When first reading it, this sing-songy poem seems like it could be a children’s song but upon looking deeper we see that William Blake’s poem “The Lamb” deals heavily with the theme of religion. Blake is asking a lamb in a field if it knows who its creator is. Then Blake reveals that he knows who made this lamb, it was the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Evidence of this is in the lines “making all the vales rejoice” (9) because we know that Jesus brought joy to the world and “became a little child” (17) which refers to when he was brought into the world by Mary. Blake makes a connection between the lamb, himself, and Jesus when he says “we are called by his name” (19) because they are all children of God. He then blesses the lamb in the last two lines for being connected with the Lamb of God.

As for the engraving, it has a flock of sheep and a young boy talking to one sheep in the foreground with a cottage in the back, and the text is framed by vines. Unlike “The Tyger,” the engravings don’t offer much room for interpretation given that the differences in coloration don’t change the way we see the subjects. An archive changes how we read because it allows us access to all the work by one author, or by multiple authors on one topic. This lets us make connections quicker and read faster as well because we can look at the archive wherever we are, and we don’t have to carry around a heavy anthology.

I uploaded Edward Carpenter’s “To A Stranger.” The themes in the poem I found to be most relevant are being queer, shame, and unrequited love. In the poem, Carpenter writes to a stranger telling them that the love that they feel ashamed of will eventually be recognized as true. The theme of unrequited love can be applied to the quotes: “…that which you have desired — in silence — shall come abundantly to you.” (11-12) and “I know the truth the tenderness the courage, I know the longings hidden quiet there.” (5-6) Carpenter is telling the stranger that the love that they have hidden will one day be openly returned. The theme of shame comes into play with these quotes as well because this stranger is hiding his love because he is ashamed of both his feelings and the consequences of making queer love public. As for the queer theme, at no point does Carpenter explicitly say that the stranger is queer. It can only be assumed for the time period that a love that needs to be hidden is a queer one. Also, Carpenter himself was gay and it’s probably that at some point he was in a similar position.

The poem and archive have opened my eyes to the variety and great amount of queer Victorian literature. It’s also made me respect these authors so much more after reading their work because it’s pretty ballsy to publish poems that were at times explicitly queer, knowing the repercussions. I always knew that it was difficult to be queer in the 19th century because of the persecution and hatred but I didn’t know just how much poetry there is from the time period. I can’t remember ever encountering any in my literature classes or even in my reading outside of class. But now I know that I’ll for sure keep my eye out for any anthologies of Victorian queer literature.

When first reading the poem, I read it in a slow voice, emphasizing the o’s and the a’s. It’s hard not to, given that the majority of adjectives in the first three lines are melancholy words with long and stressed vowels. When listening to it, I think the way Hughes stresses certain vowels in words like “droning” (1), “drowsy” (1), “melancholy” (17), and “moan” (10) helps the audience further understand the gloomy cloud that looms over the poem by making the words sound like actual groaning. The cloud mentioned is how an old singer’s songs are about the “weary blues.” Hughes uses imagery to illustrate an old man tapping his feet and moving his body and fingers upon the piano to the rhythm of the music. In line 23 when he repeats “thump” and pauses after each time, he is creating the illusion of the old man keeping time with his feet which help the audience create an image of the scene. His usage of rhyme also makes the poem seem like a part of the song he’s talking about. His volume and speed stay semi-consistent, changing only towards the end. Whenever he quotes from the old man, he changing his voice to let the audience know that they are not his words. At the end of the poem, lines 31-35,  Hughes slows his pace. This could be either to signify the ending of his poem or the change of topic. Death is mentioned more in these lines than throughout the poem so the latter seems like the better explanation.

Trying to analyze a Beyoncé performance is a hard task to accomplish. And more recently, Beyoncé performances have become harder to watch. The raw emotion behind her film “Lemonade” is tangible and leaves the audience breathless while at the same time bringing the lyrics to life. But I won’t be using her film as my subject for this post. I decided to focus on “Pretty Hurts” from her 2014 album Beyoncé. The song itself is powerful but I think that the performances in the music video add a deeper meaning to the song. The song deals with the impossible beauty standards placed upon both men and women, and how the unrealistic ideals of perfection can not be met because they are abstract.

Beyoncé and the director decided to portray this struggle through beauty pageants, the perfect example in my opinion. The music video doesn’t alter the meaning behind the lyrics, but emphasizes them in a creative light. The lines “pageant the pain away” seem to have been the inspiration for the video. The lyrics “this time I’m gonna take the crown without falling down, down, down” are brought to life when she tells the host “my aspiration in life would be… to be happy.” Here she means that she’s going to overcome the impractical standards and focus on herself without letting the pressure bring her down. The song ends with the question “are you happy with yourself?” and Beyoncé’s gentle, honest smile towards the camera seem to answer that question (see below gif). Yes, even though she didn’t win the pageant, she realizes that all she needs is to be happy with herself rather than focusing on what others think. When just listening to the song, you don’t get the same resolve at the end.

Pretty Hurts  (TW: This music video has scenes dealing with body image issues in explicit ways)                                                                                                     Lyrics