The Tyger

As mentioned in my post on The Lamb, The Tyger is an Experience antitype, and provides the opposite presentation of God to its innocent pairing. It is one of Blake’s most famous poems, violently charged by the backdrop of the visceral Industrial Revolution. The poem contrasts the Divine with the Sublime to question the nature of a God who is capable of creating such distinctive opposites. It also draws on Greek and Roman mythology, which may seem random, but it isn’t. Myths were more than stories; they were told to tell truths about human nature and experiences as an explanation for why the world was the way it is. The Tyger deals with these exact themes of our understanding of life.

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies;

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?-

What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Form & Structure

The poem is composed of six quatrains, formed of rhyming couplets, and follows a regular trochaic tetrameter, which was often used in children’s rhymes. This combined with the monosyllabic words creates a misleading tone of sympathy. Each line ends catalectic (with a dropped syllable) to end with a stressed one, so that the poem adopts a masculine rhythm. It produces a hammering beat like the central image of the poem: the smithy.

It takes the form of a lyric poem as it intends to inspire and explore the mystical knowledge of the deity.

Stanza One

First of all, the spelling of “Tyger” is archaic, introducing the theme of mystical knowledge. The first line also uses alliteration of “burning bright” with the repetition of the plosive “B” sound to create the restless pacing of the animal being described. “burning bright” may also refer to the flames of the Industrial Revolution taking place in London at the time. In this sense, humans were becoming like God in trying to perfect their mastery of the world.

Reference to “immortal hand or eye” can either allude to God or the Devil, as the poem deals with the question of can a benevolent God be capable of creating something so beautifully destructive. By bringing God and Satan together, Blake echoes the beliefs of Jacob Böhme, who believed:

“Heaven is in hell, and hell is in heaven, and nevertheless there is neither of them revealed to the other…”

Angels do not see darkness, only the light of divine power, but the devils see only the darkness of the wrath of God. It is this idea that is wrestled throughout the poem, drawing in the perspective of the “devils” who only dwell in Experience.

The last line switches to iambic tetrameter to stress the words “frame” and “fearful symmetry” as they are the most important words within the key question of the poem: What does evil and violence reflect on the nature of God? “fearsome symmetry” contrasts this fearful violence with utter beauty, demonstrating the juxtaposition of the nature of God.

Stanza Two

The frequent repetition of the harsh “D” sound in “distant deeps or skies” further contributes to the insistent rhythm, creating and drawing together illusions of heaven and hell.

The stanza consists of rhetorical questions, with mention of angels in “On what wings dare he aspire?”, particularly alluding to the fallen angels who tried to overthrow God with Lucifer, and were cast down to Hell, suggesting that the being who created the tiger is not God, but the power opposing God.

Reference to “wings” may also allude to Icarus, whose wings were made of wax and melted when he flew too close to the Sun. The story is a symbol of humankind trying to aspire beyond its limits, suggesting that the creator has done so in creating the Tyger.

In the final rhetorical question of the line, “What the hand, dare sieze the fire?” may be alluding to the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods to help humankind. Although Prometheus was benevolent, in this context it appears to be something more sinister, suggesting that the speaker is possessed by the power of the creature, and is thereby blind to the potential benevolence of it. The speaker is too far gone in Experience to be able to view the benevolence that one may see from an innocent perspective.

Stanza Three

There’s not too much to say about this stanza, except from the sibilance used in “twist the sinews”; frequent sibilance often suggests that there are evil forces at bay.

The anaphoric repetition of “every dread” suggests the speaker’s current state of mind, which will shift later.

Stanza Four

The rhythmic repetition of “what” in this stanza gives it an almost chant-like quality.

Blake uses a semantic field of imagery related to a blacksmith, a “hammer”, “furnace” and “anvil” which has been interpreted as an allusion to Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire, by whom Prometheus was punished, thus suggesting that the creator is demonic as opposed to benevolent. Furthermore, the image of the furnace and the wings are linked through John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a work Blake was heavily influenced by. In this text, Hephaestus was the creator of Pandemonium, the realm of the demons.

The final two lines adopt a tone of fascination through their questioning nature, as they marvel at the virtues of the Tyger such as its “dread grasp” and “deadly terrors”.

