Blake's use of traditional form to express his views on the Church and wider Establishment
Examines the role of the Church and the Establishment in society from the point of view of the use of the poetry form, especially the technique of rhythm.
{Question:
Many poets use traditional forms and/less structured ways to communicate their ideas. Discuss how a poet can use traditional forms or challenge them. Refer to at least 2 poems in your answer. }
William Blake, a late 18th century English Romantic poet uses traditional forms for his poetry in that he uses regular metre and rhyme. The meaning he constructs from these forms however, is far from traditional. Blake was a revolutionist; he oft criticised the Establishment, especially the Church, for it?s hypocrisy and it?s support of a corrupt and unjust status quo. Oddly, these subversive beliefs are communicated to the reader through the use of traditional forms, possibly an effort by Blake to make an ironic comment on the evils of the Establishment. In this way, Blake uses traditional forms to challenge the Church and the wider Establishment and it?s roles in society. Occasional variations to the otherwise regular rhythm of Blake?s poetry are of high importance and will be addressed as they enforce Blake?s anti-establishment stance. Blake?s most well known work is that contained within his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience collections of poems. The former of these collections, printed 1789, depicts a na?ve world of nature with Christ-like overtones. It does however, acknowledge an opposite or contrary world; the innocent world?s antithesis, but which is still outside the realms of the poems. The Songs of Experience, a later collection printed in 1794, depicts a cold, sad despairing place. Four poems; three from The Songs of Experience including ?The Garden of Love,? ?The Chimney Sweeper? and ?The Tyger? and one from The Songs of Innocence; ?The Chimney Sweeper? will be discussed with reference to their use of traditional metre and rhyme, as well as variations within it, to communicate separate but related views on the evil, hypocritical and oppressive behaviour of the Church and the wider Establishment.
Both ?The Chimney Sweeper? poems address the hardships that faced children destined to the life of a chimney sweep in, presumably, late 18th century London. These poems could of course be extended to address the sufferings of all child labourers and even be interpreted as an attack on the Establishment that maintained their poverty. Spoken in predominantly anapaests by a sweep who was sold when very young, there are two tones of voice in ?The Chimney Sweeper? of Innocence. The first, evident in stanza?s one, two and also in lines 21 and 22 is a chillingly matter-of-fact voice which transports us back to Blake?s London and exposes us to the fatalistic and bleak reality of life as a sweep. The second voice, the one that relates Tom Dacre?s dream, is one of enthusiasm and excitement.
The first voice is a mechanism used by Blake to expose the horror of chimney sweeping and to subtly attack the Church and the wider Establishment for it?s role in the sweep?s and other child labourer?s suffering. There are three variations in the anapaests that help create the mood of these stanzas. Firstly, the addition of iambs in among the anapaests adds a lingering, hanging delay to the iambs - they lack the patter like beat that is expected of anapaests. In the first line, this variation shrouds the mother?s death and the sweep?s extreme youth with a mournful ring: ?When my moth / er died / I was ver / y young.? The weary drudgery of lines 21 and 22 may be connected with this:
?And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And we got with our bags and brushes to work.?
In these lines, there is a combination of regularity with monosyllables and off-rhyme which lends a drumming monotony to the rhythm conveying the weary drudgery of the sweep?s lives to the reader. This regularity is also used to contrast with the metrical obstruction in the proviso that ?If he?d be a good boy? and the succeeding line ?He?d have God / for his fath / er & nev / er want joy? to add a touch of glibness to the angel?s spurious promise.
The addition of extra stresses is another technique used by Blake in the first three stanza?s to develop the horror of the sweep?s lives, as is evident when the sweep calls out his misery and his trade simultaneously:
?Could scarce / ly cry weep / weep weep weep.?
The continual stresses stop the running anapaests completely and thereby draw attention to the ?weep weep? which alludes to the familiar ?sweep sweep? cry of the sweeps and in turn indicates the bleak, fatalistic hardship in which they lived.
The second voice is used as a subtly scathing attack on the Church?s position in relation to oppressed people. This attack is only made clear in the final couplet but it is important that the preceding tone and content of Tom Dacre?s dream is noted. Tom Dacre?s dream is spoken with enthusiastic excitement opened by the angel?s ?bright key? and sustained by the use of multi stresses in the line
?That thou / sands of sweep / ers Dick, / Joe, Ned / & Jack.?
An extra bounce is added to this enthusiasm by the line ?leaping laughing they run? as it enlivens the line of regular anapaests, ?and wash in a river and shine in the sun.? Together, this combination of anapaestic and iambic feet as well as the addition of extra stresses and regularity have the effect of making Tom?s dream seem a wonderful and joyous, strangely an almost realistic experience. This is most probably Blake?s intension and may be, with a certain interpretation of the final couplet be read as a flimsy promise of the Church to the poverty stricken people that maintain it?s hegemony. As Nicholas Marsh says, the last lines of the poem:
?Tho? the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm?
