William_Blake

William Blake “The human abstract” written by William Blake depicts actual human nature while, satirically, its title suggests the human ideal. With the help of a group of critical materials, the theme and symbolism of the poem, through my point of view, will be divulged, verse-by-verse and stanza-by-stanza, through the images conveyed by the poet. One must keep in mind that Blake placed this poem among his “Songs of Experience” for it is a realization through the experience of man that, much like the saying “a doctor can not exist without disease”*, evil must be present in our world for there to be good as the first stanza illustrates. “Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody Poor: And Mercy no more could be, If all were as happy as we;”* It begins with a quite severe criticism of innocence through its’ divine attributes such as “pity” and “mercy”. Out of this context, these can be considered quite noble feelings, but here, they stem from the “poor” and the unhappy created by human society that is precisely addressed by “we” at the beginning of the second verse. The first and tree, human, man, stanza, cruelty, through, nature, life, fruit, world, while, verse, over, one, mystery, blake, attributes, third, states, spreads, shade, secret, second, really, raven, quite, priest, poor, poem, peace, now, must