Critic Kurt Johnson wrote a brilliant article titled “Blake in the East – India and Colonialism” which is perfect for context (which is heavily weighted!). I’ve just extracted a quote from there, but I definitely suggest giving it a read if you can!

“The industrial rhythm of its metre, along with its metallurgic imagery, speak more to the “dark Satanic mills” of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution and its encroachment on England’s “green and pleasant land”.”

Stanza Five

The imagery of when “the stars threw down their spears” is once again an allusion to the fallen angels, but also shows the mind of the speaker, who witnesses the ferocious power of the Tyger, and the energy at the heart of creation. Here Blake may also be alluding to the revolutionary age, when the French Revolutionaries audaciously seized power.

Blake then brings in the antitype of the lamb to highlight how hard it is to determine the nature of God when he can create the destructive Tyger AND the innocent lamb. Blake draws together the two contraries of goodness and darkness to demonstrate how contradictory God is. Once again, in this line Blake shifts to iambic metre to highlight the overarching question: “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

Stanza Six

This stanza is the repetition of the first stanza with the exception of one alteration, instead of “could frame”, this changes to “Dare frame”.

The tone is of confusion and a sense of being overwhelmed, especially as the poem fails to reach a final conclusion. But the ending question articulates the single idea of the poem: how can we as humans understand the nature of a God capable of creating the innocence of the lamb and the danger of the tiger?

Critic Brassington writes of the two poems:

“They explore the two opposing, but complementary, dualistic aspects or existential states of humankind as they engage in and wrestle with God, others and one’s self.”

It’s quite a lot to take in, but hopefully it should make sense if you go over it a few times. This poem is key to learn as it incorporates a variety of key themes: religion, power, innocence and experience, etc, so make sure you do know your way around it! Happy wrestling:)

The Lamb

The Lamb is the Innocence antitype poem to The Tyger, which I will be posting shortly. The lamb is a symbol of meekness, mildness, gentleness, fragility and of course innocence. Blake wanted to convey to his reader what he believed to be true Christianity, not the doctrines preached by organised religion at the time, and so portrays two biblical images his public would recognise: the child and the lamb. But in doing so, Blake hoped that he could make his reader question how these images were commonly understood.

The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee

Dost thou know who made thee

Gave thee life & bid thee feed,

By the stream & o’er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Make all the vales rejoice:

Little Lamb who made thee

Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,

Little Lamb Ill tell thee;

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb:

He is meek & he is mild,

He became a little child:

I a child & thou a lamb,

We are called by his name.

Little Lamb God bless thee,

Little Lamb God bless thee.

Form & Structure

The structure of the poem is two stanzas composed of five rhyming couplets, and has an apostrophic form, meaning that the poem addresses an absent person.

The form contributes to the effect of naivety, as if it were a child talking to an animal.

The poem also follows a question and answer style, the form is a catechism. Catechisms were used by the Catholic Church as a way of helping children in memorising information. 
While stanza one is rural and descriptive. Stanza two meanwhile covers abstract and spiritual matters, providing an explanation to these questions through analogy.

The poem has a basic trochaic rhythm alternating between trimester and tetrameter to connote the simplistic nature of the child narrator. It also gives it a similar rhythm to nursery rhymes.

Stanza One

The first stanza, despite the punctuation of a question mark, is composed entirely of questions in each line asking the lamb if it is aware of its divine origin, showing the innocence, if not naivety of the child speaker.

The narrator uses diction of a comforting nature, describing the lamb as possessing “clothing of delight”, being “wooly bright” and having a “tender voice”. This semantic field connotes the objective goodness of the lamb, but also anthropomorphises the lamb and links it to Christ, as Christ was described in the Bible as being born with wooly hair.

This semantic field of calming diction in “stream” and “mead” is typical of the pastoral tradition to present an idyllic rural scene, these adjectives describing a scene of perfection.

Blake also uses softened sounds, such as in “rejoice”, “voice” and “vales” to mimic the bleating of a lamb and the lisping of a child, further highlighting the innocent nature of the speaker.

The stanza ends as a rhetorical question, “Little Lamb who made thee”, to create a warm and harmonious tone. “made thee” forms a spondee intending to slow the reader down, and makes the line more emphatic.
Blake is aking questions about creation to remind society to consider these things, as they were, in his mind, to immersed within the Revolutionary War, the Industrial Revolution, etc. 

