Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Please explain the symbolism in the plate illustration for "Holy Thursday" from William Blake's Songs of Experience.

In order to answer this question, I encourage you to
identify the images present both in the plate illustration and the
poem itself, then analyze the meaning of these images.


A
few images that stick out in the poem that appear to be presented in the plate as well,
are the following:


  • The idea of "A rich and
    fruitful land" as shown by the green fields, water, and trees compared to
    "fields...bleak and bare...eternal winter" as shown by the tree without leaves or
    fruit.

  • "children poor," and "land of poverty," as shown
    by the images of people, naked, forlorn, or laying on the ground, compared to the one
    clothed in blue who might be the "cold and usurous
    hand."

To me, the poem is a comparison of a
contradiction, extreme wealth vs. extreme poverty.  The plate seems to depict each
together, so that the extreme of one reveals the extreme of the other.  What do you
think?




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