Hypocritical Charity.

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Hypocritical Charity

Kaeley Wiseman

Eng 125

April 1, 2004

        William Blake, one of the first and greatest of the Romantic poets, has always been known as a humanist.  His Songs of Innocence and Experience, often seen as his greatest achievement, illustrate his compassion and interest in human nature.  The Songs of Innocence demonstrate how people are often blind to their own reality, while Songs of Experience explain how society really was.  He used ugly, angry, even savage images to demonstrate that reality.  

        The two “Holy Thursday” poems, based on marches the poorest children made to St. Paul’s to thank their patrons, are excellent examples of these varying views of reality.  His 1794 poem from Experience uses this Holy Thursday procession to attack society’s hypocritical attitude towards poverty and its youngest victims.

        Initially reading the poem, I responded to the quiet and questioning nature of it.  It has an almost lullaby-like quality to it due to the abab rhyme scheme in the first quatrain and children and babes as the main subjects.  Blake has chosen a quiet and somber mood, even though the subject itself could have demanded a stronger, louder voice.  The tone of the poem is constantly shifting, swaying between feelings of warm and cold, which create an unsettling feeling in the reader.  These high contrasts, such as comparing crying to ‘[songs] of joy’ and ‘rich and fruitful lands’ to fields ‘bleak and bare,’ bring heavy emotional weight.  Blake doesn’t just tell us how awful poverty appears, he uses opposites to create startling contrasts.  This occurs on two levels- the obvious opposites, such as light and dark, and on another, ironical level.  Phrases such as ‘holy thing,’ ‘rich and fruitful land,’ and ‘song of joy’ all have positive connotations, but in the context, they all receive negative, ironical meanings.  

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        Who the exact speaker is isn’t mentioned, but from Blake’s known interests and character, it can be assumed to be him.  The narrator considers it a scandal that a country as 'rich and fruitful' as England condemns so many of its children to live in poverty. In the second stanza, he corrects himself: England cannot be called 'rich' when there are such huge numbers of poor children living there.  Directed on a personal level to the reader, it is engaging, with questions and answers.  The third quatrain reflects his observations on a metaphorical level. The sun, a source of light and ...

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