Stanza Two

The child then takes on the qualities of the lamb as they describe Jesus, so Blake links Jesus, the lamb and the child together as a means of encouraging his reader to let go of Experience and cleanse the doors of perception. As critic Brassington has noted:

“There is the implied love of, or sympathy for the innocent perfection of childhood before the Fall into experience.”

He begins by assuring “Little Lamb I’ll tell thee”, the repetition creating a confident and self-assured tone, but this also highlights the vulnerability of innocence, in that it forces us to blindly accept faith without question, while limiting the human understanding of God. This was because Blake believed:

“Without contraries there is no Progression.”

Innocence is only one contrary, while Experience is the other, and so with Innocence our image of God is limited to the tender, gentle creator. He describes him as “meek” and “mild”, which are not necessarily negative, despite lacking energy and power, and therefore being vulnerable and open to danger, like one who is divorced from Experience.

Blake wanted to present the positive aspects of conventional Christianity, the beliefs that did not lead to suffering. Suffering because of religion was only the result of corruption from religion, contemporary society and the State. In this poem, Blake presents an untainted vision of religion.

The repetition of the final line “Little Lamb God bless thee” gives it a song-like quality, almost as if it were a religious hymn.

So that’s The Lamb covered, once you’re comfortable in analysing this Song of Innocence, I would suggest comparing and contrasting it with its Experience counterpart The Tyger. But personally I would have a break and grab a cuppa in between!

Fatal Attraction: Desire, Anatomy and Death in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (pt.1)

The following quotes are taken from the section of the critical guide titled “The Anatomy of Desire” by Catherine Silverstone. It gets pretty freaky…

Jonathan Sawday: “the image of the body as a book, a text there to be opened, read, interpreted, and, indeed, rewritten, was a persuasive one to the early explorers of the human frame.”

[On dissection] moved to a process whereby the corpse became the subject of inquiry and generative of new anatomical texts and forms of knowledge.

Thomas Laqueur: “the new science proclaimed so vigorously that Truth and progress lay not in texts, but in the opened properly displayed body.”

Patricia Fumerton: [On sonnets] never simply reveal the truth of the heart; rather they “’represent’ their private loves through conventional artifice that keeps them hidden.”

The body’s surfaces, both interior and exterior, were available to be read and consumed as texts.

The heart is a token of exchange within an economy of desire, where it is “constituted into a gift object – whether ignored or rejected”, the play sets up an economy of hearts.”

The way Giovanni uses Annabella’s heart as a unit of exchange graphically illustrates the lack of autonomy that Annabella has come to have over her own desires: she literally has no heart to give as a token of her desire.

The heart is also treated as a register of truth concerning an individual’s desires.

Denis Gauer: “the heart is supreme as the seat of truth, thus becoming a tell-tale heart which may be read as easily as a book.”

When Giovanni offers the dagger to Annabella:

1. It is a precursor to what subsequently happens to Annabella’s heart

2. He presents his heart as a text of truth concerning his feelings

When Soranzo threatens to rip up Annabella’s heart it is as though the truth of Annabella’s desire is contained within the heart of her heart.

When Soranzo confides to Vasques that in the “faithless face” of Annabella he “laid up/The treasure of my heart”, while he may be able to see his own desire in the body of Annabella, Soranzo is unable to read Annabella’s desires from her body.

Susan Wiseman: “even a pregnant body does not tell all its own secrets, and incest is undiscoverable from external evidence.”

The reality of the anatomized heart, then, is not so much that it indicates the truth of desire, but that to see such a heart entails the death of the physical body.

The body is literally anatomized in an extreme manifestation of the metaphorical attempts to anatomize, discover and control desire.

Lisa Hopkins: “in ripping out the heart Giovanni attempts to force an equation between signifier and signified”, he has a desire of wanting to control and expose Annabella’s own desire

The subject of desire attempts to control and order desire through anatomization, but desire refuses to be contained in this way.

There’s another section dramatically titled “The Death of Desire” which I will be uploading notes from at a later period. But for now you can indulge in the gore of ripped-out hearts eviscerated with incestuous desire.

'Tis Pity she's a Whore - Lisa Hopkins Guide Chapter One

The following are quotes lifted from “’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: A Critical Guide” compiled by Lisa Hopkins. I thoroughly recommend this book if you’re studying the play, especially for the AO3 in your essays.

