My Poetry Assignment
Because of the religious holidays this weekend, I am giving you more time. Assignment is due Monday 4/18 by midnight.
Do your own writing and thinking: do not use outside sources. Do not risk an F by copying anything (except lines of poetry) from the internet (the program will show it if you do).
Write a short essay on the darker side of Blake’s fathers in the Songs of Innocence and Experience.
1. To prepare, find poems in which fathers are mentioned. Notice how Blake’s fathers are ambiguous and symbolic, always blending religious and familial associations(in addition to God the father, there are priestly fathers; father of a child; the stern judge and teacher; stern symbol of order or law; the non-maternal parent).
2. Notice that in Blake’s poems the father is powerful yet ambiguous, and usually not kind or benevolent. Usually he is punitive, unloving, or absent.
3. Write 200-300 words on WHY (in your opinion) Blake symbolizes the father figure (including God as father) in ambiguous and mostly negative ways, in at least two poems. What do fathers symbolizing these poems, and what do they have to do with the sorrows of Innocence and Experience? Be sure to quote from at least two poems which mention a father. Explore ambiguity. Be sure to discuss why you think Blake criticizes God the father and shows what he lacks.
