William blake Poetry

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William Blake course work

William Blake was a man who only thought of bettering our society through his actions and poetry. He started working life as engraver’s apprentice, he grew up in a time know as the “Age of Reason”, and produced most of his work during this time as, he was a pioneer of this time. His work was called radical as well as his thinking this is because his revolutionary ideas were against all that the society of the time knew. Blake’s thinking reduced the church and its institutions to tools of repression, this was because of the churches over ruling power and control of the general people and the society willingness to obey through fear of being punished or sentenced to an eternity in hell. His attitude to try a liberate the human sprit and freedom of thought was powered by his experience of being tried for sedition, this made his thinking very powerful because the church/institution tried to oppresses and control his to which he replied by ridiculing the church through his inspiring poetry.

Holy Thursday

The subject of this poem is about Holy Thursday and the lies and the “make-up” face they put on. The type of social injustice that is shown in this poem is towards children and how they are treated badly and used for the churches gain.

The themes in this poem are of repression and greed, these are shown by how the children are being used to up the churches reputation by “helping” the children, and also how the church have used there power take and use the children.

The structure of the of the poem keeps the poem in short basic line of words, sort of like how a small child would think, this put’s you in a child’s shoes and make you feel more empathy for them. The four quatrains also have the same effect of a child’s mind by of staying on one subject for a short time. The quatrains are quite regular and strict giving you and impression of the repression of the church making sure there is no thinking against them. The rhyming is simple and regular. This could give the impression of a controlled person always having to think the same way and keep to the same rhythm or something bad will happen.

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The poetic techniques used in the poem are clever and well used to create emotion in the reader bringing out different feelings and certain biases towards certain opinions. The juxtaposition in the poem is very emotive like the comparison of a rich and fruitful land being disapproved of because of the babes the are fed with a cold and usurious hand this comparison has put the priests in the worst possible light as if this land is so rich and fruitful then why cant they show some compassion, warmth if it doesn’t effect them in the slightest. Another juxtaposed ...

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