William Blake’s “Wall of words” on circular reasoning

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

10 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

11/28/2008

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

Introduction.
The ending line from 'The First Book of Urizen' and a quality of Blake's work.
'Songs of Innocence and of Experience' and the direct tradition of the emblem-books.
The purpose of Blake's paintings.
Disproving Billigheimer's positive interpretation.
The Tyger.
1. The tiger - not standing up straight.
2. An excellent example of Blake subverting his own apparent dichotomy.
Songs of Innocence and Experience.
1. The speaker of the poem.
2. A deliberate word choice.
3. Emphatic yet simple verbs in the poem.
4. The second stanza - more fruitful and more penetrable.
The First Book of Urizen.
1. The usage of the word ?roll? and its variants.
2. Blake's application of the circular imagery to the character of Urizen.
3. Urizen's filght from the seven deadly sins.
4. Urizen's severance from eternity.
5. The first circle imagery in the wording of the poem.
Conclusion.

Abstract

"And the salt ocean rolled englob'd." (blake Pl. 28.23) The previous line comes from one of blake's prophetic works, "The First Book of Urizen," and is very typical of a blake ending. More than a century before Stanley Kunitz was born, blake had mastered the technique typified by Kunitz's oft-repeated maxim: "end on an image and don't explain it." This technique does two very important things for the poem and the reader. First, by giving the image the space and importance of an ending, it allows the intended impact of the image to flow straight off the page and into the reader's imagination, whereas a follow-up explanation, however cursory and concise, would capture the energy of the image and spread it thinly, weakly along expository avenues. Second, the undercutting of the conventional resolution that automatically results from such an ending causes the reader to stop and spend more time and thought on the overall idea of the poem than he would otherwise have done-to come up with his own conclusion, his own reading.