blake completed his seven-year
apprenticeship and became a journeyman copy engraver,
working on projects for book and print publishers. Also
preparing himself for a career as a painter, that same year, he
was admitted to the Royal Academy of Art's Schools of
Design, where he began exhibiting his own works in 1780.
Blake's artistic energies branched out at this point, and he
privately published his Poetical Sketches (1783), a
collection of poems that he had written over
the previous 14 years.