For Tuesday, please respond to one of the following prompts, and please come prepared to discuss all of them.
1. In poetry, rhyme (both internal rhyme and end-rhyme) is often used to compare/contrast/juxtapose important words. Therefore, looking closely at rhyming words can often tell us much about a given poem. For example, if I rhyme "thought" and "rot" in a poem, you might justifiably draw the conclusion that I don't think very much of the thought! In other words, rhyming words draw meaning out of each other. With this in mind, choose one of the poems from Songs of Innocence and Experience and write about the "meaning" that is contained in some of its rhymes. For example, if you were to write about "The Little Black Boy," you could discuss some, or all, of the following rhymes: wild/child, white/light, tree/me, day/say, live/receive, away/day, etc. This prompt is trying to introduce you to one of the many ways that poems are different from other genres of literature.
2. Using specific examples from the poems, define "innocence" and "experience." Obviously, I'm mainly looking for you to think about how Blake sees innocence and experience, but you may expand your discussion beyond that context as long as you refer to specific examples from the poetry.
3. Blake was a visionary. He claimed to see God, angels, and prophets. Allegedly, his deceased brother's spirit visited him and gave him the idea for illustrated texts, or "Illuminated Printing" as he called it. Blake intended his poems to be read in this way, as part of the larger work of art. "The Sick Rose" is on page C2 of your textbook, and "A Poison Tree" appears above. How does your reading of these poems change when the text is part of a work of visual art rather than text alone? What, if anything, do the poems gain? What, if anything, do they lose? (Note: You can view all of the illuminated poems at the Blake Archive.)
4. Use these lines from "The Divine Image" (85) as a critical lens as you analyze one other poem from Songs of Innocence and Experience:
For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
2. Using specific examples from the poems, define "innocence" and "experience." Obviously, I'm mainly looking for you to think about how Blake sees innocence and experience, but you may expand your discussion beyond that context as long as you refer to specific examples from the poetry.
3. Blake was a visionary. He claimed to see God, angels, and prophets. Allegedly, his deceased brother's spirit visited him and gave him the idea for illustrated texts, or "Illuminated Printing" as he called it. Blake intended his poems to be read in this way, as part of the larger work of art. "The Sick Rose" is on page C2 of your textbook, and "A Poison Tree" appears above. How does your reading of these poems change when the text is part of a work of visual art rather than text alone? What, if anything, do the poems gain? What, if anything, do they lose? (Note: You can view all of the illuminated poems at the Blake Archive.)
4. Use these lines from "The Divine Image" (85) as a critical lens as you analyze one other poem from Songs of Innocence and Experience:
For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
5. Many of the themes of Songs of Innocence are revisited in Songs of Experience. Sometimes the poems even have the same title in both volumes. Choose an example or two and discuss what changes between the two volumes. Then draw some larger conclusions about "innocence" and "experience" based on those changes. (This is similar to prompt #2, which you could combine with this one if you wish.)
5. Many of the themes of Songs of Innocence are revisited in Songs of Experience. Sometimes the poems even have the same title in both volumes. Choose an example or two and discuss what changes between the two volumes. Then draw some larger conclusions about "innocence" and "experience" based on those changes. (This is similar to prompt #2, which you could combine with this one if you wish.)
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