A Poison Tree By William Blake

Such detail put into the description of these catacombs cause the reader to ponder the awful, and rancid areas that succumbing to your inner rage can take you. Revenge to Montresor brings him through “walls of piled bones”(376), in which to a reader, can thoroughly terrify them and pressure them into not ending up the same way, or not letting their instincts conquer their conscious. Blake uses a very similar imagery, the pleasing display of someone who has fallen due to unsuppressed vengeance. The main character of “A Poison Tree” endures a very conflicting time, a time where his rage becomes a small sapling and he “water’d it in fears”, “sunned it with smiles” till finally his rage was ready and strong enough to explode. This man’s rage envelops him and he finally pleases his rage and murders his enemy, leading to the image of his “foe outstretched below the tree”, otherwise known as the blossomed tree of his revenge. The eventual image of his murdered foe blissfully outstretched below the main character's rage is very difficult to read and imagine without the discouragement of be pushed that far as well, even while that anger may not end in such drastic measures. Describing the scene of the foe below his metaphorical tree put fear into the reader, and makes it clear that the author is attempting the discourage the reader from

The Songs of Innocence poems first appeared in Blake’s 1784 novel, An Island in the Moon. In 1788, Blake began to compile in earnest, the collection of Songs of Innocence. And by 1789, this original volume of plates was complete. These poems are the products of the human mind in a state of innocence, imagination, and joy; natural euphoric feelings uninhibited or tainted by the outside world. Following the completion of the Songs of Innocence plates, Blake wrote The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and it is through this dilemma of good and evil and the suffering that he witnesses on the streets of London, that he begins composing Songs of Experience. This second volume serves as a response to Songs of

Blake conveys the theme of another's actions being the reason for sadistic tendencies through characterization as well. The poem “A Poison Tree” tells of a man whose anger festers until he

It was known that Blake had a pleasant and peaceful childhood. His poems relate to his background because it was said that Blake was once considered mad for his, “idiosyncratic views.” This means that when he was young, he had many visions of extraordinary images. It was rumored that at such a young age Blake would, “see a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” His parents were not amused of such story and then other people began to realize he wasn’t kidding about his visions and they also realized that Blake had a special talent within

“In the morning, glad, I see, My foe outstretched beneath the tree.” In the poem, Poison Tree, William Blake uses different types of figurative language like imagery, allegories, personification, and metaphors to show us, the reads, about how grudges can weigh you down, or if your grudge towards your enemy is strong enough, it can lead you to murder. It can lead you into a dark path if you don’t let it go. People don’t seem to notice, but when you’re angry with someone, and you tell them, it gets better. If you don’t tell them, it will drag you down a dark path. Disguising himself as the poison tree, William Blake, shows that hatred and grudges will turn you into a poisonous person. Someone who spits in the face of laughter, someone who

The style of Songs of Innocence and Experience is simply direct, but the rhythms and language are often deeply complex. Many of the poems are narratives, but some like, “The Sick Rose” use symbolism and abstract concepts to deliver a message. Blake often uses Biblical symbolism and language in his writing. He seems to enjoy applying simple, nursery rhyme meter to his unorthodox conceptions. This combination of familiarity with the unfamiliar is what keeps Blake’s work perpetually interesting (Erdman, David V. Complete Poetry and Prose. New York, 1982.

Blake’s lyrical poem “The Garden of Love” contains several allusions that reference the first book in the Bible “Genesis”. During this paper, I will be discussing one instance where Blake’s poem alludes to Genesis 3. To summarize, there are several instances in which Blake’s poem “The Garden of Love” alludes to Genesis, of these I chose to focus on the ‘chapel’ built in the midst and its connection to Eve’s interaction with the Serpent.

