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A* Essay Blake Songs of Innocence and Experience A Level
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- AQA
A 23/25 mark essay on William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience for AQA English Literature B Paper 2
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A* Blake essay‘Blake’s poetry shows that the human spirit has the power to resist’
Essay plan:
Paragraph one:
Point: Blake promotes the idea that love and compassion will overcome suffering. He
promotes spiritual resistance through his revolutionary ideas of theology. He claims that all
people are fundamentally the same in their spirit, and any division within the church is unjust
because ‘man has the essence of God in himself.’
AO2: THe Divine Image
‘Every man of every clime that prays in his distress prays to the human form divine’
‘Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell, there God is dwelling too’
By promoting a universal spirituality Blake demonstrates the power of the human spirit to
resist by arguing that no individual is shunned from religion or hope. Promoting an individual
approach to religion signifies that the human spirit can be uplifted from its current state of
disarray in the church.
The arrangement of the collections means that as we move to the experience section there
is a sense of pessimism. Blake displays how many people’s spirits have become so worn
down that they feel they cannot resist oppression any longer. However, the sense of
inevitability creating by the transition from innocence to corruption means that Blake creates
a warning for his readers: resist! Readers may feel the loss of the innocent joy seen in
innocence is tragic and they feel inspired to reconnect with that purest form of the human
spirit which is childlike innocence.
AO3 context
Blake’s beliefs that institutionalised religion was corrupt. He had a more personal spiritual
relationship with his religion. Mrcy Love and pity being fundamental christian values. Blake
was against child labour, racism and the subordination of women, reflectred in his message
of universal equality.
The restriction of freedom meant that other forms of resistance were much harder to achieve
hence why bLAKE MAY DEMONSTRATE THE POWER OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT TO
RESIST.
AO4 Genre connections and links to other texts
The element of hope despite external social and political oppression such as in The
Shepherd.
The element of resistance to control such as in Infant Joy
Paragraph two:
Point:
Blake presents the power of the human spirit to resist by linking our spirituality to nature, and
though he presents worn down human spirit, this is to encourage readers that nature
reinforces our spirit of innocence. The destruction of these settings which reinforce our spirit
is supposed to be seen as abhorrent, in order to inspire change.
AO2
The use of open pastoral settings in contradiction to the enclosed oppressive settings such
as the city, the church.
Blake utilises settings to emphasise the ability of the human spirit to resist even in the most
desperate times.
, The Garden of Love
‘Tombstones where flowers should be’
‘A chapel was built in the midst of green’
London
‘The mind-forg’d manacles they hear’
‘The youthful harlot’s curse blasts the newborn infant’s tear’
The Echoing Green
‘such were the joys
When we all—girls and boys—
In our youth-time were seen
On the echoing green.'
AO3
The government and monarchy circumscribed the freedom of individuals in urbanised areas
such as London where Blake lived. Poverty and disease was widespread. The city was
overpopulated because of mass exodus of people moving from the countryside to the city.
Prioritising the human spirit can help to overcome external oppression through the idea of
transcending oneself. The destruction of nature is associated with the church, and the
destruction of minds is associated with the city.
AO4
The element of contrasting settings
The element of inescapable oppression which is often reinforced by claustrophobic imagery.
The element of destruction of nature
Paragraph three:
The way Blake presents the human spirit as psychologically weak and vulnerable to resist
authority.
AO2:
Infant sorrow
‘Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast.’
The Poison Tree
‘My wrath did grow’
‘I watered it in fears and sunned it with smiles’
The Chimney Sweeper (Experience)
‘'Where are thy father and mother? Say!'—
'They are both gone up to the church to pray.’
‘are gone to praise God and His priest and king,/ Who made up a heaven of our misery.'
AO3
Christian idea of spiritual ‘weakness’ which leads to sin which leads to a spiritual vulnerability
for temptation to come in and cause further immorality. Blake sees a world of weak
spirituality and of little resistance, the infant cannot physically resist so resigns from
spiritually resisting; the speaker in the poison tree doesn’t have the power to resist the
temptation of being spiteful and this leads to tragic effects.
AO4
The element of restricted freedom
The element of abandonment
The element of power dynamics
The element of vulnerability
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