William Blake “A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. ” Bree Foreman Period 3 January 9, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents.
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5 Works Cited………….. ………………………………………6 Appendix………………………………………………………7 William Blake once said, “A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. William Blake was a man of great words, who was generally looked down upon for his different writing skills. His different writing skills made him look insane and mad, when really his skills were out brought out the true genius behind the words. In William Blake’s poetry he involves and creates characters of God, angels, and magical things; his subject matter sharing the ideas about human nature and society through us of unique themes and diction to help portray the challenges faced in his poems. To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour,” this was a quote stated by William Blake. William Blake was born November 28, 1757 in London.
William Blake had many visions of God and angels during his life and no one supported those visions. Blake was home schooled until he was eleven years old, then went to Royal Academy and studied art. William Blake studied art until 1772, marrying Catherine Boucher ten years later. William Blake had the help of John Flaxman and Reverend A.
S. Matthew to publish and help pay for his first volume (“William”; 291). Many people referred to Blake’s work as madness and insanity “William”; 158). He then tried to open a print shop, but in the end it failed (“William”; 79). William Blake died in the year 1827, showing his love for his wife when he said, “I will always be with you. ” At six pm that night, Blake passed away (William 8).
William Blake contained a variety of topics in his writing; he went from rhyming, to romantic topics, and also to magical topics.William Blake was once ridiculed for his writing, but he has evolved into a man that people see a social rebel and as a “hero imagination” that played a key role in improving the Romantic revolt against rationalism. Blake started having visions when he was young of many Gods he has sawn. Critics referred to William Blake as an unfortunate lunatic and related his poetry to madness (Nineteenth 156, 158). People thought he was mad and ill because of the visions he said he witnessed and wrote about. According to Edward Fitzgerald, “He was a man that used to see visions: and make drawings and paintings of Alexander the Great, Caesar, and etc. ho, he declared, stood before him while he drew,” (Nineteenth 162). To others, William Blake was such a creative and unique man.
They honored his writing and how his imagination was taken to such a far level. It was quoted that, “He elected his opinions because they seemed beautiful to him, and fulfilled ‘the desires of his mind. ’ Thus, Christianity was beautiful to him, and was accepted even more because it was satisfied his love of spiritual beauty, than because it satisfied his religious and moral sense,” (Gilchrist).I look up to William Blake because he honored what his eyes saw and didn’t try and look for the bad in them, but he found the good. He was inspired by his visions and that is what makes him a poet of extravagant writing. William Blake involves the themes of misery and happiness in both his poems “The Golden Net” and in “The Smile. ” In the poem “The Golden Net,” Blake describes “They cry ;amp; tear forever flow,” this is describing how the three virgins are always in misery. One virgin is “clothd in flames of fire” to help show her world is burning and being destroyed.
The second virgin is “cloth in iron wire” to describe that she is captured and has no freedom in her life. Blake describes the third virgin “clothd in tears and sighs” to help show that she is very unhappy and that she is disappointed at where she is in her life. A golden net was found in the poem as a symbol of rescue. The golden net took away the evil in the three virgins lives. “To be consumed in burning fires,” the net consumed the flames of fire to help bring light in the world that was destroyed.
“And in ungratified desires,” it took away that things that were looked down upon. And in tears clothd night and day,” the tears would stop falling and that the smile would shine through the darkness someone was feeling. In the poem “The Smile” William Blake continues to show the themes of misery and happiness by using positive and negative moments. The happiness of the poem is “the Smile”. Blake describes there is a smile of love, deceit, and a smile of all smiles. The misery of the poem is “the Frown.
” He describes needing to forget the frown even though it continues to deep in heart’s core and how when every you smile the frown will continue to live in your deep back bone.Blake then begins to emphasize that when the smile combined with true love and happiness the frown is gone. The smile fills up the heart with everlasting joy and helps keep out disappointments (Blake; “The Smile”), (Blake; “The Golden Net”). William Blake uses capitalization in both is poems “The Golden Net” and in “The Smile, ” by capitalizing the words that are very important in the poem and he does that to make the poem more powerful.
The words capitalized bring out the point in a stronger and more intense way.In the poem “The Gold Net,” William Blake capitalizes the words “fire,” “love,” “tears,” “desires,” “golden,” and “heaven. ” He capitalizes these words to describe the way the three virgins feel.
It gives a better description of what they feel and what they truly want. It also describes the pain and heartbreak the three virgins have to deal with. In the poem “The Smile,” Blake also uses capitalization to bring out his idea in a stronger way. He uses the words “love,” “deceit,” “disdain,” “grave,” “misery,” “heart,” and “core” to bring the feelings and true emotions of pain, heartbreak, sadness, and misery in the poem.
He uses deep word like “core,” to make you understand the depth and thought of the poem (Blake; “The Smile”), (Blake; “The Golden Net”). “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees,” was an intelligent quote stated by William Blake. Blake’s life was filled with both memorial times and unwanted times. People saw his poetry as crazy, when he saw his poetry differently.
He was a man with real feelings and deep thoughts. He pictured things in a different way, he added more thought into every little thing, and he wasn’t afraid to write what he wanted.William Blake may have not been recognized as a man of intelligence in his time, but today people admire his strange work. Works Cited Blake, William. “The Golden Net. ” Poetic Elements of William Blake. William Blake. Oxford University Press, 1913.
161. Literature Resources from Gale. Web.
16 Nov. 2010. Blake, William. “The Smile. ” Poetic Elements of William Blake. William Blake. Oxford University Press, 1913. 161.
Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 16 Nov.
2010 Gilchrist Alexander. “An excerpt from The Life of William Blake. ” An Excerpt From The Life of William Blake.Ed. W. Graham Robertson. John Lane/The Bodley Head Litd.
, 1907. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Jay Parini.
Vol. 13. Detroit: Gale Research, 1986. Literature Resources from Gale. Web.
12 Nov. 2010. “William Blake. ” Magill’s Survey of World Literature. 2nd ed. 1993. Print. “William Blake.
” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. 1st ed. 1986. Print. “William Blake.
” Notable Poets. 1st ed. 1998.
Print. “William Blake. ” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 6 December 2010. Web.
6 Dec. 2010. Appendix
