Asier
Escrivà Gonzàlez
Dr.
Vicente Forés López
# 14217 Poesía Inglesa de los Siglos XIX y
XX Grupo A
29 November 2007
First Paper:
“The Dream Of An Emmet-Man”
A Dream
01 Once
a dream did weave a shade, A
(consonant)
02 O'er[i]
my Angel-guarded bed, A
03 That
an Emmet[ii]
lost it's way, B
(assonant)
04 Where
on grass methought[iii] I lay, B
05 Troubled
wilderd [iv]and
folorn C
(consonant)
06 Dark
benighted travel-worn, C
07 Over
many a tangled spray. B
(assonant)
08 All
heart-broke I heard her say. B
09 O
my children! do they cry, D
(assonant)
10 Do
they hear their father sigh. D
11 Now
they look abroad to see, E
(assonant)
12 Now
return and weep for me. E
13 Pitying
I drop'd[v]
a tear: F
(consonant)
14 But
I saw a glow-worm near: F
15 Who
replied. What wailing wight[vi] G (consonant)
16 Calls
the watchman of the night. G
17 I
am set to light the ground, H
(consonant)
18 While
the beetle goes his round: H
19 Follow
now the beetles hum, I
(assonant)
20 Little
wanderer hie[vii]
thee [viii]home. I
*Click here to watch the
original illustration of the poem. (Original image taken from <www.blakearchive.org>: Songs of Innocence, copy B, object 18 (Bentley 26, Erdman 26,
Keynes 26))*
[i] LDOCE. 20 November 2007: “over -
used especially in poetry”
[ii] According to http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-emm1.htm.
20 November 2007: “The word emmet actually means an ant. (…) It comes
from the Old English aemette, which developed one way into our standard
English ant, another into emmet, which survived as a dialect
word.”
[iii]LDOCE. 20 November 2007: methout is
the past tense of methink, which is the old use of “I think”, so methout may
refer to “I thought”
[iv] According to http://www.english.uga.edu/wblake/SONGS/26/wilderd.html.
20 November 2007: “wilderd - (wildered) straying or lost; confused”
[v] Abbreviation of “dropped”.
[vi] According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wight.
20 November 2007: “Wight
is a Middle English word for a creature or a living being, especially a human being.
In modern English today, it is also used in fiction for human-like creatures. Wight
derives from the same root as forms of to be, such as was and were.
Modern German "Wicht" is a cognate, meaning
"small person, dwarf", and also "unpleasant person"; in Low German
it means "girl". It is not related to the English word
"witch".
[vii]According to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hie.
20 November 2007: “Middle English hien, from
Old English hIgian, to strive, exert oneself.
(…)Verb1.hie - move fast”
[viii] LDOCE. 20 November 2007: “old used
word meaning 'you', used as the object of a sentence”
Biographical References:
William
Blake (1757-1827) was a British
poet, painter, visionary and engraver. Blake is considered one of the most
complete artists of history because he illustrated and printed his own books:
“William Blake (…) was an English poet, painter,
and printmaker.
Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake's work is today considered
seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts.”
From Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 20 November 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_blake.
William
was born in
“William
Blake was born in 28A
Blake had a complex education, his
mother taught him at home and next he studied in different schools and met a
lot of important people:
“On
4 August
1772, Blake became
apprenticed to engraver
James Basire
of Great Queen Street, for the term of seven
years. At the end of this period, at the age of 21, he was to become a
professional engraver. (…)After two years Basire sent him to copy images from
the Gothic churches in London( …) and his
experiences in Westminster Abbey contributed to the formation
of his artistic style and ideas; (…)In 1778, Blake became a student at the Royal Academy
in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. While the terms of his study required no payment, he
was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period. There,
he rebelled against what he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable
painters such as Rubens, championed by the school's first
president, Joshua Reynolds (I think that he did that
because he refused neoclassical movement). (…)” From Wikipedia: The Free
Encyclopedia. 20 November 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_blake
In
1783 he married Catherine Boucher, but they never had children. They worked
together to produce an edition of Blake's poems and drawings, called Songs
of Innocence (the poem we have selected is from that work). Blake's
first book of poems, Poetical Sketches, appeared in 1783 and was
followed by Songs of Innocence (1789), and Songs of Experience
(1794). Famous among his "Prophetic Books" are The Book of
Thel (1789), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, (1790), The Book of
Urizen (1794),
Blake was a reactionary. He never
accepted the rationalism and the materialism that proclaimed the
Industrialization of the 18th century. Moreover, he defended the
supremacy of imagination and nature over to everything. In his “visions” he
said he has talked with angel Gabriel, The Virgin Mary, etc:
“From
a young age, William Blake claimed to have seen visions. The earliest instance occurred at the
age of about eight or ten in Peckham Rye, London, when he
reported seeing a tree filled with angels "bespangling every bough like stars."
