In the poem “The Garden of Love” by William Blake, the speaker talks of this garden that was once beautiful and full of flowers but is now full of tombstones and graves. As readers we feel this joy and happiness in the beginning but also sorrow at the same time. We read the speaker reminisce about the green grass he used to play in with all these flowers. We see this beautiful image which soon turns dark as the speaker returns to the garden and sees that it’s not the same as it once was. A chapel is there with locked doors and the flowers have turned into tombstones. Darkness and death have taken over this beautiful land and its not longer a garden of love but a garden of death. After reading this poem I looked back to the title and thought how is this garden a garden of love? I see from this poem more sorrow than love.
The images however make it seem more beautiful than I thought it was. We see a priest and two children kneeling in front of what I assume to be a tombstone in this garden. It wasn’t until copy Y that I could actually tell that it was a garden. This is the image I like the best because the garden in the background is very beautiful and we get a better image of the people in it. Many of the images are very dark which suits the poem better but identifying and getting a good image of the people is very difficult. I think that the different images has a big impact on the interpretation of the poem. The dark images make the poem seem dark while the brighter ones represent the love.
Archives allow people to compare and contrast many poems that were written either about the same theme or written around the same period. They allow easy access to not just the poem but other writing and illustrations related to the original work that is being studied. For this assignment we are able to not only able to read the poems but see images related to it and other works of his. Archives are also constantly being updated which allows us to access new information. Anthologies and textbooks have a lot of information but sometimes it’s too much or not exactly what we are looking for. Archives have everything we want and need in one place.
Copy Y is a good example of the beauty found in the Garden of Love, and I agree that it’s one of the more discernible engravings, especially with the lush green background. Can I just say that Copy E and A give me the creeps? the looks on the priest’s faces and the dark backgrounds add to the “sorrow” and “death” you describe seeing in the poem. I wonder about the religious references in the poem, like how the chapel’s gates are closed and how “Thou shalt not” (line six) is written on the door. The priests are also “binding with briars” the speaker’s “joys & desires” (line twelve). It seems like the church is against the speaker’s idea of love. Blake was into the idea of “free love”, so maybe he’s criticizing the church’s restrictions on love in this poem.
It was very disturbing how quickly this poem became dark. I wish you had maybe examined what exactly contribute to this abrupt change. Perhaps this was a consequence of being shut out of the chapel at the beginning. Maybe because the speaker ignored the miracle chapel in favour of the garden he was subsequently punished. It’s an interesting question.