Are a spurious appearance of logic on behalf of the Church that would have been used to maintain it?s hegemony, and which can be paraphrased as ?If you submit to misery and don?t make trouble, we will give you a dream.? In this way the poem can be read as an attack on the Church, it?s spurious promises and it?s fake altruistic love that in reality it bent only to it?s own ends.
?The Chimney Sweeper? in Experience develops the same situation as the poem by the same title in the Innocence collection but is from a different perspective. In this poem, there are clearly three different views of the sweep?s situation; his own; his parents and an observers. From the first reading it is clear that the young sweep feels exploited, that his parents are self justifying, seeking only to pacify their own consciences and that the observer feels both pity and outrage. Overall, the poem is an attack by Blake on the hypocrisy of the Church and of the wider Establishment.
The metre of this poem contributes to this attack by lending a tone of weariness that reflects the lives of the sweeps. The metre of the Experience poem is a combination of iambs and anapaests but unlike the Innocence poem has a predominance of iambs which gives the effect of weariness by causing the poem to hang and beat slowly. This is evident in line six:
?And smil?d / a mong / the win / ters snow?
Blake, as in the Innocence poem, repeats and metrically isolates the word ?weep? in the second line:
?Cry ing weep, / weep, / in notes / of woe!?
The addition of the explicit comment ?notes of woe? by the observer and the repetition of it in line eight by the sweep himself adds to the cry a new element of ?improved? penury. The final word of the poem; ?misery? breaks the metre completely and seems to smash through the pretence of the parent?s made up ?heaven? exposing it for a fabrication designed by the Church to maintain it?s power. This can be likened to the Church?s promise of a dream in the Innocence poem. Also, the use of ominous rhyme words; ?snow?, twice; ?woe?, twice; ?death?; ?injury?; and ?misery? and the overall weary tone of the poem contribute the undermining the validity of the parent?s made-up heaven.
?The Garden of Love?, the third poem that will be discussed, tells us a metaphorical story; the speaker goes to a garden that he used to love as a child but finds it changed; a chapel is now in it?s place. The target of the poem is, like the Chimney Sweeper/s, an attack on the Church and Establishment. More specifically however, Blake?s subject in this poem may be read as the denial of natural sexuality by the Church. Originally, it was the Garden of Love, and the children?s ?play? seems to refer to their innocent and uninhibited discovery of sexuality. In the adult world of the speaker however, sex is ?protected? by bans and punishments that are enforced by watchful priests. Some critics, taking the interpretation further, read the gravestones as buried instincts. Certainly, the Church has killed innocence, ?play? and joy through it?s commandments, and the graves are those of pleasure and natural beauty.
The two significant variations to the almost sole anapaestic metre of ?The Garden of Love? are used to great effect by Blake to position us against the Church and it?s denial of natural sexuality. The first of these variations occurs in line 6 when three successive stresses each brimming with consonants and two ending in the abrupt letter ?t,? batter the rhythm to a halt:
?Thou shalt not, writ over the door?
As Nicholas Marsh says, ?It is a harsh and destructive interruption to lilting anapaests, and conveys how aggressively the Church has invaded a once-joyful and natural spot.? The importance of the words themselves must not be overlooked; ?Thou shalt not? are the three words that begin each of the 10 commandments.
The second variation of metre occurs in the final two lines where two elements of the metre suddenly change. The first of these changes is the lengthening of the lines to quatrameter from the consistent trimeter used until this point. This change may force us to read longer than we expected and a person reading aloud may find themselves needing breath at the end of these lines. This is of course intended as it conveys the oppression and dull pointless repetition of priestly rule. The second metrical variation enhances the drudgery that Blake creates with the first. Blake inserts extra stresses in the same two lines so that the second syllable of the second and forth feet of each line are stressed as much or almost as much as the final syllable thus creating a metrical unit of unstress-stress-stress:
?And Priests / in black gowns, / were walk / ing their rounds,
And bind / ing with bri / ars my joys / & desires?
The double stressing of most of the feet in these lines lends them further heaviness and weariness. The dull drudgery is further enhanced by regularly spaced commas which make two strong caesurae and in turn create an internal rhyme; gowns/rounds and briars/desires linking the lines together and reinforcing their effect. These two effects are very powerful and cleverly convey the destructive oppression of the Church.