According to Blake's Victorian biographer Gilchrist, he returned
home to report his vision, but only escaped being thrashed by his father
through the intervention of his mother. Though all the evidence suggests that
his parents were largely supportive, his mother seems to have been especially
so, and several of Blake's early drawings and poems decorated the walls of her
chamber. On another occasion, Blake watched haymakers at work, and thought he
saw angelic figures walking among them. (…)” From Wikipedia: The Free
Encyclopedia. 20 November 2007. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_blake
in section “Blake’s visions” to know more about more occasions where he
had visions.
Analysis and Commentary:
I have chosen William Blake because
I consider interesting that an author who is able, not only to write his own
poems, but to draw and grab the illustrations of his works. “A Dream” is a poem
that corresponds to William Blake’s Songs
of Innocence (1789).
First of all, we have to take an
overview on Blake’s poetry: the poet changed forever the modern concept of imagination,
when he affirmed that imagination is the new sense that escapes from the common
five senses: "If the doors of
perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is,
infinite."(Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are two Blake’s important
works that are related and, at the same time, contraries between them. Blake
wanted to explain this with the relationship between his poems “The Tyger” and
“The Lamb”, which are quite popular: “"The Lamb" from "Songs of
Innocence" is a very symbolic poem. The lamb in the poem can symbolize
innocence, serenity, a child, Jesus, or sacrifice. The poem gives credit to God
for making such a beautiful being as the lamb. It's companion poem in
"Songs of Experience", "The Tyger," on the other hand,
contains a different perspective of human life. The tyger could be compared to
an "experienced" human. The tyger is described as an animal that
basically has to kill everyday in order to live. It is a being whose life is
made by death. The question is asked "What immortal hand or eye dare frame
thy fearful symmetry?" The "experienced" author is asking why
God dared to make humans the way that they are, the way of the tyger. This, of
course, is differs greatly from the perspective of the "innocent"
author of "The Lamb."” From William Blake Page. 23 November
2007. http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/britlit/97-98/blake/POEMS.htm.
From one hand, Songs of Innocence (the place that our poem “A Dream” occupies)
refer to the different “hopes and fears” (http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake/analysis.html)
of life by the point of view of the “Innocence” or, that is to say, children.
So when we have a look at these songs, we can appreciate that everything that
happens in the poems is defined and developed by the imagination and dreams
which are typically perceived by children’s vision, not by the reason and the
notion of reality of adults. One example that appears in the poem “A Dream” is:
Once a dream did weave a shade, (Line 1). Here I put an excellent
explanation of Blake’s notion of “innocence” taken by the internet:
“The
Songs of Innocence dramatize the naive hopes
and fears that inform the lives of children and trace their transformation as
the child grows into adulthood. Some of the poems are written from the
perspective of children, while others are about children as seen from an adult
perspective. Many of the poems draw attention to the positive aspects of
natural human understanding prior to the corruption and distortion of
experience. Others take a more critical stance toward innocent purity: for
example, while Blake draws touching portraits of the emotional power of
rudimentary Christian values, he also exposes--over the heads, as it were, of
the innocent--Christianity's capacity for promoting injustice and cruelty.” From Spark
Notes Website. 27 November 2007. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake/analysis.html
From the other hand, Songs of Experience refer to the
opposite point of view: the notion of reality, the perception of the
Experience, the adult’s reality. We are limited to our five perceptive senses.
We, as adult experienced individuals, are not able to access to the sense of
imagination because the action of time has “blinded our vision”. We have lost
it. We are alone in the material world:
“The
Songs of Experience work via parallels and
contrasts to lament the ways in which the harsh experiences of adult life
destroy what is good in innocence, while also articulating the weaknesses of
the innocent perspective ("The
Tyger," for example, attempts to account for real, negative
forces in the universe, which innocence fails to confront). These latter poems
treat sexual morality in terms of the repressive effects of jealousy, shame,
and secrecy, all of which corrupt the ingenuousness of innocent love. With
regard to religion, they are less concerned with the character of individual
faith than with the institution of the Church, its role in politics, and its
effects on society and the individual mind. Experience thus adds a layer to
innocence that darkens its hopeful vision while compensating for some of its
blindness.” From Spark Notes Website. 27 November 2007. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake/analysis.html
According to the poem “A Dream”:
Blake describes us that somebody, at night, goes to bed and sleeps in a bed
that seems to be “guarded by an angel”; then he has a dream in which the
individual, as a spectator, sees an Emmet or an ant that is lost in the grass;
the ant is confused and exhausted (“Troubled wilderd and folorn”) and it’s lost
between the darkness (“Dark benighted travel-worn,”); then the ant starts to
call their children (“O my children! do they cry,”), but nobody seems to respond;
affected by the despair of the ant, the spectator begins to cry (“Pitying I
drop'd[viii]
a tear:”), but, suddenly, it appears a glow-worm (“But I saw a glow-worm
near:”); the glow-worm tells us that it has to “light the ground” (“I am set to
light the ground,”) while a beetle is working; so the insect says that to go
back home it must follow the beetle (“Follow now the beetles hum, Little
wanderer hie thee home.”).