The Critical Backstory

In his own day, his plays attracted commendatory verses from many of his famous contemporaries…and he was by no means immediately forgotten after the Restoration

The heyday of appreciation of Ford came in the Romantic period

·         T. J. B. Spencer – “Ford suddenly rose to a high reputation in 1808.”

On Shelley and Lamb

Ford is certainly a critical influence on Mary Shelley, as is testified most obviously by her heavy reliance on him in The Fortune of Perkin Warbeck, which uses quotations from him in its chapter headings

Kenneth Brannagh’s Frankenstein adaptation – the Creature kills Elizabeth much as Giovanni had Annabella

Mary Shelley’s twentieth-century afterlife has thus become intertextually linked with Ford’s Romantic one.

The most extended and concentrated example of indebtedness to Ford comes in the work of Lady Caroline Lamb, Byron’s cast-off mistress

“It is perhaps little wonder that women like Mary Shelley and Caroline Lamb, themselves living sensitive lives marked by sexual scandal and social disjunction, in a tightly organised group linked with a quasi-incestuous nearness, should be drawn to the most sexually daring of Jacobean dramatists, and the one in whose work the difficulty of reconciling sexual and social impulses is most strongly figured.”

Criticism

Academic criticism of Ford’s plays began effectively with Langbaine in 1691 and so did controversy, which raged around him almost every time that his name was mentioned and which certainly came to the fore in the Romantic period.

Hazlitt – “I do not find much other power in the author than that of playing with edged tools and knowing the use of poisoned weapons. And what confirms me in this opinion is the comparative inefficiency of his other plays.”

Hartley Coleridge – “He delighted in the sensation of intellectual power, he found himself strong in the imagination of crime and agony; his moral sense was gratified by indignation at the dark possibilities of sin, by compassion for rate extremes of suffering.”

ALSO

“He abhorred vice – he admired virtue; but ordinary vice or modern virtue were, to him, as light wine to a dram drinker.”

Herbert J. Grierson – “he set forth deliberately the thesis that a great passion is its own justification, condones any crime.”

W. A. Neilson – “no objection lies against the introduction of the fact of incest, but the dramatist’s attitude is sympathetic.”

T. S. Eliot – “Ford handles the theme with all the seriousness of which he is capable, and he can hardly be accused here of wanton sensationalism.”

ALSO

“that which gives Ford his most certain claim to perpetuity; the distinct personal rhythm in blank verse which could be no ones’ but his alone”

R. J. Kaufmann – “Giovanni is a legitimate tragic figure”, “Ford struggles purposively with humanity’s genius for self-deprivation, with its puzzling aspiration to be the architect of its own unhappiness.”

ALSO

“the world of the play is made to act as a foil to the desperate choices of Giovanni and his sister. This is not, of course, because Ford approves of incest, but it is done to put the unthinkable within access of thought.”

H. W. Wells – “he by no means takes so uncompromising a view of Giovanni’s impiety and scepticism as Tourneur takes of the atheism of D’Amville…he even introduces a note of pure traedy into the speeches addressed to Annabella just before her death.”

Denis Gauer – “for him Desire, as manifested by woman, is absolute, and without code or landmark; it is Desire before the emergence of the Law.”

Gauer sees a Ford for whom “Desire can only lead to Death. Such are the two poles of life according to Ford”

ALSO

[on representation of social milieu in first two scenes] “Thus does Ford systematically (and even according to a strict hierarchy) introduce the three main social orders that traditionally constitute the Community: the priest, the warrior, and the merchant.”

Claudine Defaye – “It is as if, by conforming to the role of sinner assigned by religion, terrible and constraining though it be, Annabella succeeded in escaping from her own innate and  immediate torment, from a kind of existential anguish, where all issues seem blocked.”

Jennifer A. Low – “If ‘Tis Pity does offer the audience a role, it is that of the onlooker, the peeping Tom whose desires have been legitimised because commodified…”

T. B. Tomlinson – “writers like Chapman and Ford appear to be making a serious point when in fact they are only making a sentimental one…Ford is the real villain of the piece in Jacobean tragedy. He is untrustworthy.”

Donald K. Anderson –“Stavig and Sensabaugh mark the two poles of twentieth century commentary, the former arguing the dramatist’s conservatism, the latter his “unbridled individualism”. I place Ford midway between these two extremes, finding him both compassionate and condemnatory towards his characters.”

