poems showing religious beliefs
im writing an essay on what impressions i get of blakes religious beliefs. which five poems in blake's songs of innocence and experience show what blakes religious beliefs were...basically... anyone know WHAT his religious beliefs were.. he believed in God? but not the church...~???? whats the difference, and if those who were in the church, shouldnt he have 'believed' in what they were doing? and do the poems such as 'the lamb' and 'tyger' really answer his religious beliefs?
Thanks!! xxx
Last edited by skysfallen; 05-06-2006 at 01:16 PM.
Well, those are pretty big questions. Questions Blake spent a lifetime answering himself.
"he believed in God? but not the church...~???? whats the difference, and if those who were in the church, shouldnt he have 'believed' in what they were doing?"
He was a Christian. But not a normal Chiristian. His idea of God had a lot to do with imagination. For Blake, the Church and believing in God were not the same thing. The Church is political. God is not. One of the main messages in the Gospels is that each person can have direct contact with God. People don't need a Church to communicate with God. Through prayer, imagination, good deeds, etc, humans can communicate directly with God. The Church is a middle man. He believed that England had fallen and would be redeemed. This is expressed in his idea of the New Jerusalem.
Blakes beliefs are complicated. Many people struggle to understand him. He was a 'mystic' poet. He created his own form of Christianity. It had much to do with the imagination. He lived in a time, like ours, when people were very taken with Science. He was a prophet in that he was reminding people to remember the worlds that are invisible, that we can not access through our minds, but only with our hearts.
In 'The Lamb' look at the last verse. He answers the question.
In 'The Tyger' the word 'frame' is important. To frame something is to contain it.
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Look at the question and look at the lamb. Are human's better than animals?
Blake urges people in his poems to use their imaginations. When people do this, they are closer to God.
Blake was a religious man, he was taught to read using the Bible, and a lot of his poems carry Biblical connotations, if not directly in the messages ("Little Lamb, God bless thee"), or references (Eg Psalm 23 "The Lord is my shepherd") then in their hymn-like structure, or simply in the type of language used ("And what"), or more subtle uses of first person plural ("our"), used in the Bible to mean mankind in general.
His family were dissenters, which means that they rejected the generally accepted form of Christianity and were "non-conformists". Another piece of our Blakian puzzle is that his family also rejected authority. So in this way, he is religious, but rejects the Church as an institution, and repeatedly criticises it for being hypocrtical, and turning a blind eye to the injustices in society (see the Chimney Sweeper or London). Some have said that Blakes views follow a pre-Christian pagan sect called Gnosticism, which states that the creation followed a cosmic catastrophe and a fall of spiritual beings into matter, but this is only a loose interpretation.
Blake's spiritual views where greatly influenced by Swedenbourg - you might look him up. Have you read Peter Ackroyd's biography?
Blake was very "spiritual" - sometimes to the point of being disturbing. He was a purist as well. In the prologue to Milton, he makes it very clear that the classical authors are evil and we ought to adandon them in favor of a pure Biblical reading.
The Everlasting Gospel c. 1818 really expounds on much of his beliefs about Jesus' identity and what it means to be a Christian.
You have to understand that Blake was in every respect a man in love with the gothic mysticism of the 16th Century, with the ancient bardic poets of Britain.i tend to think that people over analyse his beliefs to the point of cunfusion.Blake was not confused.His religious beliefs are i think very individual like the man himself.He composed his own belief system through his poetry and his art which are inextricably linked.His family instilled in him a mistrust of institutions, being Dissenters themselves.For instance when he moved out of London to the south coast for three years he never once attended the local church and was during that period accused of sedition(wrongly as it turned out) against the King and the war with France.He was and remains unique both as a man and an artist.
thank you for this wonderful thread. Blake is my hero for validating the importance of the imagination. The several replies to this thread are just the thing I am looking for in this network.
I don't quite agree with doorlux about the connotation of frame. If I frame a house, I am building it, setting it up, defining it. I am the architect. The same god who framed the lamb also framed the tiger. The world, having both wickedness and beauty, must be full of mistakes, even as it is full of beauty. A tiger is a thing of beauty, and at the same time a thing of wickedness. The architect was a fallible one, not perfect. Therefore, the framer must be an imperfect god, and so comes the significance of "The Awakener" in Milton.In 'The Tyger' the word 'frame' is important. To frame something is to contain it.
