Essay Question: With close reference to a range of poems comment on Blake's presentation and/or use of the natural world in "songs of innocence and experience'.

However, Blake's primary example of the use of the natural world in order to express his views is mainly seen in the poem London (experience), which is described as summing up implications of the songs of experience. This time, Blake uses the natural world, the dank, dark and repressive scenery of London to symbolise the tortured lives of the people. For instance, the narrator (Blake) in "London" describes both the Thames and the city streets as "chartered," or controlled by commercial interests; he refers to "mind-forged manacles"; he relates that every man's face contains "Marks of weakness, marks of woe"; and he discusses the "every cry of every Man" and "every Infant's cry of fear." He connects marriage and death by referring to a "marriage hearse" and describes it as "blighted with plague." He also talks about "the hapless Soldier's sigh" and the "youthful Harlot's curse" and describes "blackening Churches" and palaces running with blood ("London").

'London' and many of Blake's other works dealing with a similar theme, particularly those from the Songs of Experience, strike a particular nerve for those who are living in a society where the cost of living compared with income is steadily increasing, where frightening diseases are becoming increasingly common, and where the public are becoming increasingly disillusioned about the reliability and trustworthiness of politicians. These works resonate for a generation which has to deal with exponentially increasing population problems and with rapidly increasing demands on our immigration facilities and resources. They strike a special chord with a nation that, due to the aforementioned problems, the rise of violent crime, and other considerations, is rapidly desensitising itself to the "marks of weakness, marks of woe" that we are becoming accustomed to seeing on the faces of passers-by on the street. 'London' further proves that Blake's poems tried to issue change in the harsh reality of life.

Blake's style in the Songs of Innocence and Experience is simple and direct, the language and the rhythms are painstakingly crafted, and the ideas are complex and are woven throughout his craft. Many of the poems are narrative in style; like "The Sick Rose" and "The Divine Image," make their arguments through symbolism or by means of abstract concepts. Some of Blake's rhetorical techniques are personification and the reworking of Biblical symbolism and language. Blake frequently employs the familiar meters of ballads, nursery rhymes, and hymns, applying them to his own, often unorthodox conceptions. This combination of the traditional with the unfamiliar is consonant with Blake's interest in reconsidering and reframing the assumptions of human thought social behaviour with the imagery of the natural world.

Blake creates arguments through symbolism and imagery or by means of abstract concepts. From the songs of experience, A Poison Tree has the image of a tree as it grows, showing the dark side of human nature and how it can grow inside one's self. A Poison Tree tells how anger can be dispelled by goodwill or nurtured to become a deadly poison. The opening stanza is among the most deceptively simple and memorable of all Blake's lyrics: the form of each is grammatically the same, but substituting four words wholly alters the meaning, from the ending of anger with the "friend" to the continuing anger with the "foe". Blake does not tell us what is growing but it is evidently a plant of some kind: the real "fears" and "tears" are what metaphorically waters the plant-encourages hatred, and "smiles" and "deceitful wiles" are as the sunshine which makes it grow. The rhythm in this poem is simplistic like a nursery rhyme, but reveals more complex issues. Once again Blake uses a simple metaphor of the natural world that has a more deep psychological truth in that it depicts the hatred in which man is capable.

In Blake's imaginative universe, through the use of the natural world and literary technique, is able to present his ideas of the harsh reality he is living in and the issues involved more than effectively to the reader.