2. Who is William Blake ? William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Although he lived in London his entire life except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus. William did not attend school, and was educated at home by his mother Catherine Wright ArmitageBlake. The Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a source of inspiration throughout his life. Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, a practice that was then preferred to actual drawing. His parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but was instead enrolled in drawing classes. He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake was also making explorations into poetry.
3. Who is William Blake? From a young age, William Blake claimed to have seen visions. The first of these visions may have occurred as early as the age of four when, according to one anecdote, the young artist "saw God" when God "put his head to the window", causing Blake to break into screaming. At the age of eight or ten in Peckham Rye, London, Blake claimed to have seen "a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars."According to Blake's Victorian biographer Gilchrist, he returned home and reported this vision, and he only escaped being thrashed by his father for telling a lie through the intervention of his mother. Though all evidence suggests that his parents were largely supportive, his mother seems to have been especially so, and several of Blake's early drawings and poems decorated the walls of her chamber. On another occasion, Blake watched haymakers at work, and thought he saw angelic figures walking among them.
4. “Nurse’s Song” From the ‘Songs of Innocence’ When voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. 'Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away, Till the morning appears in the skies.' 'No, no, let us play, for it is yet day, And we cannot go to sleep; Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, And the hills are all covered with sheep.‘ 'Well, well, go and play till the light fades away, And then go home to bed.‘ The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed, And all the hills echoed.
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6. “Nurse’s Song” From the ‘Songs of Experience’ When the voices of children are heard on the green, And whisperings are in the dale, The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Your spring and your day are wasted in play, And your winter and night in disguise.
24. A quote by Blake: ‘Unorganized Innocence: an impossibility. Innocence dwells with Wisdom, but never with ignorance.’
Editor's Notes
-regular rhyme scheme depicts thepredictable cycles of childhood-animal imagery also significant: little birds rep freedom; sheep rep innocence of childhood-Rhymed ABCB and containing an internal rhyme in the third line of each verse.-no care about anything else in the world-no mention of the negative aspects of playing outside; the children are oblivious to the dangers of playing outside late at night that would be considered in a modern society.-The Nurse is of a jovial and warm-hearted nature, as she allows the children to continue with their games, with no thought for the wider consequences-only adjective used is ‘little’-care-free play of the imagination when it is not spoiled by senseless restrictions
nurse sitting and watching the children dancing merrily in a ring, The weeping willow in the right-hand margin is perhaps a reminder that not all life is fun and game.composed of four stanzas ->happy irresponsibility of childhood. the delight of being allowed to play a little longer until dusk.
More cynical nurseWhisperings=secret=scaredSpring->childhood->wasted, since Winter->Adulthood->False, Sad (Life=meaningless)-A clear bitterness in recognising lost innocence. Does this resentment provoke the nurse into terminating the play that she so wishes to be part of (or to return to)?-The "dews" of the night suggest potential - the power of a single rain drop may be minimal, however collectively are dangerous,it represents experience and danger at nightfall that the children do not want to gain.-The children continuing to play, even though ‘the dews of night arise’ is evocative of their innocence and naivety and suggests that they are soon to come confront experience.-Instead of ‘laughing’ in the ‘dale’, ‘whisperings’ are heard. The use of the more negative language reflects the transition from innocence to experience and the sense of corruption, which surrounds such a transition-The last lines are very ambiguous and pose many questions: is innocence merely a disguise covering our fundamental corruption? Or does growing up mean the inevitable loss of innocence? Is adulthood marked by deceit and hypocrisy? Or is disguise the mask the adult adopts for self-protection? Overall the poem has an unsettling disturbing effect: the emotion is fear; the vision is waste.-Combining the colour green and the word pale gives it a sickly feeling. Making the nurse seem like she is ill watching the children playing and remembering when she was a little child.-the nurse is bitter and jealous of the innocence that the children possess. Blake may be trying to portray the Nurse as a woman crushed by the weight of the world and turned bitter and cruel, no longer able to see the positive aspects of life. "my face turns green and pale" and "wasted in play". -This song unlike its innocence opposite is not by a nurse but about a nurse.-nurse is eager to point out the menaces and the dangers of the dark.
doorway framed in grape-clustered vines and an adolescent boy who is allowing his hair to be combed by the nurse; we are to assume his repressed resentment of the woman's power over him and his secret resolution to rebel. A girl, probably his more docile sister sits quietly behind him. The evil of female domination, so destructive of the male personality, already explicit in this poem, was often in Blake's mind, as we know from passages in other writings. The cottage door from which the boy has come is conspicuously wreathed with vines, symbol of the pleasures he will find in life.This song is a parody of the contrary poem in Songs of Innocence. The difference is emphasized by the form of the title "NURSES Song" ("Songs of Experience") instead of "Nurses Song" ("Songs of Innocence"). In this poem the words are spoken only by the nurse. The nurse recalls with regret how she wasted her spring-time without real gratification, and tells the "children" that their winter and night will be spoiled by repression and hypocrisy.