Dorothy M. Farr – “At heart Annabella is a traditionalist and because she has less imagination than Giovanni, within her limits she is a realist.”

Rowland Wymer – “The principle representative of moral orthodoxy in the play is the Friar…the full weight of traditional religious opposition to incest, whether Catholic or Protestant, are meant to be taken  seriously.”

Verna Foster – [on city comedy] “The events we see in ’Tis Pity occur in a city modelled in many respects on Stuart London, or at least on the London made familiar by dramatic convention.”

Was Stalin a good war leader?

Yes

1. He learned from mistakes and ran the war effort with a single-minded determination

2. He acted as a figurehead rather than a military commander

3. He was willing to take advice and give responsibility to others

                - The Stavka was set up two days after the German invasion and directed strategic and                 military operations

4. He allowed General Zhukov to stand up to him and Party bosses in military decisions

                - Generals could make a genuine contribution to military debate in a way which Hitler                         rarely allowed

5. He had a great propaganda value as a figurehead and inspired the Russian people to fight in a Patriotic War

                - They were joining the struggle to save the traditional Mother Russia

                - Within a fortnight of the German invasion, 10 million Soviet citizens were enlisted in                         the Red Army

6. He allowed the Russia Orthodox Church to have a revival, which allowed him to present a Holy War against Russia’s enemies

                - By the end of 1943 there were over 15,000 functioning Orthodox churches

7. He allowed a limited de-Stalinisation where managers of factories and military commanders were freed from Party supervision

No

1. He underestimated the threat the German invasion posed

2. He drove to his Dacha in late June during Operation Barbarossa, leaving the USSR leaderless

3. He ordered the Red Army to stand and fight

                - He wouldn’t allow a retreat, which allowed them to be easily encircled

THE IMPACT OF HIS EARLY MISTAKES

1. The Blitzkrieg tactic were highly effective

                - Within a few hours, 1200 Soviet aircraft were destroyed

                - The Germans advanced 50 miles a day

BUT: Early German victories led Hitler to become overconfident

                - On the 14^th of July, he ordered the German army to be reduced on the Eastern Front

                - Their barbaric treatment of the Soviet population provoked resistance and 
                partisan groups

2. Khrushchev: “Stalin became a bag of bones in a grey tunic.”

3. In July 1942 Stalin issued Order 227

                - “Not a Step Back”

                - Fight to death or be shot by the NKVD

4. THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF GERMAN SUCCESS

In the 1^st year of war, the USSR lost:

-          ½ of food-producing land

-          ¾ of coal, iron and steel

-          1/3 of the railway network

-          40% of electricity-generating capacity

Was the Russian economy effective?

Yes

1. It produced 100,000 tanks, and especially showed superiority in the Battle of Kursk (1943).

2. It was able to mobilise an entire population for total war.

                - In the Battle of Moscow (1941) 250,000 women and children dug trenches

3. The Siege of Leningrad (1941-44)

                - No one gave in despite 800,000 casualties. All able bodied people dug anti-tank trenches

4. It was able to mobilise industry further away from the civilian economy

                - For the Moscow defence, a chocolate factory made food for front lines.

                - A clock factory built detonators

                - A car factory built munitions

                - 3500 new large factories were built

5. The scorched earth policy burned everything useful to the Germans

6. The relocation & evacuation of industry East towards the mountains

                - 2593 major factories were taken and rebuilt in the Urals

7. An evacuation committee was set up to organise relocation

                - It showed mass organisation

8. The USSR had a large industrial capacity

9. Mobilisation of workforce

                - 2/3 of females were conscripted into work

                - Millions of criminals and prisoners of war worked towards the effort

11. Stalin: Russia was “a single war camp”

No

1. By 1941, the land that Hitler’s forces occupied accounted for:

                - 63% of coal production

                - 68% of iron production

                - 58% of steel production

2. American and British aid provided amounted to:

                - 53% of explosives

                - 58% of aircraft fuel

                - 500,000 vehicles

                - 1000 trains provided by the USA VS 92 produced by the USSR

3. The American Lend-Lease Act provided the USSR with a further:

                - 6430 planes

                - 3734 tanks

                - 104 ships

                - $11 billion in aid

4. Military supply dumps were overrun by Germans

                - 200/340 were taken within the first month of invasion

                - 1200 airplanes were destroyed within the first few hours of invasion

5. There was a lack of skilled and experienced labour, workers were sent to the front, so they had to use women and children instead