?The Tyger? is perhaps, apart from the words to the hymn ?Jerusalem? the best known of all Blake?s work. As the contrary poem to ?The Lamb,? ?The Tyger? is straight from the heart of the Songs of Experience. While there are many interpretations of the ?The Tyger,? and some critics, such as Marsh, have read into it very deeply, coming to the conclusion that it is a poem that addresses our ?constant struggle to decode, interpret and master the world around us? as well as a satire on the ways we attempt to carry this task out, I prefer to interpret ?The Tyger? as a poem that addresses the creation of evil in the world. More specifically, in the context of Blake?s other work and personal opinion, as a subtle message that the creation of the Establishment was a creation of a great evil. ?The Tyger? is a poem full of rich, powerful imagery and sound. We will address Blake?s use of traditional metre and the variations within it as a mechanism used to communicate to the reader this attack on the Establishment.
Metrically, ?The Tyger? is principally trochaic which creates a forceful drum-beat reflecting the power of both the tyger and it?s Creator. Beginning from the first two words; ?Tyger / Tyger? this heavy, steady rhythm continues almost throughout and reinforcing it is the repetition of the first stanza as the last. The one small change made, the substitution of ?Dare? for ?Could? is important as it creates a double stress ?Dare frame? in replacement of the iambic foot ?Could frame.? The heavy, hammering sound of this foot reflects the fact that the poem?s question has grown; that the more the speaker ponders the tyger, the more astounding it?s Creator?s power seems. This power that the Creator is indicated to have is important to the development of the poem?s message and it is here that ambiguous areas of the poem must be interpreted; that the tyger is unable to be ?framed? may be read as the inability of anything to control or ?capture? it. Not even the immense power of the Creator is able to constrain the evil that it has created. It is here that the main point of the poem is made, and this is done principally through irony ? the Creator has created a beast burning so brightly of evil that it even ?shines? from the forests of Experience, of such immense evil that it?s own creator cannot control or ?frame? it. This evil, in the context of Blake?s other works may be read as the Establishment and thus, ?The Tyger? may be read as a subtle attack on it?s overwhelming evil and hypocrisy.
The power of the Creator and thus the evil the tyger represents is further developed through the use of rhythm in the tyger?s creation. The creation process is contained within the third stanza, which is metrically different to all others. The second and third lines of the stanza are iambic quatrameter and their speed and regularity contrast to the first and final lines, both of which are laden with multiple stresses. Both the first and last lines have three successive stresses in both halves of each line:
?And what shoulder & what art? What dread hand? & what dread feet??
In the first line, whether the ?And? is stressed or not may be dependent on the way the line is read, but nevertheless, there are still two heavy spondee in the line. These two lines convey the extraordinary strength of the Creator. Both their content and their rhythm convey a sense of power. Marsh says that ?it is as if Blake has pushed twice as much weight and power into a unit of language as it ordinarily contains. The result is relentless; virtually every sound hits hard.? In between these two lines, lines two and three seem to beat ever more powerfully as the tyger?s heart grows bigger and blacker. The placement of stresses in these lines accentuates the violent verb ?twist? and is connected through assonance to the stressed syllable of ?sinews.? The actual creation process is then competed by stanza three which seems to set the tyger?s heart beating if even by the poetry itself. This beating continues through the poem and as said, is compounded through the repetition of the first pounding stanza in the last.
The doubling and trebling of stresses is used to further and similar effects elsewhere in the poem as well. Like ?Dare Frame? in the final line, which has already been commented on, the poet?s repetition of ?what? in his/her questioning gives rise to several instances of bunched stresses which maintain the rhythmic evocation of the Creator?s power. For example, there is ?On what wings?, ?In what furnace?, In what distant?, ?What dead grasp? and note the long vowel sounds that draw out and add to the effect in ?dare seize.? ?The Tyger? then seems to tackle the issue of evil in the world head-on. The construction of the Tyger by the immense Creator using heavy industrial machinery symbolises the creation of an immense evil; the Establishment which is presented as being too powerful and altogether too evil for any beast to ?frame? or control. Using this interpretation, The Tyger then precisely reflects Blake?s thoughts of the Establishment and urges us to adopt them.
Blake was then a man fiercely angry at the Establishment as a whole. In Blake?s London however, the strict social and moral codes of society prevented his work ever becoming acceptable; rejected by the mainstream of society as the creations of a mad man, poems like the works of Wordsworth were those that sold. The 21st century however, has met us with a vastly different social and political climate than that in which Blake lived. People are now freer than ever to pursue their own beliefs and as such, Blake?s work has come under increasing attention. As a result, his poetry has been extensively commented upon as has his use of traditional form and metrical artistry to attack the Church and wider Establishment. Those poems discussed; ?The Chimney Sweeper/s?, ?The Garden of Love? and ?The Tyger? are all poems that reflect Blake?s subversive beliefs, urging us, with the aid of traditional rhythm and rhyme to adopt them and join him on his crusade to attack what he saw as the primary cause of evil, injustice and suffering in a ?world of plenty?; the Church and the wider Establishment.
Bibliography
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