By Dr Oliver Tearle There are two ‘Chimney Sweeper’ poems by William Blake. The first appeared in Songs of Innocence in 1789, while a second poem, also called ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ was included in Songs of Experience in 1794. Like many of Blake’s most celebrated poems, ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ – […]
What is the meaning of this curious Blake poem? Is it always best to tell someone you have feelings for them? Is it sometimes better to withhold your true feelings, and not confess your love? Obviously this depends, but this underappreciated short poem by William Blake explains why sometimes it’s […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle Many of William Blake’s greatest poems are written in clear and simple language, using the quatrain form which faintly summons the ballad metre used in popular oral poetry. But some of his poetry, being allegorical and symbolic in nature, requires some careful close reading and textual […]
A close reading of Blake’s classic poem by Dr Oliver Tearle ‘The Clod and the Pebble’ is a William Blake poem that first appeared in his 1794 volume Songs of Experience, the companion-piece to his 1789 collection Songs of Innocence. The poem stages a conversation between a clod of clay […]
A summary of Blake’s classic poem by Dr Oliver Tearle ‘The Lamb’ is one of William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence’, and was published in the volume bearing that title in 1789; the equivalent or complementary poem in the later Songs of Experience (1794) is ‘The Tyger’.