Blake's Symbolism

Symbolism is a mode of expression in which a writer depicts indirectly through the medium of another object. But symbolism is not a mere substitution of one object for another. There is much more to it. Symbolism is the art of evoking an object little by little to r veal a mood or emotion or some mysterious region of human psyche. However, this is only one aspect of symbolism and it may be called the personal aspect on the human plane. The other aspect is transcendental – that is, using objects to symbolize a vast and ideal world of which the real world is merely an imperfect representation. A symbolist is a seer of a prophet who can look beyond the objects of the real world and convey the essence of the ideal world which human mind tries to express.
Blake is one of the greatest symbolist poets of the world. The greatness of his poetry lies in the sweep of his imagination and symbolic dimension it acquires after every fresh reading. Blake is unique because of his ability to communicate beyond immediate context and space. Blake gave the doctrine that “all had originally one language and one religion”. It implies that the similarities between myths, rituals and doctrines of various religions are more significant that their disparities. Blake wants to suggest that a study of comparative religions, morphology of myths, rituals and theology can lead us to a single visionary conception, a vision of the fallen and created world, which has been redeemed by divine sacrifice and is progressing towards regeneration.
By postulating the world of imagination higher than that of reality Blake suggests a way of closing the gap, which is completed by identifying God with human imagination. In ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ Blake wrote: “Man is All Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in Him.” In his creative activity, an artist expresses the creative activity of God; as all men are in God, so all creators are in the creator. The “divine image” and the “human abstract” apart from signifying oneness of man and God, also forms the basis of Blake’s theory of good and evil. Civilization is in more than one sense supernatural and in its evolution and development man’s superiority over nature has been proved. The central symbol in all of Blake’s works is the city. Of all the animals, man is the most maladjusted to Nature, that is why he outdistances the animals and it is the triumph of his imagination that he creates a world of his own dreams.
In his poems Blake does not present ordinary events common men see and understand them, rather describes spiritual events which have to be portrayed symbolically in order to render them intelligible. Blake uses the familiar figures of the Shepherd and the Lamb, which can be easily understood. In ‘Songs of Innocence’ all desires are innocent, even discipline is innocent and is a source of happiness. Describing innocence in his poem ‘Holy Thursday’ Blake writes:
“’T was on Holy Thursday, their
Innocent faces clean
The children walking two
and two, in red and blue and green.

Mercy and kindness in human relationships not only make for emotional, spiritual and moral health of society but also abstract representations of Divine Will:
“For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And love, the human form divine
And Peace, the human dress.”

It is by now a well established fact that the ‘Lamb’ in Blake’s poems is Christ himself. The word ‘Lamb’ refers to children in his poems. ‘A Lamb’ is a name of affection used by the parents for their children. Symbolically, the Lamb of God is Christ. In his poem ‘The Little Black Boy’ Blake writes: “Around his Golden tent like lambs rejoice”.
It is even clearer in the poem ‘The Lamb’ when he says: “Little Lamb, who made thee?” Apart from using Biblical symbols, Blake also has a system of his own symbols. He uses traditional symbols in a different way. For instance, the lily flower is used by him as a symbol of purity of love and also of naturalness and open-heartedness in love. By sunflower he represents the longing of youth for freedom in love.
Nature plays a different role in Blake’s poems that those of the Romantics. It was Keats (a Romantic poet) who wrote:
“To bend with apples the moss’d cottage trees
To fill each fruit with ripeness to the core.”

The lines having vivid and pictorial imagery have something voluptuously sensuous about it. But Blake is not attracted by ‘God’s plenty’ in ‘Nature’s Paradise’. He once wrote: “Natural objects always did and do now, weaken, deaden and obliterate imagination in me.” He uses the objects of nature so as to symbolize various emotions and moods through them. Blake is not concerned with the outside world but the world within – with mind and imagination. The terror of Nature is unleashed in the image of the tiger. There is a difference between the images of the lion and the tiger. The lion can be turned into a harmless animal while the tiger is not. Blake once wrote that the lion is symbolic of wisdom. The lion in the poem ‘Night’ is a contrast to the tiger of ‘The Tiger’. About tiger Blake writes:
“Tyger, tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of ht night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

Blake was against any type of restrictions. That’s why in a large number of poems he condemns authority. For instance, in ‘The Garden of Love’ it is the church, which he criticizes for exercising undue authority. The garden here represents spontaneous natural delight. In ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ (from ‘Songs of Experience’), where Blake talks of the miserable plight of the child (the chimney sweeper), he holds responsible three authorities for the plight – Church, King and Parents. Blake says about the parents of the child:
“And are gone to praise God and His Priest and King
Who make up a Heaven of our misery.”

In another poem ‘The Little School Boy’ it is the school teacher, who represents the cruel authority,
“Under a cruel eye outworn
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.”

Morton D. Paley in his essay ‘The Tyger of Wrath’ writes: “Blake’s images have meanings which may in part be construed from the internal logic of the poem but which also depend at least in part upon meanings established elsewhere, in Blake’s other poems or in the traditional sources from which he drew. Meaning is affected by context, though not entirely determined by it.

'London' by William Blake

LONDON

I wandered through each chartered street,

Near where the chartered Thames does flow,

A mark in every face I meet,

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,

In every infant's cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry

Every blackening church appals,

And the hapless soldier's sigh

Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear

How the youthful harlot's curse

Blasts the new-born infant's tear,

And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

The poetry of William Blake is remarkable for its use of brilliant imagery and the force of its rhythm. Critics hail him as the greatest precursor of the Romantic revival in English literature.
‘London’, one of the finest lyrics composed by Blake, is simple and forceful. The poet not only presents a picture of London but appeals to the emotions. The poet is highly critical of the social evils prevalent in London of his times.
In this picture of London the infant, the chimney sweeper, the harlot and others have a tale to tell. The poem points to the misery of the depressed and distressed. Blake becomes the champion of the poor and miserable. He criticizes the cruelty of the church and the government.
The poem runs into four stanzas it gives us a realistic picture of life. In the first stanza the poet talks of his walking through the streets controlled by corporation, the streets where the Thames River flows. The poet sees signs of sufferings and sadness on the face of every person he meets. The repetition of the words “mark..marks…marks…” emphasizes the seriousness of the poem.
In the second stanza the poet talks about the rules, which are like chains that imprison the poor. The poet hears these chains made by man to deny freedom to his fellowmen. He hears them in each and every cry uttered by man and in the infant’s cry of fear.
In the third stanza the poet moves from general to particular. The poet points out to the miserable life led by the chimney sweeper. These small boys clean the chimneys which are full of soot. It is a dangerous job. Their cries appeal to the heart of the poet. Blake calls the church blackening. The church is expected to be helpful to the poor. But it is a friend of the rich and suppresses the poor. As a result the chimney sweepers suffer and cry.
In the last stanza the poet throws light on the social evil of prostitution. At midnight the curses and cries of young prostitutes are heard in the streets of London. Many young girls in London neither have money nor any source of livelihood. They turn into harlots – they themselves suffer and then in turn curse the tradition of marriage and married people. They do not want children to be born either to themselves or to others.
The poem is a masterpiece of development, ending with an explosive phrase – “the marriage hearse”. This phrase gives to the poem the most powerful closing line of any song by Blake.
Thus, the poem is a realization of the tragedy of human life itself. Blake displays indignation for the ruling class and sympathy for the poor. Blake had a tragic realization of the restrictions which imprison and kill the living spirit of man, which he shows in this poem.