The Divine Image ~ William Blake - 1757-1827
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our Father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, His child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.
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A Divine Image ~ William Blake - 1757-1827
Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face,
Terror, the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy, the Human Dress.
The Human Dress is forgéd Iron,
The Human Form, a fiery Forge,
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.
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The first poem, "The Divine Image", found in Songs of Innocence, a collection of poems by William Blake that is published in 1789, speaks of the virtues closely (but not exclusively) related to the Christian worldview.
The second poem, "A Divine Image", is published slightly later (around 1794), in a combined collection of poems entitled, Songs of Innocence and Experience.
The contrast between the two poems is stark. A comparison of the linguistic choices made in both of them may throw some light onto the possible meanings intended by the author. At the same time, we bring our own sensibilities to the interpretation of the poems (reader response theory) and perhaps from our own reading, we are able to better understand ourselves.
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One prominent feature in the comparison of the two poems is the inherent similarity in their titles, marked only by a slight difference in the use of the determiner/ article, The versus A.
This small but deliberate juxtaposition in the titles amplifies the notion that the subject matter being expounded upon in each poem are in fact related by virtue of their diametrical opposition to each other - Mercy, Pity, Love and Peace versus Cruelty, Jealousy, Terror and Secrecy. These direct antitheses make the contrast between God and Human even more striking, as the parallels between the associations (virtues of God versus vices of Human) are depicted plainly. It appears that what is Godly and Holy are in direct opposite to what is Human and Mortal.
It is explicit from the poems that God is the The Divine Image while a Human being (Dress, Form, Face and Heart) is (merely) A Divine Image. While the former is absolute and specific, given the title of The Divine, where the definite article "the" indicates that there is without an element of doubt but one supernatural and holy status being accorded; the latter is interpellated as only 'a divine image', one that holds less authority as the indefinite article "a" posits that it could possibly be only 'one of' the many 'divine images' that exist amongst many. In fact, the saintly nature of the subject matter in "A Divine Image" are seen to be desecrated by the abstraction and images created in the poem itself, driving home the idea that Humans (supposedly created in the image of God in a Christian worldview) are far from divine perfection. This dialectical polarity creates a tension that can only be realised in the reading of the two poems side by side.
Hence, the intentional similarity in the titles is made poignant with the (modest) difference captured in the use of the determiners / articles (the and a), as the seemingly unremarkable grammatical switch can give rise to a more incisive reading of the two texts.
*This post is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis of the two poems.
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