                - By the end of the first fortnight of the war 10 million Soviet citizens were enlisted in the armed forces (further 5 million in standing army)

6. The Blitzkrieg tactic initially showed the ineffectiveness of tanks, forcing the military to modernise

7. Some factories weren’t relocated, and consequently were destroyed by the Germans

                - Evacuation and relocation plans had difficulties because 65,000 km of train lines were destroyed

8. By 1942, the production of key resources like coal, steel and oil was down. Productivity in ares were industry was relocated was relatively low due to the strain on communications and basic services

                - Serious economic crisis in 1942

                - By the end of 1942, Soviet production capacity was only 68% of pre-war capacity

                - This was still 12% lower in 1945

9. Agriculture suffered badly, though the impact this had on production is disagreed on

                - Harvest losses are usually estimated at around 1/3

                - 1943 was a particularly bad year

Was the USSR ready for war?

Yes

1. In the 1930s, there were plenty of trained officers to replace those who were purged.

2. The Russian economy was geared up for war. The second Five Year Plan led to a trebling in armament production.

3. The Russian army had undertaken a number of reforms after the Finnish War: introducing harsher discipline, Zhukov was made Chief of Staff.

No

1. In 1937, Stalin purged his army which severely weakened Russia’s armed forces.
All admirals, eight generals and all but one commander of the air force were purged.

2. Severe weaknesses of the Red Army were exposed in the “Winter War” with Finland in 1939, where 126,000 soldiers died in four months. Their failure in the Winter War convinced Hitler that the USSR would crumble if attacked.

3. Stalin put too much faith in the 1939 Nazi Soviet Pact and believed Hitler would not be foolish enough to undertake a war on two fronts.
He received 80 warnings that Germany would invade, but ignored all of them.When a German soldier warned that Germany would attack the next day, Stalin ordered him to be shot.

Deutsche Wiederholung

Hier können Sie Resourcen für AQA Deutsch finden!

Der Besuch der Alten Dame

Fragen und Antworten
Interessanteste Thema des Werks
Erklären Sie, warum Sie das Werk der von Ihnen gewählten Dramatikers empfehlen/nicht empfehlen würden.

Die DDR & die Wiedervereinigung

Positive und Negative Aspekte des Alltags in der DDR
“Für die meisten Leute ging es zunächst um das tägliche Überleben.”

Andere Themen

Reichtum und Armut Aufsatz
Todesstrafe Aufsatz

Viel Glück bei der Wiederholung!

History Revision

Here you can find resources for the AQA History HIS3K (USSR: Triumph and Collapse) curriculum.

The Great Patriotic War and its Outcomes, 1941-1953

Was the USSR ready for war?
Was the Russian economy effective?
Was Stalin a good war leader?
Impact of the Great Patriotic War
Great Patriotic War Recovery Essay
“Stalin’s leadership was the most significant reason for Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War.”

De-Stalinisation, 1953-68

Why De-Stalinisation?
De-Stalinisation: Successes and Failures
Anti-Party Conspiracy

The Brezhnev Era, 1968-82

Brezhnev's Social Policies
Brezhnev's Agricultural Policies
Brezhnev's Economic Policies

The End of the Soviet Union, 1982-91

Perestroika and Glasnost

Political Change under Gorbachev
To what extent did opposition to Gorbachev from hard-line Communists inside the USSR cause economic and political instability in the years 1985-1991?
To what extent did perestroika and glasnost succeed in reforming the political and economic systems of the USSR?

Synoptic Questions
“Attempts to modernise the Soviet economy between 1945 and the death of Brezhnev in 1982 were unsuccessful.”

Essay Plans
Nationalities Synopticity
Role and Position of the Communist Party Synopticity
Dissidence Synopticity
Industry Synopticity
Historiography

Best of luck with revision!

English Literature Revision

Here you can find links to my posts on the English Literature curriculum. I'll be adding them as I go along making notes.

