Songs of Experience by William Blake - Essay Example

Forbidden Love “Songs of Experience” by William Blake are a set of short poems which have short lines and short verses, with the themes of tyranny, deceit, brutality, lack of freedom and openness in love, enslavement and forbidden love dominating. The structure of the poems is four line stanzas with a regular rhyme scheme dominating also. The tone of the poems is that of indignation and moral outrage, a show that the author is castigating the vices being outlined by the thematic concerns. One of the most important themes in the readings is that of forbidden love.

This theme resonates through and through throughout the poems. From this theme, it is clear that the author of the poems is lambasting the illicit relationships that exist between the characters mentioned. The term forbidden denotes an issue that is morally unacceptable and a taboo to many cultures, therefore, forbidden love illustrates a situation whereby the characters are breaking some cultural taboos. This essay discusses the theme of forbidden love in detail by referring to the poems of William Blake’s “Songs of Experience”.

The Songs of Experience are works that lament the manner in which adult experiences destroy the good that exists in innocence. It discusses the negative forces that exist in the world, and what happens when innocence fails to surmount these forces. According to the author, sexual immorality corrupts innocent love. The sexual immorality results due to the effects of jealousy, secrecy and shame. One poem, The Sick rose is an eight stanza poem whereby the persona is addressing a rose. The persona informs the rose that it is sick.

The speaker mentions that an “invisible worm’ has found a way into its bed in the cover of the night. Due to this, the life of this rose is being destroyed. Of all the poems, this poem has noteworthy symbolism outlined. The rose is regarded as being a beautiful object that people associate with love, but the speaker mentions that a worm has infected the rose. The rose is the symbol of love conventionally, and by being infected, it implies that love has gone sour. Worms symbolize death and decay, while the bed that the worm crawls into to reach the rose symbolizes lovers’ beds.

Therefore, by implying that the rose is sick, the persona is emphasizing the fact that love has gone sick. Amazingly, the rose is unaware of the sickness. The point here is that love never recognizes about its situation or condition. The persona mentions that …”has found out thy bed..Of crimson joy”. The crimson joy being mentioned here is a connotation of illicit sexual pleasures and shameful sexual liaisons. In a nutshell, the love being outlined is unhealthy and perverted. This perfectly explains the theme of forbidden love in the sense that, even if two people are happy to share love, as long as it is a forbidden union, it will be deemed unhealthy and rotten.

The worm that finds its way at night to the rose’s bed connotes a union that is unacceptable by society, hence the lovers go to the limit to ensure that they consummate the union. Despite doing this, the union will still remain unhealthy and forbidden. Forbidden love is morally unacceptable and is a sickening event according to Blake. The poem The Sick Rose mirrors the work of Kitty Tsui, A Chinese Banquet. Tsui also discusses forbidden love, albeit by dealing with issues in a direct manner without the use of symbolism like in The Sick Rose.

Tsui’s poem analyzes the issue of acceptance with people with homophobia in Chinese households. The poem also analyzes the boundaries and challenges that gays and lesbians face in these Chinese societies. The author accepts the fact that lesbians and gays are becoming more popular in China, but the challenge is that these group of people are being discriminated by society because their actions are deemed as taboos by traditional Chinese families. The attitude of most households to gays and lesbians is that of shame and dissent.

Even parents of children who belong to these groups dissociate themselves from their children. Homosexuals in Asian contexts are considered dirty beings. An excerpt from the poem reads.“In China being a girl is bad enough. But being a gay girl is worse. Mother my love is different then yours, I love my own sex (Tsui 38+). This simply shows the manner in which the gays and lesbians are treated in China. Approval is a very important aspect of anyone’s development, and if others do not approve of our behavior, then we will have it difficult to lead a normal lifestyle.

This is the challenge that gays and lesbians face in china according to the poems: lack of approval by society. Children want to feel loved and appreciated, and this spreads into adulthood. Even in adulthood, we continue seeking the approval of others in order to attain happiness and satisfaction. Without the support of loved one, one feels secluded, invalidates and disconnected. Gay and lesbian unions in China are considered dirt, hence are forbidden associations. This leads to the feelings of disconnection and seclusion.

In her poem, Kitty is the persona. She mentions of the desperation to again connect with her mother. “ One day, wanting desperately to/bridge the boundaries that separate us/wanting to desperately touch her/tell her; mother I’m gay and so happy with her” (27-31). Kitty yearns for the approval of the mother. What she is demonstrating here is that, as much as gays and lesbians are regarded dirty and their unions regarded forbidden, the understanding of parents and their support is important.

The Sick Rose by William Blake and Kitty Tsui’s, A Chinese Banquet are poems that discuss the theme of forbidden love, albeit in different settings and degrees. Blake is lambasting llicit relationships through the use of a rose, a symbol of love and how this has been infected by a worm that crawls to its bed at night. The narrator is against such unions since they are sick and unhealthy, and unacceptable by society. While Blake is against such unions, Kitty also addresses forbidden sexual orientations and relationships in Chinese societies, the issue of gays and lesbians.

Kitty is begging parents and family members, and the society in general to be supportive of children who have a sexual orientation that the society considers dirty. Works Cited Retrieved from http://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/lgarber/courses/eng67F10texts/TsuiChineseBanquet.pdf Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172938