William Blake was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. He was born in Soho, London in 1757 and this is where most of his life was spent. He died in 1827.
(http://kirjasto.sci.fi/wblake.htm Retrieved: March 7, 2011)
In the poem, Blake conveys the idea that inhabitants within a landscape can make it undesirable and ugly, although the physical landscape itself may be beautiful.
In the first stanza, Blake asks a series of rhetorical questions which immediately requires the reader to think about the statements he is making. The contrast of imagery created from the questions in this stanza helps to shape the message that Blake is trying to convey, which is, the injustice of the children within this rich and luscious landscape. An example of the contrasting imagery is ‘In a rich and fruitful land’ and ‘Babes reduced to misery’. The land is portrayed as rich meaning wealthy, and fruitful indicating the lush vegetation and agriculture that the land provides. The contrast of this imagery to the imagery of ‘Babes reduced to misery’, which refers to the young children who were forced to work in factories under horrible conditions, indicates the inequality evident in this landscape. The line ‘Fed with cold and usurous hand?’ gives connotations of a harsh, unloving environment and again adds to the inequality present in this landscape.
Stanza 2 is also a series of rhetorical questions. This stanza depicts the poet’s disbelief, conveying that he is overwhelmed and taken back by the poverty and conditions that these children live in (the children working in factories during 18th century England). The juxtaposition between the first two lines, ‘Is that trembling cry a song?’ and ‘Can it be a song of joy?’ refers to the expectations of these children- although their lives are miserable they are expected to sing a song of joy. The use of these rhetorical questions also displays the uncertainty of the persona and indicates that he finds this landscape hard to interpret in that the inhabitants (the children) are exposed to such harsh treatment in such a beautiful landscape. The use of the exclamation mark in the line, ‘It is a land of poverty!’, expresses the anger of the persona towards the mistreatment present within this landscape.
The persona goes on to describe the horrible conditions in which these inhabitants (the children) are expected to work in. He describes the conditions as dark and cold stating, ‘and their sun does never shine’ and ‘It is eternal winter there’. In addition the alliteration of ‘bleak and bare’ gives a frustrated and poignant tone.
The last stanza differs from the rest of the poem. It gives a sense of hope and talks about another world in which there is justice and equality. This explores the persona’s imaginative landscape, which is a much more positive landscape compared to the environment described throughout the poem.
This poem relates to the ‘Sydney and the Bush’ by Les Murray and ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost. All of these poems convey the same idea that the inhabitants can impact upon a landscape having the power to make it beautiful or ugly. In ‘Sydney and the Bush’ Murray portrays the idea that colonisation impacted on the natural landscape and its inhabitants, in that it changed and altered the physical landscape and changed the traditional way of life for the original inhabitants (Indigenous Australians). The Indigenous Australians experienced injustice, just as the children described in ‘Holy Thursday’ have. Similarly, in ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’, Frost indicates that the environment is beautiful and tranquil although suddenly daunting as it has been isolated and there are no inhabitants within the landscape. This is similar to ‘Holy Thursday’ in that the landscapes described in both poems are beautiful; however, due to the interaction between the inhabitant and the landscape it has caused the environment to appear ugly.
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