William Blake - The Songs of Innocence and of Experience

London
The Ecchoing Green
The Chimney Sweeper (Innocence)
The Chimney Sweeper (Experience)
The Lamb
The Tyger
The Blossom
The Sick Rose
My Pretty Rose Tree, Ah! Sunflower & The Lilly
The Fly
The Clod and the Pebble
Holy Thursday (Innocence)
Holy Thursday (Experience)

John Ford - 'Tis Pity She's A Whore
Critical Quotations (AO3)
Fatal Attraction: Desire, Anatomy and Death (pt. 1)
Fatal Attraction: Desire, Anatomy and Death (pt.2)
The Context of Religion
Identifying the Real Whore of Parma
Memrise Revision Course
Memrise AO3 Revision Course

Essays
"To embrace love is to embrace danger"
"Every blackning Church appalls"
"Court, city or country: a writer's choice of setting is always significant."

William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream
AO3 from Introduction
A Dominant Ideology in AMND
Themes and Motives of AMND
Important Quotes of AMND
AO3 Memrise Course

Essays
Essay on Bottom
Essay on Women
"Nothing in the play is quite what it seems."
The Disruption of Class, Status and Gender
Dreams Essay

And a little break after your hardwork...

The Chimney Sweeper (Experience)

Now we come to the antitype of the previous Chimney Sweeper poem, but this one takes the perspective of a chimney sweeper who has moved into Experience, thereby developed an awareness of how the Church condones his circumstances.

The Chimney Sweeper (Experience)

A little black thing among the snow,

Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!

Where are thy father & mother? say?

They are both gone up to church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil’d among the winters snow:

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy, & dance & sing,

They think they have done me no injury:

And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King

Who make up a heaven of our misery.

Form & Structure

Unlike the Innocence poem, The Chimney Sweeper of Experience takes the form of a dialogue between the speaker who finds the young sweep, and the sweeper himself.

The first quatrain consists of closed rhyming couplets, and they are self-contained so to serve as an intro to the plight of the sweeper. The other two quatrains follow an ABAB rhyme scheme as a continuation of his narrative of sorrow.

Stanza One

The first stanza introduces the cold-hearted nature of the world in introducing a “little black thing among the snow”. By describing the sweep as a “little black thing”, this echoes the condescending pitying tone of “poor little thing”, portraying a contrived failure of empathy of the speaker.

The monosyllabic onomatopoeia of “weep weep” slows the line down as the tone of the poem switches from introductory to reflective, and these are in “notes of woe” because his “father & mother” should be caring for the child, rather than abandoning him in the harsh coldness of winter.

In mentioning “the church”, while the sweep is trying to justify why his parents abandoned him, this is also Blake delivering a blunt condemnation to organised religion who condoned the sorrow of these young sweeps, and “make up a heaven” of their misfortune.

Stanza Two

By starting with “Because”, the sweep attempts to justify his mistreatment, both psychologically and physically, but this also adopts a tone of bitterness. Unlike the speaker in the Innocence antitype, this sweeper’s innocence has given way to experience, giving him an understanding and awareness of the hypocrisy of the State and Church. This is contrary to what Blake wrote of ignorance in innocence:

“Innocence dwells with wisdom but never with Ignorance.”

Blake uses a semantic field of positive language such as “happy” and “smil’d” highlights the justification of his abandonment: out of jealousy because of his happiness. Once again, the sweep mentions the “winters snow” to heighten the force of the scene through winter. Like in the Experience poem “Nurse’s Song”, the sense of perversity of adult’s being jealous of their children’s happiness, and a desire to repress their youth is echoed.

Stanza Three

Despite his bitterness, the sweep continues to sing his “notes of woe”, but because of this, people misunderstand that he is still happy, whereas he is actually trying to make the best of things, but this means they feel able to justify their actions, that they have “done me no injury”.

But the climbing boy reverts back to his bitter tone in condemning “God & his Priest & King”, because the speaker knows what he’s been sold into. This Song of Experience presents a dark, savage vision compared to Innocence.

While in Innocence Tom Dacre has heaven to look forward to, but in Experience, the speaker is lost behind the hypocrisy of the Church. This is in line with the belief of Rousseau:

“Man is born free but is everywhere in chains.”

Critic Dykstra also notes:

“In Blake’s poems institutions and their subjects uphold cruel and unjust social systems.”

If you’re going to compare and contrast these two poems, it is important that you note their differing perspectives from Innocence and Experience, and how this alters the tone and the nature of their condemnations.