JERUSALEM

 

 

 

Self-Portrait of William Blake 1

2

 

1   And did those feet in ancient time
2   Walk upon England's mountain green?
3   And was the holy Lamb of God
4   On England's pleasant pastures seen?

5   And did the Countenance Divine
6   Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
7   And was Jerusalem builded here
8   Among these dark Satanic mills?

9   Bring me my bow of burning gold!
10  Bring me my arrows of desire!
11  Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
12  Bring me my chariot of fire!
 
13  I will not cease from mental fight,
14  Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
15  Till we have built Jerusalem
16  In England's green and pleasant land.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time6

 

 

  In this paper we are going to analyse William Blake’s poem titled “Jerusalem” (1804). This poem was written during the Romanticism and is actually an excerpt from the preface to one of his “prophetic books”, Milton. The author wanted to express his indifference against industrialisation.

  Born 1757 in  London, Blake’s significance in the Romantic movement came late in the 19th century, after what is officially considered the Romantic  period. Early on his career as a printer, he supported himself as an engraver, because no one really wanted to listen to his poetry, and many people were reluctant to hire him to draw, paint or etch, having had a considerable reputation as an oddball. He shared no commonalities with contemporaries who later become famous (as Wordsworth, Coleridge...) and so on, he was equal parts eccentric, mystic, visionary, revolutionary, romantic, and lunatic. After his death (1827), some sadly may have been destroyed. But the most important thing is that his influence and ideas are possibly the strongest of all the Romantic poets.

  The first aspect we are going to look upon is the title of the poem to give reasons why the poem was written.The “Jerusalem” of the title does not refer to the city itself, but in the Christian imagery of the time meant a perfect palce governed according to the principles of love and mercy. Blake vividly contrasts this hypothetical state to England as it was in his day, during the Industrial Revolution3. In this period, the “green and pleasant land” (line 16) was pockmarked with mills and other industrial buildings. These buildings must have looked pretty horrible: “belching forth acrid black smoke, lit by the unholy red glow of the furnaces, and filled with the poor workers. To Blake these facilities were “Hell on Earth”, the antithesis of his Jerusalem”.3

  The text of the poem was inspired by an apocryphal story  that Jesus, while still a young man, accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea, came to the English town of Glastombury. This is linked with an idea from the “Book of Revelation” that describes a “Second Coming” in which Jesus established a new Jerusalem. The English Church used Jerusalem as a metaphor for heaven. It is a place were love is universal and all is well in contrast to the “dark satanic mills” (line 6), which is most often interpreted as referring to the early industrial revolution and its destruction of nature.

  The message that Blake wanted to communicate us was much more an expression of protest at inhuman living conditions than of a great patriotic rejoicing. Blake told us about the days of enfored child labour amounting to slavery, when “ little boys were sent up to clean inside sooty chimneys, little girls worked their fingers to the bone during long hard hours in the mills, and farm-labourers had to toil just to survive” 7. The poem expressed his desire for radical change without violent actions.

  The poem is built with four stanzas and each of these have four verses. That is to say that the poem is composed of sixteen verses. Each verse, at the same time have ten syllables. The rhyme is a bit difficult to explain. The first stanza only have rhyme in the second and the fourth verses (green-seen), whereas the first and the third verse don’t fit (time-seen). In the second stanza happens the same. The second and the fourth verses (hills-mills) have rhyme whereas the others don’t fit (Divine-here). The third stanza follows ABAB type (gold-desire-unfold-hire) and the last stanza happens the same as the first and the second ones.

  The grammatical person used in the poem is the first one. We can find the pronoun “our” in line 6; the pronoun “me” in lines 9,10,11,12; the pronoun ”I ” in line 13; and the pronoun “we” in line 15. It is possible that the use of the first person was used because of the fact that the author was there living the situation. For this reason he is using poetry to tell us about his personal experience.

