"The Sick Rose" is a poem by William Blake, originally published in Songs of Innocence and of Experience as the 39th plate; the incipit of the poem is O Rose thou art sick. Blake composed the poem sometime after 1789, and presented it with an illuminated border and illustration, typical of his self-publications. [1] Since the 20th century, the poem has been the subject of scrutiny by scholars for its oblique and enigmatic meaning, and bizarre, suggestive imagery. [2]
Nathan Cervo describes the poem as "One of the most baffling and enigmatic in the English language". [2] The rose and worm in the poem have been seen as "figures of humanity", [3] although Michael Riffaterre doubts the direct equivalence of Man as a worm; when Blake makes this comparison in other places, Riffaterre notes, he is explicit about it. Nevertheless, the "lesson of the worm may be applicable to human experience". [3]
The rhyme scheme is ABCB. The scansion is difficult to place, due to a lack of pattern; the stanzas are asymmetrical: the first has syllables of 5,6,5,5, and the second of 5,4,6,5. Punctuation is also irregular: there is no comma after "O Rose", and yet there is a comma [,] after "worm". [4]
The poem was set to music by Benjamin Britten in his 1943 Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings , where it forms the movement "Elegy". British band Amplifier set the poem to music on their 2011 album The Octopus . Verses of the poem also comprised and inspired the 1991 song "Love's Secret Domain" by English group Coil.
Dead Man is a 1995 American acid western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, Gabriel Byrne, Mili Avital, and Robert Mitchum. The movie, set in the late 1800s, follows William Blake, a meek accountant on the run after murdering a man. He has a chance encounter with enigmatic Native American spirit-guide "Nobody", who believes Blake is the reincarnation of the visionary English poet William Blake.
The Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Op. 31, is a song cycle written in 1943 by Benjamin Britten for tenor, solo horn and a string orchestra. Composed during the Second World War at the request of the horn player Dennis Brain, it is a setting of a selection of six poems by English poets on the subject of night, including both its calm and its sinister aspects. The poets Britten chose to set for the Serenade range from an anonymous 15th-century writer to poets from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
"The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his Songs of Experience collection and rising to prominence in the romantic period. The poem is one of the most anthologised in the English literary canon, and has been the subject of both literary criticism and many adaptations, including various musical versions. The poem explores and questions Christian religious paradigms prevalent in late 18th century and early 19th century England, discussing God's intention and motivation for creating both the tiger and The Lamb.
"The Lamb" is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789.
"The Chimney Sweeper" is the title of a poem by William Blake, published in two parts in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794. The poem "The Chimney Sweeper" is set against the dark background of child labour that was prominent in England in the late 18th and 19th centuries. At the age of four and five, boys were sold to clean chimneys, due to their small size. These children were oppressed and had a diminutive existence that was socially accepted at the time. Children in this field of work were often unfed and poorly clothed. In most cases, these children died from either falling through the chimneys or from lung damage and other horrible diseases from breathing in the soot. In the earlier poem, a young chimney sweeper recounts a dream by one of his fellows, in which an angel rescues the boys from coffins and takes them to a sunny meadow; in the later poem, an apparently adult speaker encounters a child chimney sweeper abandoned in the snow while his parents are at church or possibly even suffered death where church is referring to being with God.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Blake was also a painter before the creation of Songs of Innocence and Experience and had painted such subjects as Oberon, Titania, and Puck dancing with fairies.
The Book of Thel is a poem by William Blake, dated 1789 and probably composed in the period 1788 to 1790. It is illustrated by his own plates, and compared to his later prophetic books is relatively short and easier to understand. The metre is a fourteen-syllable line. It was preceded by Tiriel, which Blake left in manuscript. A few lines from Tiriel were incorporated into The Book of Thel. Most of the poem is in unrhymed verse.
"London" is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Experience in 1794. It is one of the few poems in Songs of Experience that does not have a corresponding poem in Songs of Innocence. Blake lived in London so writes of it as a resident rather than a visitor. The poems reference the "Two Contrary States of the Human Soul". The "Songs of Innocence" section contains poems which reference love, childhood and nature. Critics have suggested that the poems illustrate the effects of modernity on people and nature, through the discussion of dangerous industrial conditions, child labour, prostitution and poverty.
Tiriel is a narrative poem by William Blake, written c.1789. Considered the first of his prophetic books, it is also the first poem in which Blake used free septenaries, which he would go on to use in much of his later verse. Tiriel was unpublished during Blake's lifetime and remained so until 1874, when it appeared in William Michael Rossetti's Poetical Works of William Blake. Although Blake did not engrave the poem, he did make twelve sepia drawings to accompany the rough and unfinished manuscript, although three of them are considered lost as they have not been traced since 1863.
"The Garden of Love" is a poem by the Romantic poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection, Songs of Experience.
"Ah! Sun-flower" is an illustrated poem written by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794. It is one of only four poems in Songs of Experience not found in the "Notebook".
"Infant Joy" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was first published as part of his collection Songs of Innocence in 1789 and is the counterpart to "Infant Sorrow", which was published at a later date in Songs of Experience in 1794.
William Blake's body of work has influenced countless writers, poets and painters, and his legacy is often apparent in modern popular culture. His artistic endeavours, which included songwriting in addition to writing, etching and painting, often espoused a sexual and imaginative freedom that has made him a uniquely influential figure, especially since the 1960s. After Shakespeare, far more than any other canonical writer, his songs have been set and adapted by popular musicians including U2, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Bruce Dickinson and Ulver. Folk musicians, such as M. Ward, have adapted or incorporated portions of his work in their music, and figures such as Bob Dylan, Alasdair Gray and Allen Ginsberg have been influenced by him. The genre of the graphic novel traces its origins to Blake's etched songs and Prophetic Books, as does the genre of fantasy art.
Poetical Sketches is the first collection of poetry and prose by William Blake, written between 1769 and 1777. Forty copies were printed in 1783 with the help of Blake's friends, the artist John Flaxman and the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew, at the request of his wife Harriet Mathew. The book was never published for the public, with copies instead given as gifts to friends of the author and other interested parties. Of the forty copies, fourteen were accounted for at the time of Geoffrey Keynes' census in 1921. A further eight copies had been discovered by the time of Keynes' The Complete Writings of William Blake in 1957. In March 2011, a previously unrecorded copy was sold at auction in London for £72,000.
"The Fly" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794.
The Notebook of William Blake was used by William Blake as a commonplace book from c. 1787 to 1818.
"Night" is a poem in the illuminated 1789 collection Songs of Innocence by William Blake, later incorporated into the larger compilation Songs of Innocence and of Experience. "Night" speaks about the coming of evil when darkness arrives, as angels protect and keep the sheep from the impending dangers.
"The Little Boy Lost" is a simple lyric poem written by William Blake. This poem is part of a larger work titled Songs of Innocence which was published in the year 1789. "The Little Boy Lost" is a prelude to "The Little Boy Found".
"The School Boy" is a 1789 poem by William Blake and published as a part of his poetry collection entitled Songs of Experience. These poems were later added with Blake's Songs of Innocence to create the entire collection entitled "Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul". This collection included poems such as "The Tyger", "The Little Boy Lost", "Infant Joy" and "The Shepherd". These poems are illustrated with colorful artwork created by Blake first in 1789. The first printing in 1789 consisted of sixteen copies. None of the copies of Songs of Innocence are exactly alike as some of them are incomplete or were colored in posthumously "in imitation of" other copies.
"A Dream" is a poem by English poet William Blake. The poem was first published in 1789 as part of Blake's collection of poems entitled Songs of Innocence.
Works related to The Sick Rose at Wikisource