From my point of view, what Blake is
telling us is the situation of children in his society: Blake had to live in a
period of time in which children were overexploited at factories of the
Industrialization. Because of poverty, a lot of children were forced by their
parents, or something else, to work at factories is the worst conditions to
earn a miserable sum of money. I consider that the “emmet” or the “ant”
represents the lower class, the overexploited proletarian, because the “ant” is
looking for its “children”. The ant children are lost. They are out of the
dream. Their “Innocence” has been interrupted and their “Experience” has been
imposed by strength. That is my point of view of the poem.
This poem seems to be not very popular because there
are not many people who have analyzed it on the internet. But I have found one
interesting analysis of this particular poem:
“ ‘A Dream’
This
poem moves into the realm of dreams and visions, and introduces the concept of
prophecy, (…). This shift brings with it a darker and more threatening tone
(…). The dream is described as a ‘shade’, an image laden with dark
possibilities, and Blake’s choice of vocabulary emphasises this, for example,
‘Dark, benighted, travel-worn’ and ‘watchman of the night’ These images make
the reader aware of the presence of forces which may overcome the innocence,
goodness and happiness of the opening poem. The emmet (ant) finds herself
trapped in the confusion of ‘many a tangled spray’, which reflects both her
physical and psychological state. (…) this poem deals with the separation of
parents and children, which poses a fairy-tale threat to innocence. Tears make
an appearance in this poem, (…) the tears are of sadness, not of joy. The emmet
imagines her children crying and the speaker cries too, out of pity and
sympathy. The repeated ‘w’ sounds in stanza four represent the wailing of the
distressed emmet. Tears and sighs recur throughout the Songs, reflecting
the sadness of many of the characters and the unhappiness of the situations in
which they find themselves. In this case, however, the tears and darkness are
not impenetrable. The speaker sleeps in ‘an angel-guarded bed’, and the
glow-worm in the final two stanzas offers protection and hope to the emmet. She
is not actually re-united with her children, but the final injunction to ‘hie
thee home’ suggests that she will find her children safely there. The glow-worm
provides light to contrast with and to chase away the surrounding darkness.”
From “Phillip Allan” Website. 28 November 2007.
http://www.philipallan.co.uk/images/217-T2.pdf
We can appreciate in Phillip Allan’s
webpage analysis that the author uses the word “shade” to become the “dark
side” of dreams, that are, nightmares: words such as ‘Dark, benighted, travel-worn’ and
‘watchman of the night’ are “forces that overcome the innocence, goodness and
happiness of the opening poem”. With the despair of the emmet, the speaker
cries with her “tears of sadness”. Only the glow-worm “lights the surrounding
darkness”.
The poem is divided into five groups
of four verses (a total of 20 verses). The rhyme scheme is
A-A-B-B-C-C-B-B-D-D-E-E-F-F-G-G-H-H-I-I: it has the structure of a couplet. In
the first stanza the rhymes are A-A (shade
& bed) and B-B (way & lay).
In the second one are C-C (folorn &
glow-worn) and B-B (way & lay/
spray & say). In the third one are D-D (cry & sigh) and E-E (see
& me). In the fourth one are F-F (tear
& near) and G-G (wight &
night). And the last one, the fifth stanza, are H-H (ground & round) and I-I (hum
& home).
Conclusion:
To
finish this paper, we have to focus on the idea that William Blake is one of
the most important artists in
What happens with the
present? Has Blake’s poetry any effect with actual society? The answer is
always affirmative: “Blake is now recognized as a saint in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. The Blake Prize for Religious Art was
established in his honour in Australia in 1949. And in
Mr. Blake: Thank you for
your legacy!!
Bibliographic and Web References:
§
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary
English (LDOCE)
§
William Blake Page. http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/britlit/97-98/blake/POEMS.htm
§
SparkNotes. www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake/analysis.html
§
Aula Virtual de
Academic year 2007/2008
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Asier Escrivà Gonzàlez
aesgon@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press
