Bio, literary analysis, and lots of paintings.

1. william blake "The whole business of Man is the arts, and all things in common."

5. “ ghost of a flea”

18. Introduction to Songs of Innocence: What is the child's role in relation to the piper? What does the child want the piper to do? Might the line "I stain'd the water clear" be read in two different ways? If so, how? How has the voice of the speaker changed in the Introduction to Songs of Experience? What is the difference between the “piper” and the “Bard”? How is Earth represented in this introduction, in contrast to that of Songs of Innocence? The Chimney Sweeper What is the child-speaker's relationship to little Tom Dacre? What does Tom's dream mean? What is the coffin, in your opinion? What is the function of the dream in the poem? What role does the body play in this poem—how do the images of the boys’ physical reality affect our emotional response to the poem? How does their physical reality relate to their spiritual state? The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Experience Compare the poem to its Innocence precursor. Again, what enables the child to interpret his situation so differently? Is it significant that the child uses the present tense in the last stanza - "because I am happy, & dance and sing…"? What is the nature of his dancing and singing? What is the logic of the child's statement that his parents, their conception of God, and that God's Priest and King "make up a heaven of our misery"? How can they all "make up" a heaven from the existence of misery?