It was very difficult, for me, reading William Blake's writings because most of the time I was confused about the meaning of what he was trying to convey. I think of Blake as a very complicated author, so thanks to the footnotes and podcast which really helped with understanding some of his writings.
"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."
Finally, I came across this poem "The Poison Tree" (pages 92-93) and really loved it. The reason I loved it was that the poem attempt to explain one important aspect of human nature, anger, which I can definitely relate to. Anger is an important area of a person's life, which must be dealt with immediately. As stated in the Bible, "Be angry and sin not." In the first stanza, the speaker is angry and does not want to be angry because he is angry with his friend and so his anger dissipate. However, most of us choose to hold our anger inside, eroding the compassionate, loving and caring nature of all human beings to one of wanting to take revenge.
How does our anger grows is clearly portrayed in the other stanzas of Blake's poem, "A Poison Tree." Noticed that it took about three stanzas to explain how anger grows because it is a process. It does not happen overnight; whereas letting go of your anger happens immediately. Blake uses metaphoric writing style to describe how anger is grown, using terms which are associated with planting a tree or a flowering plant. As we all know, plants need water, sunlight and nutrients to grow. So, when Blake speaks of "waterd it in fears, night & morning with my tears," he speaks of how our anger caused us to remain upset, even to the point of tears. Most of us can relate to this, in that when we are upset we sob and get depressed stating that how could this person have done this to me. When Blake speaks of "I sunned it with smiles and with soft deceitful wiles", in my opinion, I interpret this to mean how we cover up our anger with smiles and pretend that all is well in front of the offender, but when we are not in their presence we planned our revenge.
Then the religious context of the poem was evident in the next two stanzas. "An apple bright...beheld it shine" tells of the event of the biblical story of Adam and Eve, man gives in to the weakness of sin and falls. However, Eve was not Adam's foe so I was a little confused. Based on my interpretation of these two stanzas, I am assuming that the angry person was at a point where the foe was now trapped and he or she could now take the revenge. In life this is not always the case. Most times, the person who is angry is the one who suffers the most. Overall, I think Blake was trying to speak out against anger and not trying to celebrate it.
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Anthony,
Very good job in your first blog post, especially considering the challenging poet you choose to analyze. I like the way you focus on a specific poem by Blake, and the way you quote specific parts and analyze them carefully and even word by word. With a poet like Blake, this is by far the best approach! One question you might consider, though, is what Blake's attitude toward anger is, especially since the speaker triumphs over his foe at the end, rather than apologizing and making up with him.
You are off to a very good start, and I look forward to reading your subsequent posts.
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