Blake poem Analysis

[snow.white]

the auguries of innocence-William Blake


Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity.
This is caught by Females bright
And return'd to its own delight.


These are the lines which I need to be critically analyzed . Esp the !st two lines what it suggest.

[OrphanPip]

What's your analysis of the 4 lines?

[snow.white]

First two lines suggests tears of pain by mother and babe in eternity means his birth. I am not sure about it

[OrphanPip]

OK, so you're taking the "every tear from every eye" to represent the pain of the birthing process. That's interesting, but doesn't really go far enough.

I would start with "every tear from every eye" being a claim to universality, especially the universal nature of human suffering which is addressed throughout that poem. Then ask why do you think that suffering would always produce a "babe in eternity." Which is a really odd thing to say and needs to be unpacked: what is eternity and how could something be a babe in eternity? Think of what a baby can represent in a metaphorical sense.

The second pair of lines begins with a "this" that has an ambiguous antecedent. The syntax makes it unclear if it is the entire preceding phrase or just the babes in eternity that are caught. What is the effect of this ambiguity on your reading? Also, think about how women relate to babies on a symbolic level.

With Blake it's a good idea to think of this stuff in religious terminology as well, a lot of this is tinged with Blake's understanding of Christianity.

[Cunninglinguist]

Let's see...

You have to understand everything in the poem represents something. A couple of the animals represent different types of people: the dog represents the beggar, the Horse the slave, the robin & dove the prisoner (I think), the c0ck the solider, the deer the nonchalant; the lamb, Jesus. On the other hand, some of the animals simply represent different parts of the humanized world: the owl represents humankind lost in darkness, the caterpillar represents humankind emerging from nature's cocoon, as it were (i.e. their expulsion from the Garden of Eden). Moreover, the actions, places, etc. are also used to represent. Heaven is goodness (of course), and so on. Anyways, the point is clear; the poem is heavily allegorical.

With that, the Babe represents the innocence of mankind; more or less, innocence refers to man in an unfallen state. The eye represents one perspective of the world. This is an important point, since a big theme of the poem is about viewing the world through different perspectives (as evidenced in the first quatrain of the poem). The tears are more or less symbolic of suffering.

So, from this readers perspective, Blake is stating that any suffering felt by anyone breeds unconditional (everlasting/"eternal") innocence, or suffering is unconditionally innocent.

For the second couplet, you simply need to find what the Female represents.

Take my interpretation with a grain of salt. Not only do I not regard Blake's ideas as incredibly deep, I endlessly despise him for not using meter.