Here's a quote from a 1959 Introduction to The Penguin Poets' William Blake, edit by J. Bronowski:
Blake's form of Christianity was heretical, for it identified Christ the Son with all spiritual goodness and made God the Father a symbol of terror and tyranny. And this, the Gnostic or Manichaean heresy, is not merely a technical nicety among sects, it is a crux in Blake's mind. God to Blake personified absolute authority, and Christ personified the human character; and Blake was on the side of man against authority, at the end of his life when he called the authority Church and God, as much as at the beginning when he called it State and King. We can read this in the unfinished drafts of The Everlasting Gospel and in the indignant notes he wrote in his seventieth year on Dr. Thornton's version of the Lord's Prayer. To Blake, all virtue is human virtue, and in his most religious poems he acknowledges no other Christianity.
Last edited by earthboar; 06-11-2006 at 11:41 AM. Reason: elucidation
Honestly, I don't know to much about William Blake; this is the reason why I am on this specific site. In fact, maybe I shouldn't be writing my opinion at all but, that's not me. So I hope all who read this will respect the fact that I am writing my opinion and here my judgement. I had become interested in reading up on his poetry, through the liking of Jim Morrison, (The Doors). I must say from the poem, 'The Tyger' in my opinion is a question of God and Jesus (Man made?)
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
God: Did he unfold his doings,makings, creations for his own enjoyment?
Jesus: He who had made the lamb; did the same person,faith make him?
Its a question of faith, and can go into extreme depths and detail of philosphy&science, an uproar of one's own religious beliefs. Hypathetically, a weapon of mass destruction to ones own psychological being. William Blake had once said, not in quote but the basics was (from my reading of Jim Morrison autobiography 'No One Gets Out of Here Alive') the doors of perception. Look at different aspects with an open mind, and that all people perceive things differently. To me, William Blake wanted others to broaden their horizons whether that be the rise of good light or the darkside of things....
Out of all quotes, I agree with earthboar the most.
hey basically to me i think blake was a christian gnostic.
he believed in jesus and maybe god, but not the church. what that means is he believed in the healing power of Jesus and how if you let him in you will be saved, but not the church itself.
Basically in the times when he wrote some of his poems in the songs of experience and innocence the way the church was wasnt very christianly. There were a lot of contoversy with what they were doing.
take Blakes poems the chminey sweep, and the chimney sweeper for example. when analysed together you can tell with the songs of innocence poem he is telling the childs story aboyut how he is feeling and is taking pitty on the child, for he doesnt deserve it. but in the songs of experience poem blake says
"They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,"
here he is saying how the families went off to church and left their children there to sweep the chimneys and practically die. and he didnt beleive the church was right in doing so.
with these two comparisons i think to me it is safe to say that really blake striggled but the best way to describe it is he didnt like the way the church was handling thins but he was a christian in the aspect of he believe in Jesus and the healing power of him.
I agree with doorlux, but not entirely with the gnostic thing, for the reason that that is too vauge a definition and only applies in cetain cases. Like what kind of gnostic, modern gnostics, greek gnostics, egyption gnostics. Gnosticsim though it is not formaly defined as such is asscociated with a departure form the bible which I don´t remember blake doing. I think that blake is more puritanical loveing god and his doctirine but not the chruch which is easy to if you look at some of the things that chruches have done. Burning witches, the crusades and the politics which never should have become part of the chruch are contridictory to many new testament teachings. It is normal for many of the people who call themselves christain to disagree with what the the church does and still love god.
deus ex machina
You read too much into the author and really need to focus on what he is trying to say in his poem. Although there are definately references to his personal experiences within the poem ultimately he is trying to relate his argument to the reader. You have noticed that he had a negative view of the church but that does not necessarily mean it was always that way. Look for other references to this within his poetry and you will notice that there are reasons outlined. For an essay it is vital that you focus on the content of the poem as well as the author. Its all about why he deemed the point to have significance and why he put it in that place and in that poem. After all he is simply trying to create an argument and a picture.
The Question in Blake is how a God, the great god of bible, would allow evil in the world. That is the question of the Tyger - the existence of evil in a world made by God. That is pretty much an old question, Liebiniz answered it also and pretty, that is what Voltaire disliked.
Overall Blake perceived a difference between the old test. god and the new test. God. The old was trully evil, the world was evil because it is distant from god. Some short of levels of perfection...
Of 'The Divine Image' and 'Human Abstract', do these two poems help us to understand Blake’s beliefs/ views on humanity?
he has a complex religion
Last edited by whiteangel; 01-08-2009 at 02:20 PM.
"Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"
The lines above come from Blake's Tiger Tiger Burning Bright. I guess the lines show that Blake believed that God exists. But this god is not the benevolent and merciful God of Christianity.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote