Throughout this poem the ideas appear slightly unorthodox. The idea that it is, essentially mankind we are praying too, would have been challenging to accept in the 18th century. It would have been hard to acknowledge that rather then praying to God we should pray to the qualities directly. By presenting the Virtues of Delight and exerting them in human form, Blake is suggesting that man embodies God. ‘Pity has a human face.’ He is thereby asserting God is formed in mans image, inverting the whole image of creation and the concept that man is formed in God’s likeness. The ideas in ‘The Divine Image’ are more complex than is first suggested by its traditional ballad form. Blake implies that because the four virtues take on human form, then God is created in human likeliness. Implying that God exists in the likeliness of man challenges traditional Biblical teachings and beliefs that mankind was created by God. It is instead suggesting that God is man and man is God. These ideas are particularly controversial; they go against all religious beliefs and veracity. In the 18th century, prior to the Industrial Revolution, such ideas would have been easier to accept; however as Blake released ‘The Divine Image’ during the Industrial Revolution they could only exist as a dream. Equality would be impossible to accept, there were only factory owners and factory workers, landowners and land workers, a gulf existed between those of wealth and power and those who were of less authority.
‘The Human Abstract’ is polar opposed to ‘The Divine Image’, whereas ‘The Divine Image’ depicts Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love existing in the human heart, showing God intensified through man, ‘The Human Abstract’ tells a story of the lies, deceit and cruelty that can grow within the human brain. Like ‘The Divine Image’, ‘The Human Abstract’, also attributes Pity and Mercy to the human form. However, in the first stanza, it also implies that humans only have these characteristics through the poverty and suffering of others. ‘Pity would be no more, if we did not make somebody poor.’ The first stanza perceives that without poverty there would be no pity and without suffering there would be no mercy. This states that characteristics only exist in mankind through selfishness and self – absorption; this is in complete contrast to the ideas in ‘The Divine Image.’
In the second stanza Blake’s idea of peace is different to that of ours, he doesn’t view it as peace, he sees it as mutual fear, everyone being scared of everyone else and the hatred being confined within us. As Blake lived, during a time of intense social change, these ideas may have developed from the political and economic changes that were occurring during the Industrial, American and French Revolutions. Blake’s poetry reflects many of the changes he saw taking place, therefore the fear in ‘The Human Abstract’ may stem form the men and women in the 18th century becoming more opposed by the powerful changes, as it was a time of intense political paranoia.
As with ‘The Poison Tree’, a poem that depicts with appalling honesty the hatred of which one man is capable, ‘The Human Abstract’ picks up on the hatred and fear we can confine with ourselves, along with the extended metaphor of a tree growing from this hatred. ‘The Human Abstract’ uses a direct quote from ‘A Poison Tree’. ‘And waters the ground with tears.’ The fruit mentioned in ‘The Human Abstract’ is the same fruit featured in ‘The Poison Tree.’ ‘And it bears the fruit of deceit.’ - a poisoned apple representing all the anger and hatred that has built up over time. In the case of ‘The Human Abstract,’ the tree grows from the trepidation, hatred and suffering that the people of London are experiencing. ‘Then Cruelty knits a snare.’ – here, cruelty is personified as a knowing or cunning person. The tree in ‘The Human Abstract’ flourishes on the fear and hypocrisy of the church, offering no help, creating despondency amongst the people, a poisonous foliage growing from the tree, going against the natural and spiritual state of man. ‘He sits down with holy fears, and waters the ground with tears’ - the tears being those of the people in London who are suffering.
The caterpillar and the fly mentioned in the fourth stanza can be viewed as parasites, feeding off the poverty within London, metaphorically spreading the cruelty as it feeds off the fear. They are both grubs that eat away and spread decay from the inside, this rot begins at the core of the fruit yet the surface appears unblemished. This image conveys itself in the final stanza. In the final stanza, Blake portraits a glimpse into the human mind, ‘There grows one in the human brain,’ the mental experience of humans feeding off evil thoughts, spiritually crushed by the social, political and economic forces that restrict and confine the mind, the though process now resides a poison tree.
In ‘The Divine Image’ the four entities combine to create ‘The Divine Image’, this shows a slight resemblance with ‘The Tyger’, the creation in ‘The Tyger’ being the tiger itself. However, Blake stresses in a tone that reminds us of ‘The Lamb’, of the goodness and innocence that inhabits in the human heart. Qualities that are in stark contrast to those of a tiger.
In ‘The Human Abstract’, Blake uses London as his focusing point, it is London where the poverty and anguish of the people occurs, and it is within London where the trepidation grows. The poem ‘London emphasises the circumstances in London, at the time of Blake’s writing, as even infants are blemished with desolation. ‘ In every infants cry of fear.’ Therefore the poem ‘London supports the extended metaphor in ‘The Human Abstract’, the tree growing from the hatred, fear and affliction that the people in London are experiencing.
Both ‘The Human Abstract’ and ‘The Divine Image’ have an inner, deeper meaning than is suggested and reflected by their straightforward form. This can be regarded metaphorically as people too are simple on the outside yet complicated on the inside. It is children who are simple; adults who are complex. The extended metaphor of the tree in both ‘The Poison Tree’ and ‘The Human Abstract’ may also signify the transition from childhood to adulthood and innocence to experience.
Throughout his poems, Blake uses repetition and personification to great effect, to create vivid imagery. In ‘The Divine Image’, Blake uses personification to dramatise Christ’s mediation between, God and man, whereas in ‘The Human Abstract’, cruelty is personified as a knowing or cunning person. The abstracts, Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love are personified in man, in ‘The Divine Image’, here there is an inverted image of man in Gods likeness, instead of man being created by God, it is God who is man. In the ‘Human Abstract’ man is a product of society, with the extended metaphor of a poison tree, in his brain, representing a kind of mental imprisonment. This is far removed from the state of Grace and Godliness evoked in ‘The Divine Image’
The repetitive use of ‘and’ and ‘I’ throughout Blake’s poetry at the beginning of lines creates a sense of development, continuity and growth. In ‘The Divine Image’ the gentle melodic and frequent repetition of words and phrases combine with a spiritual subject matter to create the poems simple hymn-like quality.
Another poem that shares this quality is ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Nurses Song’. As Blake examines different, contradictory , ideas about the natural world, the Lamb is a symbol of the suffering innocence of Jesus Christ. The poem ‘The Lamb’ uses simple language, rhetorical questions and as with ‘The Divine Image’ frequent repetition of words, to give a nursery rhyme effect. The alliteration of the ‘L’ in ‘Little Lamb’ also adds to the delicate-sounding start to the poem. The poem ‘The Nurses Song’ shares the same landscape, innocence and melodic rhythm as ‘The Lamb’. The idyllic setting of the mead and the stream in both ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Nurses Song’ gives a calm, soothing effect, a backdrop to frame the innocence within the poems. In the 18th century, before the Industrial Revolution, people were free to stray wherever they wished in the open fields, Blake viewed the landscape as innocence sharing a sense of freedom. Consequently most of the Songs of Innocence are rooted in meadows and exquisite countryside
The children in ‘The Nurses Song’ also represent the lamb, but as an adult they are stated to have moved from the state of innocence to experience – the nurse in the poem representing everything else, personified through the birds and the lambs. ‘The Nurses Song’ can be seen in direct contrast to the poem ‘London’ and ‘The Chimney Sweeper’, as instead of having to work the children have the opportunity to play. The poem ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ unlike ‘The Nurses Song’, is written through the eyes of a child, focusing on the thoughts of a young boy coming to terms with the loss of his parents and child labour. Again Blake uses repetition, this time in the first stanza. In this case the repetition shows the continual pressure and demands that children as young as three had to face up to in the 18th century.
In conclusion, the poems that Blake produced show that the state of mind in innocence and experience are so far apart that in ‘The Divine Image’, the ideas are so pure they could depict God. Blake’s divine image is a reversed one; the poem constructs God in the image of man, whereas in the bible, God creates man in his image. The ideas in ‘The Human Abstract,’ however, go against the natural state of man or innocence, they perceive the deceit of which one is capable.
