William Blake was very different to other men, he grew up to hate the church although he was very religious Essay Example For Students

William Blake was very different to other men, he grew up to hate the church although he was very religious Essay William Blake was very different to other men, he grew up to hate the church although he was very religious. His family and himself were Dissenters, a breakaway denomination against the rulings of the church of England. From an early age Blake was different, he refused to go to school and was taught by his mother and spent a lot of his time reading the Bible as the dissenters took a very literal grasp on the teachings of the bible. As Blake grew older he considered cruelty to children one of the worst things imaginable as to him childhood was sacred and should be treasured as it is a state of innocence as far as he thought. Blake was a firm believer in opposing forces, good and evil, innocent and guilty and he believed there were two contrary states to the human soul two sides. Blake believed childhood to be the most precious thing, to be so innocent and to see children sold to people to become chimney sweeps just made him very angry. Blake was living around the time of the industrial revolution and witnessed the London he loved turn into a commercial city. Blake used to walk miles across London each day and many images and words in his poetry came from the industrial revolution as in some metaphors he uses tools to explain what he sees is going on as you see in The Tyger What the hammer? What the chain?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.What the anvil. Blake also disliked authority like the monarchy and the army as he doesnt like the fact that a small percentage of the country decide whether or not the country goes to war which he is also against. This was at the same time as the French revolution which he wanted to happen in this country. Blake loved small villages and hates large towns and cities as just through his time in London the population grew massively. Blake was very artistic from an early age and when he was fourteen he was put to work as an apprentice of the engraver James Basire. Blake had a very vivid imagination and he saw visions, for instance when he was four he saw god and when he was eight he saw angels in a tree. In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher, who proved a devoted wife. In 1784 they set up a print-sellers shop with another engraver and Blakes brother, Robert, who died in 1787. Here are two poems from Blakes most famous books, The first poem is from Songs of Innocence and is called The Nurses Song and the second poem is from Blakes other book Songs of Experience and is also called The Nurses Song. When the voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still. Then come home, my  children, the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise, Come, come, leave off play, and let us away Till the morning appears in the skies. No, no, let us play, for it is yet day And we cannot go to sleep; Besides in the sky the little birds fly And the hills are all coverd with sheep. Well, well, go play till the light fades away And then go home to bed. The little ones leaped shouted laughd And all the hills echoed. The Songs of Innocence book is one of Blakes books of poetry based on childhood and the innocence of childhood as shown in the above poem. The Songs of Experience is another poetry book written by Blake. Songs of Experience uses the same lyric style, and often uses the same titles and themes as in Songs of Innocence, but perverting the sing-song rhythms so that they seem sinister and resonant with a darker meaning. Here is the Nurses Song from Songs of experience- When the voices of children are heard on the green And whisprings are in the dale, The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of the night arise; Your spring your day are wasted in play, And your winter and night in disguise. Sex And Church EssayThe next two poems are from around two hundred and fifty years on when there were things bought in to make childrens life better although both of the next poems prove otherwise. The systems bought in were the Welfare State which was supposed to provide money for children living in poverty and many other schemes to improve childrens quality of life. The first of these two poems is called Tich Miller written by Wendy Cope in the 1950s. This poem is about a girl talking about a poor under nourished girl who is unpopular and very unfit. She wore cheap NHS glasses with cheap pink frames. She had clubfoot which was a common disease back then when one foot grew to be larger than the other. She was always picked last for games and sports with the girl who is talking who was picked before Tich because she was the lesser dud although there was usually an argument Have Tubby! No, no, Have Tich When they were eleven they went to different schools and the girl who was telling the story learned to get my own back sneering at hockey players who couldnt spell. The poem ends with a dramatic sentence- Tich died when she was twelve. I considered this to be quite curt and cold and reminded me for some reason of the NHS smoking adverts which you are paying attention during the whole thing but at the end when you hear the person you have just seen or read about dies it really makes you think, it must be so terrible. This poem says in a sly way all of these systems and programs bought in only work in small ways to people, like Tich Millers glasses helped a little but she still went hungry and under nourished. The next poem written in the 1950s I am going to analyse is Timothy Winters by Charles Causley. This poem is a lot like Tich Miller in the way that a poor child goes to school who desperately needs help. I starts by saying Timothy Winters goes to school with eyes as wide as a football pool. That is a simile suggesting he doesnt get enough sleep, the rhyming is tight and simple like a nursery rhyme. Timothy Winters had Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters, A blitz of a boy was Timothy Winters He  uses war images to describe his features. Timothy is a very filthy boy with bad hair, bad clothes and holes in his trousers. He doesnt pay attention to the teacher as he is day dreaming and shoots down the arithmetic bird-he cant add up. He licks the pattern off his plate He eats every morsel on his plate as he is so hungry and starving. He hasnt even heard of the Welfare State The Welfare State was supposed to help children like Timothy. Timothys shoes had holes in which made his feet bleed. He lives in a new council estate. He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor although there arent supposed to be boys like him any more. Timothys father was an alcoholic and his mother ran off with a bombardier, His grandmother is probably an alcoholic too and they give Timothy an aspirin to shut him up. The welfare worker lays awake feeling sorry for Timothy although she cant do anything about it because The laws as tricky as a ten foot snake. At morning prayers the subject is unfortunate children and Timothy yells A men louder than anyone as if he wants god to hear him. This is another depressing poem about children more unfortunate and the sad thing is it can still happen today. The suffering by those in William Blakes days I am sure though was much worse than those in the 1950s and today as there was no help or laws for the benefit of children. The poems from Blakes day were so different to those from the fifties though the message was very alike. The language, rhyming and punctuation was very different in Blakes time to in the fifties when it is more or less the same today. The one thing these poems have in common is that all of them are poems about unfortunate children and all of the poems are trying to get this suffering recognised and stopped.