Blake [England]
I'm angry with my friend,
I told Pan that my anger was gone;
I am angry with my enemy,
I remained silent and my anger grew.
I get up early and get greedy for the dark,
Watering it with my tears;
I have a sly smile on my face,
Shine it with false sunlight.
So it grows day and night,
Apples will glow red,
My enemies saw it so red,
Recognize that this apple is planted by me.
So he covered the sky by night,
Sneak into my garden.
At dawn, I saw the joy in my heart;
My enemy fell under the tree.
(translated by Bai Fei)
Make an appreciative comment
Both the poison tree and the sick rose come from the Song of Experience in Blake's Song of Innocence and Experience. These two poems are often compared, both of which take concrete natural plants as images and depict abstract human evil. "Sick Rose" depicts jealousy, while "Poison Tree" tells the destruction caused by "repressed anger". In contrast, Poison Tree has a profound western religious background, without which we can't really understand the theme of the poem.
The poem "Poison Tree" adopts four-step iambic pentameter and two lines of rhyme, which is often used in nursery rhymes or Christian hymns. & ampLdquo, verse; The name "poison tree" does not mean "poison tree", but, like "latex tree", means "tree planted for extracting venom". The poem depicts "I"? Anger turns into a tree, so-called self-control and forbearance are hypocrisy. "False sunshine" and "my tears" shone and watered the trees, but the result was the poisonous apple, which poisoned my enemies. The theme of this poem is not anger itself, but the suppression of anger, which indirectly targets the Christianity forbearance theory. Blake believes that this forbearance suppresses human nature, but it will actually bring more disasters. In fact, the original name of the poem was "Self-control of Christians", and later it was changed to "Poison Tree".
One of the most important images in this poem is the apple on the poisonous tree. What is the special symbolic significance of this apple? Many westerners will first think of the "apple of discord" in Homer's epic that stirs up the dispute among the gods. Furthermore, it will be associated with the forbidden fruit legend in the Garden of Eden in the Bible. Forbidden fruit is an apple, which is a symbol of human original sin in Christianity. The root of this original sin in poetry is the free will of human beings in the Bible, but it is the suppression of negative emotions by human beings in poetry. William blake's use of religious images can be described as rebellious banter.
Poison tree, with strange metaphors such as angry "tree" and "apple", is inextricably linked with religious allusions, causing deep association and forming multiple thoughts: on the one hand, it expresses the pain and disaster suppressed by human nature with extremely rational brushstrokes and illogical plots; On the other hand, Christian exhortation is used to remind readers to reflect on their position. This kind of multiple thinking forms a barrier between emotional analysis and moral analysis, which endows poetry with great shock and criticism. (Liu Yunyan)