Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Consider William Blakes presentation of love in the poem The Clod and the Pebble.

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Transfer-Encoding: chunked Selected: Songs of Ourselves (b) Paying close attention to language and form, write a critical appreciation of the following poem, considering William Blake?s presentation of love in the poem ?The Clod and the Pebble?. The Clod and the Pebble "Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair." So sung a little Clod of Clay 5 Trodden with the cattle's feet, But a Pebble of the brook Warbled out these metres meet: "Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, 10 Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite." The ostensible cuteness of the poem The Clod and the Pebble perhaps masks a more morbid and deeply cynical assessment of love by the poet William Blake. Initially, the contrast between the clod and the pebble?s speeches on love might encourage a positive response to the clod?s optimism about how love can rescue us from even the most hellish position. ...read more.

Middle

It is then pleasantly surprising that the clod sings about love in the most optimistic way. On the one hand, the clod?s optimism concerning love is deeply admirable, and the parallel structure used to present this speech alongside the pebble?s emphasises that optimism in the most appealing way. The clod states that love ?builds a Heaven in Hell?s despair,? while the pebble states that it ?builds a Hell in Heaven?s despite.? The clod speaks from the context of a hellish existence that entails pain and suffering, and endows love with the capacity to transcend such an experience and create a heavenly existence of joy and happiness. The pebble, on the other hand, speaks from a comparatively heavenly existence and instead endows love with the capacity to corrupt that existence with the pain and suffering suggested by the word ?Hell.? Our feeling that the clod is admirably optimistic ten evolves into a feeling that we too want and even believe that love will rescue and provide solace to this figure. Conversely, the parallel structure also helps to emphasise the pebble?s pessimism. ...read more.

Conclusion

Traditionally, however, rivers also symbolise a journey from innocence to worldliness. The water represents the experience that flows over us during life, leaving us more aware. This experience has left the pebble implacable. We imagine someone who has become hardened from experience - and this is reflected in the physical properties of the pebble. Now the water is forced to bend around the pebble, just as the clod must bend around the feet of the cattle. This is a depiction of the world?s harshness and cruelty, and we cannot help but appreciate that it is the pebble?s assessment of love that more accurately reflects it. To conclude, perhaps the poem is as much about idealism and realism as it is about love. Love, after all, is subject to our tendency to be both idealistic and realistic. Ultimately though, it seems that the depiction of the world as harsh and brutal confirms a negative view of love as equally harsh and brutal. At the very least, the poem encourages us to be ambivalent of love and not suppose it to be a kind of saviour capable of transcending all. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE William Blake section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related GCSE William Blake essays

  1. The Analysis of William Blake's 'The Tyger and the lamb'.

    'Gave thee life and bid thee feed' This next line is saying on the literal level .Who gave birth to you and fed you? This is shows the line to have a motherly, maternal theme with the actual language of the line having a soft gentle quality.

  2. English speaking and listening olympics presentation

    When asked why they support the bid, most people said that it will be good for London's economy. Supporters also say that an Olympic Games in London will be good for Britain generally, will increase employment and tourism and be good for national pride.

  1. Study of William Blake's Poems of Experience

    Many other countries joined in to help the king of France but were they enough to stop the revolution? Through the second, third and fourth verses Blake gives a very strong image of the 'Tiger' being created possibly by God himself.

  2. William Blake's

    Freedman claims "Blake's tightly structured quatrains as well as his self-consciously elaborate poetic figures are signs of just how much intense intellectual labour is required to comprehend the city" (3) and indeed the notion that the poet is struggling to come to terms with the wounds he perceives is very clear.

  1. Evaluate William Blake's Explanation of the Theme of Love in Relation to Contemporary Attitudes.

    been described as summing up many implications of Songs of Experience, Blake describes the woes that the Industrial Revolution and the breaking of the common man's ties to the land have brought upon him. For instance, the narrator in "London" describes both the Thames and the city streets as "chartered,"

  2. A Symbolic Analysis of William Blake's "London".

    This and all later stanzas focuses on the sounds that Blake hears, particularly the cries of the poor, as he walks through the city. .........The third stanza marks a change in tone to a more abstract, symbolic depiction of a "black'ning Church" being "appalled" by the "Chimney-sweeper's cry," and the

  1. With close reference to between four and six poems, explore Blake's presentation of childhood ...

    The poem becomes increasingly dark and into an outlet for Blake's true opinions of the implications of education: "if buds are nipped...if the tender plants are stripped". Also by addressing the possible reader, "O father and mother", the poet is trying to make a significant impact on society, and attack

  2. Romanticism in William Blake's Poetry.

    thus ,It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions. Imagination is then the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is as well the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality, for (as Wordsworth suggested), we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work