A completed revision booklet for William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’.
Specification: AQA English Literature B A - Level Social and Political Protest paper.
Includes revision focused on each Assessment Objective of the specification:
AO1: Concepts and terminology
AO2: An...
‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’
William Blake
, AO1 essentially requires informed and relevant responses which are accurately written and use appropriate
concepts and terminology.
Key Aspects of Social Protest:
1. Dominance 19. Female empowerment
2. Rebellion 20. Subservient
3. Powerlessness/Power 21. Societal stigma
4. Subjugation 22. Promiscuity and prostitution
5. Conflict 23. Parody of femininity
6. Oppression 24. Devoid of expression
7. Resistance 25. Anticlericalism (anti-religion)
8. Eco politics 26. Internalised subjugation
9. Propaganda 27. Sexual slavery
10. Censorship
28. Cultural desensitisation
11. Environmental degradation
29. Stereotypical female behaviours
12. Tyrant
13. Futile 30. Ownership of children
14. Omnipotent (un-stoppable) 31. Overarching political problems
15. Omniscient 32. Class system
16. Disenfranchised 33. Freedom
17. Antipathy (opposition) 34. Sexual freedom
18. Political nuances (tones/shades) 35. The Green World
Vocabulary: Sentence Starters:
Legitimacy/ lawfulness/ acceptability
- Blake’s poems attack the actions, motivations
Hierarchy/
and legitimacy of the authorities of his day.
Outcast/ castaway/ isolation/ desolation
- Blake’s poems argue that human life is at its
Deceit/ treachery/ fraudulence/ pretence/ dissimulation
best when it has a healthy relationship with
Downfall/ deterioration/ atrophy
nature.
Dogma/ doctrine/ article of faith
- Blake’s poems directly criticise the way adults
Jealousy/ resentment/ animosity/ antagonism/ cynicism
abuse children.
Fragmented/ disintegrate/ disunite/ distorted
- Blake’s poems argue that the beat education
Dialect/ idiom
comes when children are given the freedom to
Elaborate/ elegant/ sophisticated/ controlled/ clear
grow.
Bestial/ brutish/ savage/ inhumane/ cruel
- Blake’s poems criticise the church as a
Passivity/ inability/ dependence/ faith/ credence
powerful institution that is complicit in the
Alluded/ suggested/ implied/ insinuated
oppression of people.
Imagination/ intellect/ artful/ scheming/ conniving/ skilled
- Blake’s poems offer a straightforward
Manipulator/ brainwasher
expression of sympathy for the oppressed.
Obsession/ infatuation/ delusional/ hallucinations/ mirage
- Blake’s poems lament a world where people
Evokes/ conjures/ induces
are controlled and subjugated.
Emancipated/ liberated
- Blake’s poems argue that nature needs to be
respected, that human beings should not
impose their wills on it – nature is a
manifestation of God.
Essay Sentence Starter Examples:
1. Blake’s interests in radical politics led him to support the underdog in society, always being aware of the suffering of the
weak and the poor. His poems were as much political as philosophical.
2. Within the atmosphere of censorship and surveillance within Britain, Blake’s radical views on social change were
regarded as potentially extremely dangerous.
3. Blake was a great despiser of the effects of industrialisation and commercialisation which he witnessed around himself
and therefore expressed his social protest through his poems.
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