19th Century British Poetry

Reread William Blake’s poem “A Poison Tree” again, then:

1. write a paraphrase of the poem,
2. perform scansion on the poem,
   
3. and identify the meter of the poem.

Reread William Blake's poem "The Tyger", then answer the questions on "Understanding and Evaluating Poetry" on the handout that will be provided in class.

Following are the paraphrases that you came up with in class:
 
The narrator is telling a rose that it is sick. The narrator says that an invisible flying worm which flies in the night during a noisy storm discovered the rose’s bed of “crimson joy” and his “dark secret love” is killing the rose.


The narrator is saying that she moved around between fields and tasted “all the summer’s pride”, until she saw “the prince of love” who flew in the sunlight. The prince of love showed her flowers (lilies and “blushing” roses) for her hair and head and he took her to his garden where “golden pleasures” grow. Her wings got wet because of the “sweet” dew in May. Phoebus “fir’d” her voice anger. The prince of love caught her in his net of silk and imprisoned her in his cage of gold. He likes to sit and listen to her sing. He then jokes and fools around with her, pulls out her wing of gold, and ridicules her loss of freedom.


The narrator says that he walks around in the “charter’d” streets close by the “charter’d” Thames River and notices signs of weakness and sadness in the faces of the people that he meets. The narrator hears the crying of men, scared children, voices, and laws. In these cries he hears “mind-forg’d” fetters. The narrator hears how the cry of the chimney-cleaners is shocking the “blackning Church.” The unlucky soldier’s sigh flows in blood down the walls of the Palace. The narrator hears most clearly the harsh swearing of the young prostitute at the crying new-born baby.

The decided that the italicized sentences in the “London” paraphrase may still need some work.

• Read the poem closely – more than once.
• Go through it line by line. Don’t skip lines or sentences or any key details. In your own words, what does each line say?
• Write your paraphrase as ordinary prose. Don’t worry about line and stanza breaks.
• Describe the literal meaning of the poem. Don’t worry about any deeper meanings.
• After you have described what literally happens in the poem, go over you paraphrase and see if you have captured the overall significance of the poem along with the details.

Kennedy, X. J. and Gioia, D. 2007. An Introduction to Poetry. 12th Edition. Pearson-Longman.

Exercises:

Write paraphrases for all the poems by William Blake that we have discussed so far. "The Sick Rose", "The Lamb", "The Tiger", "A Poison Tree", "Song" and "London".