A brief analysis of foreign literary works "Songs of Innocence"
A representative collection of poems by the British poet Blake (1757-1827). The collection of poems expresses the spiritual state of human childhood, a period before humans understand the suffering in the world. The content of the collection of poems can be roughly divided into three parts. First, the praise of the pure state of the soul, represented by "Lamb", "Song of Laughter" and "Spring"; second, the gentle criticism of the real world, such as " "Black Child", "The Pain of Others", etc.; 3. The yearning for God who embodies "mercy", represented by "The Divine Image" and "The Discovery of the Little Boy".
"Song of Innocence" prominently expresses the theme of "joy". In the collection of poems, there are not only shepherd boys singing happy songs and children playing on the grass, but also lambs in clothes and birds singing cheerfully. As sung in "The Song of Laughter", everything in the world is laughing: Green The woods laughed with happy sounds, the sparkling water waves also flowed happily, we heard our laughter in the breeze, and the green mountains laughed and made their noisy sounds. This shows the poet's affirmation of life and his praise of the ideal world (that is, the "innocent" world). In addition to singing praises, the poet also expressed criticism of the real world. The "innocent" world deserves praise because the real world is very ugly. Blake did not forget the reality of society where people were in dire straits, women were prostitutes, and children were sold into child labor. Although the black child in "The Black Child" has beautiful fantasies and hopes to "learn to bear the light of love," the real world always disappoints him: "I am dark, as if I have lost my light." The poet sees " "Other People's Pain", "Weeping and heartbroken for the tears of a baby" ("Other People's Pain"). How to change this situation? The poet believes that "innocence is the robe of winter" and that Jesus or God, who embodies "innocence, love, mercy, and peace", can help people resist the cold in the world. He hopes that "all those who suffer will Pray to the divine human form, to love, kindness, mercy, and peace." Although Blake once advocated the use of violence to overthrow the feudal regime, after 1789, his thoughts returned to the level of ordinary humanitarians. In this poem, The fantasy of a humanized God is shown in "The Divine Image".
Blake's poetry has two outstanding features in form. First, he is very good at using simple words and sentences to convey thoughts and express feelings. Almost most of his poems are the simplest single-syllable characters and use the simplest sentence patterns, but they contain rich thoughts. Secondly, Blake's poems contain a lot of pictorial meaning, which is inseparable from his profound attainments in painting. The pictorial meaning in his poems makes his poems reach the artistic realm of "combination of poetry and painting". For example, a section in "Flowers":
/ Beautiful Zhi Geng, / Under the green leaves, / There is a flower / I hear you whimpering, / Beautiful Zhi Geng /Next to my breast. Critics believe that in the history of English literature, except for the painter and poet Rossetti, no one has rivaled Blake in terms of "painting in poetry".