The Church, up till then seen as a completely trusted and unquestionable institution, began to come under scrutiny for money squandering and corruption. As his parents were both middle class hosiers working in London, he saw every day the two faces of eighteenth-century society; the poor badly treated working classes and the rich upper classes, living in luxury. Blake believed that such a great, seemingly unbridgeable divide could be crossed if only particularly trusted groups such as the Monarchy, the Aristocracy and the Church showed some morals and respect toward the lower classes.
Blake had an unorthodox view of the Church from childhood-his parents were dissenters, who saw the inherent corruption of the Church and chose not to conform to the traditional beliefs. This is most likely why we see such harsh criticism of the church in Blake’s poetry. It was as a consequence of this corruption in the church that Blake’s parents took him away from mainstream education and tutored him at home.
This home education allowed his imagination to develop greatly, and it may well have been because of this that he started to have visions. It was as a child that he started having these visions, seeing God at the window at the age of four, and seeing the prophet Ezekiel. He also saw not only his dead younger brother in later life, but also a strange man who taught him to paint. Sometimes these visions seemed more real than life itself.
This would go on to give Blake a great belief in the imagination. He firmly believed that the imagination was an important part of human character, and must be allowed to run free, instead of being trapped by indoctrination or brainwashing by the Church or the Aristocracy. In his poem ‘London’ from the ‘Songs of Experience’, he writes ‘the mind-forged manacles I hear.’ This suggests that it is the people themselves who haven’t the imagination to break free.
When he was ten he attended a drawing school, and at fourteen was apprenticed to an engraver; an occupation he was to maintain for the rest of his life, and which kept him in money until he died.
Blake shows us in his poetry how life during the smog-ridden and dirty Industrial Revolution was, by contrasting it against the countryside, which he uses as his idea of heaven or Eden-the perfect place for man.
We can divide Blake’s poetry into three sections; poems that celebrate the best ways of living, poems that show how society corrupts/the problems with man’s values, and poems that show us how Blake would like us to live. I have chosen poems from “Songs of Innocence and Experience” to illustrate Blake’s hate of tyranny and love of liberty.
In “The Echoing Green”, Blake gives us a view of his idea of a perfect life, in which everyone is content. There is imagery of a sense of safety, as we can see in Stanza three, “Like birds in their nest, are ready for rest”
The poem has a calm rhythm, which reflects its serene mood. It is written in rhyming couplets, which adds to this gentle, lilting feel. Each stanza is composed of five rhyming couplets, which is very balanced and does not sound at all out place. However, there are some dark undertones to this poem, as towards the end everything becomes dark and hazy. This could be a reflection of Blake’s ideas of a possible future. Its descent into darkness could also suggest the literal darkness of the smog and soot during the eighteenth century. ‘The Echoing Green’ does not show a perfect life, but is simply a subtle façade, a little like the rose in ‘The sick Rose’, which is rotten on the inside.
In stark contrast, “London” refers directly to the darkness and immorality of city life. He uses the symbolism of a venereal disease to represent the widespread corruption, and how even the children lose their innocence, “Blasts the new-born infant’s tear” (the passing on of the problems from one generation to the next) and “Youthful harlot” (children resorting to prostitution to survive). He also uses an oxymoron in the last line to contrast against the joy of marriage with the sadness of a funeral, due to the unfaithfulness of the man or woman “the marriage hearse”. It is also a continuation of the venereal disease metaphor, because there were no cures for such diseases in Blake’s time. The poem shows the way the Monarchy sends soldiers out to die on a whim “And the hapless soldiers’ sigh, runs in blood down palace walls”, and even the corruption of the church “every black’ning church appals”. This ‘black’ning’ refers not only to the blackness of the corruption of the institution itself, but also to the soot-stained walls of every city church, from the thick coal smoke that engulfed them.
He speaks of the “Chartered Thames” and “Chartered streets”. This is reflective of the fact that London had just been fully mapped for the first time, something that Blake considered wrong, as he believed that London was almost a living thing, always changing and moving. He felt that tom map it was to kill its spirit, and therefore hated the regularity of the map’s straight-line streets and river.
Through these poems, Blake speaks of his moral view of the world. It is clear that he cannot bear to see either children or adults oppressed under the tyrannical regimes that they live in, but are unable to imagine living without. Blake does not just want physical liberty from the Aristocracy and Church; he calls for a mental liberty, a freedom from indoctrination and mental bonds.
Blake’s work is still relevant today. People are still oppressed both physically and mentally throughout the world. Changes have happened, but there are still in England many that must resort to working in terrible conditions for little pay, and are unable to break free. Blake’s poetry is just as relevant to them now as it ever was, and will probably always be relevant to some.
