Essay questions

1. Choose three Songs of Innocence and show how they exemplify Blake's understanding of innocence.
2. Compare and contrast The Lamb and The Tyger.
3. Comment on Blake's portrayal of children and childhood in the Songs of Innocence and Experience
4. Explore the figure of the nurse and the teacher as she is found in both versions of The Nurse's Song and The Little Vagabond.
5. Compare and contrast the attitudes to charity found in the two versions of Holy Thursday.
6. Explore Blake's use of the image of a) the lamb b) the tree.
7. Explore Blake's attitudes to parents and parental figures.
8. Starting with London, discuss Blake's approach to contemporary social conditions in the Songs of Innocence and Experience.
9. The Songs of Innocence and Experience deal with different types of love. Explore two sorts of relationship either by comparing a pair of poems or by ranging across the whole collection.
10. Compare and contrast The Divine Image and The Human Abstract.
11. How is Blake's attitude to the use of wealth and power in eighteenth century Britain illustrated in the Songs of Innocence and Experience? Either examine two poems in detail or review the whole collection.
12. From a study of at least three poems, show how Blake uses imagery and language to convey both the viewpoint and the limitations of his speaker.
13. Starting with The Little Girl Lost, explore Blake's attitude to sexuality and to the way in which it is approached in his society.
14. From a study of at least three poems, consider whether it is possible to understand Blake's full purpose in the poems without a knowledge of his personal beliefs.
15. Explore the ways in which language and structure are related to the nature of the speaker and the content of the poems, using at least three poems.
16. Blake aimed to show ‘Two contrary states of the human soul' through his Songs of Innocence and Experience. Explore how successfully he does this either by comparing a pair of poems or by ranging across the whole collection.
17. Comment in detail on the way in which organised religion is portrayed in the Songs of Innocence and Experience.
18. What should be understood from Blake's depictions of the rural and urban environments in the Songs of Innocence and Experience?
19. To what extent do you agree with the view that, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience,
    Blake warns of the dangers of repressing natural instincts?

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