M.A English (Literature and Linguistic)

1. SICK ROSE
The poem's is enigmatic because of its multivalence.
Blake was obviously using the allegorical mode,
where the rose does not merely remain the literal
rose. It seems to allegorically represent beauty and
love. This pristine beauty and love is sick because a
worm gnaws into its bed. Bed does not merely
signify the literal bed, it’s the bed of the rose tree
and therefore symbolize the platform on which the
tree grows its roots. Once again, it allegorically
suggests that the foundation of unadulterated
beauty and love decays once a worm feeds upon it.
What then does the worm signify? Anything mean,
slimy and repulsive, destructive in intent. No doubt
the worm feeds upon the rose. the multivalence
here is that, not merely does it suggest maidenly
beauty and love spoilt by sex(which is suggested by
the expression “crimson joy'), but broadly and
metaphysically speaking, all things of beauty
undergo a sickening decay the moment they are
struck by desire, desire being metaphysically related
to a source of adulteration of purity in any form.
Blake is here also critiquing modern culture which

2. stresses upon the secrecy of sexuality, and one has
to remember that the worm comes in the night. it is
such kinds of secretive credos that ruin the beauty
of the rose, symbolizing beauty and love in all its
forms. Finally, a Christian reader is well aware with
the reference to the "MULTIFOLIATE ROSE" in
DIVINIA COMMEDIA. There the multifoliate rose
symbolizes spiritual exaltation and spiritual
perfection. Any worm of dark desire is bound to
corrupt such spiritually fulfilled image of beauty.
Blake is, basically, condemning sexuality which is
borne out by Blake’s line in the “Marriage of
Heaven and Hell”: “joys impregnate, sorrows bring
forth,” One should be aware that the sound O
recurs in the poem time and again and it suggests
the moaning, the groaning big “O,” the sound of
love and of death — the little death of the orgasm.