  Another aspect to discuss is about the use of the languaje. In this poem, William Blake used a protestant mystical allegory to criticize the Industrial Revolution. Jerusalem is here the symbolic residence of a humanity freed of the inter-related chains of commerce, British imperialism, and war (industrialisation) Blake’s “mental fight is directed against these chains. The first stanza refers to the legend of Jesus visiting England: And did those feet in ancient time (line 1). Blake uses many terms related to war such as “bow” (line 9), “arrows” (line 10), “spear” (line 11) and “sword” (line 14). The finality of this is communicate the reader which was his intention when he wrote this poem, that is to say, destroy this injustice and create the perfect caring society. It is more of an incitement to reform than a hymn to God. There are an amoun of allusions inside the poem. The first one is “mountains green” (line 2) which refers to the Garden of Eden in the Bible. The “dark satanic mills” (line 8) is interpreted as referring to the early industrial revolution and its destruction of nature. The “mental fight” (line 13) included the intellectual development of science, as well as art which he so desired by reuniting England with Jerusalem on a truly revolutionary and early Christian religious basis. Finally, “green and pleasant land” (line 16) refers to the Blake’s dream, a place without industrialisatian. With regard to another rethorical figures, the author uses repetition in the third stanza:

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

Blake wanted to explain that people should fight against Industrial Revolution using repetition in an allegorical form to emphasize this message.

  To finish this paper, I would like to mention that all the Romantic poets used myths in their art: “ In opposition to the Enlightenment view, the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries regarded myths as an expression of the deepest creative potentialities of man. Myths were a constant course of inspiration to dramatists, poets and painters; they expressed profound truths about human existence...”9 Jerusalem is an example of art using myth and religion as a protest agains the Industrial Revolution. The Romantics are important because they helped to create the modern world through their poetry. Blake redefined the poetry of radical protest.

  Personally, I have really enjoyed both reading and analysing this poem, because it shows a very simple and clear vocabulary as well as  an easy structure and a straightforward meaning. The reason I chose this poem was that it seemed very easy to understand. Another important aspect was that it is very short, of course. I think that to start with one of this is much better than to start with another more large. I also think that the poet transmits his personal experience, sensations and feelings to the readers. This is the most important for me. I have felt an enormous implication because I believe that anybody should transmit his feelings and fighting for his thoughts. His desire for change this situation using a protestant mystical allegory is a brilliant manner of create poetry. This is the best reason  why I chose “Jerusalem”.

 

        ELECTRONIC   SOURCES: 


1Blake, William. The Book of Thel, copy F, pl. 2. The William Blake Archive. Ed. Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi. (13 November 1997). 21 November 2007. <http://www.blakearchive.org/>.

2Copyright © 2001 - 2007 The Progressive Living Foundation. 21 November 2007. <http://progressiveliving.org/william_blake_poetry_jerusalem.htm>

3Spiregrain. “Jerusalem”. (The Everything Development Company, Dec 2000). 21 November 2007. <http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Jerusalem>
4 Lometa. “Preface to Milton”. (The Everything Development Company, May 2001). 21 November 2007. <http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1043798>

5Lienhard, John H. “The Engines of Our Ingenuity”. Copyright © 1988-1999. 21 November 2007. < http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1413.htm>

6“And did those feet in ancient time”. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 18 Nov 2007, 12:03 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 21 November 2007. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time>

7British Broadcasting Corporation © 2002-2007. Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, W1A 1AA . (13 Sep 2002). 21 November 2007. < http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A794351>

8British Broadcasting Corporation © 2002-2007. Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, W1A 1AA . (13 Sep 2002). 21 November 2007. < http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/blake.shtml>

9A.K.A Mary Jones. Home Page. (25 July 2006). 21 November 2007. < http://www.maryjones.us/essays/mmdiii.html>

 

 

Academic year 2007/2008
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Ángel Ramón Martínez Peris
maranra@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia Press

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