Through “A Poison Tree,” William Blake conveys that hatred will grow into something harmful and overwhelming. The use of diction expresses this theme because in the poem William Blake uses the word wrath throughout the poem which leads people to think that the poem

Blake's poems of innocence and experience are a reflection of Heaven and Hell. The innocence in Blake's earlier poems represents the people who will get into Heaven. They do not feel the emotions of anger and

The poem “A Poison Tree” by William Blake discusses human nature’s true form. Someone who is furious with a friend would obviously want to mend the friendship, so they let their anger simmer. However, someone who is upset with an enemy has no reason to tell him or herself to not be mad because all they are to you is an enemy. Therefore, your hatred eventually takes over and you do something dreadful. This literary composition shows the readers how anger can take a toll in two different directions. The poet writes with such ease, that it makes us readers believe he’s gone through it already.

Have you ever experienced such a strong, developed emotion towards someone that cause them to quickly transform from a close friend to your worst enemy? In the first few lines of the poem, “A Poison Tree” written by William Blake, it says, “I was angry with my friend; / I told my wrath, my wrath did end. / I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow.” In this part specifically, we can see that the narrator of the poem did not address the fact that he was angry with his friend and just pushed it to the side. However, by further procrastinating, the narrator’s anger and hate towards his friend quickly turns him into his enemy. When the narrator allows so much emotion to build up, causing him to turn against his friend, we are shown that trapping your emotions inside of yourself and not expressing them only let's them become bigger and more prominent in our lives. With the original title of this poem being “Christian Forbearance,” I believe it's original title provides a better insight to what the poem is really about rather than the new one of “A Poison Tree.” Forbearance meaning self-control and the Christian religion believing strongly in peace, I believe it is best to say that the original title most likely means to keep peace and have self-control. This definition is very well incorporated into the meaning of the poem because the poem’s narrator needs to learn peace and self-control in order to avoid this situation he is in in the first place. In the poem, “A Poison Tree,” the author, William Blake, uses a rhyme scheme, a hidden meaning, an unlikely metaphor, as well as multiple tone shifts in order to get across to the reader that holding in your emotions, rather than expressing them, only allows for them to grow and become stronger.

William Blake is one of England’s most famous literary figures. He is remembered and admired for his skill as a painter, engraver, and poet. He was born on Nov. 28, 1757 to a poor Hosier’s family living in or around London. Being of a poor family, Blake received little in the way of comfort or education while growing up. Amazingly, he did not attend school for very long and dropped out shortly after learning to read and write so that he could work in his father’s shop. The life of a hosier however was not the right path for Blake as he exhibited early on a skill for reading and drawing. Blake’s skill for reading can be seen in his understanding for and use of works such as the Bible and Greek classic literature.

Successful businessmen will tell you that its how you treat the “lower-level” employees that will determine your success. If those who do the grunt work are happy, the company will likely prosper. This notion dates back to the chivalric era in which knights and noblemen would place their trust in the blacksmith to forge high quality armour and weapons. The blacksmith was held in high regard for a lower-class citizen, and became a sort of anomaly in the hierarchy of a kingdom. William Blake evokes the image of a blacksmith as creator in his poem “The Tyger” to comment on the social and political situations of the times. He chooses a rough, rude and labour-driven artist as a way of rejecting the aesthetic features of art for more practical, albeit destructive forms.

The meaning of the poem A Poison Tree is how hatred can be a powerful weapon that can lead to both physical and mental injuries if not controlled on time. In the first stanza of the poem the speaker gets angry with a friend and a foe. The speaker seizes their wrath with the friend, however, the speaker allowed their wrath to grow with their foe, “I was angry with my foe; / I told it not, my wrath did grow.” Throughout the second stanza, the speaker grows their wrath with mixed emotions, “And I water’d it in fears, / Night & morning with my tears: / And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles.” As the speaker kept growing their wrath, it blossomed to form new anger, new tricks and plans for destruction, “And it grew both day

Some of William Blake’s poetry is categorized into collections called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake explores almost opposite opinions about creation in his poems “The Lamb” and “The Tiger.” While the overarching concept is the same in both, he uses different subjects to portray different sides of creation; however, in the Innocence and Experience versions of “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake uses some of the same words, rhyme schemes, and characters to talk about a single subject in opposite tones.