20th Century Poets- Wendy Cope

Flowers

(By Wendy Cope) 

Some men never think of it.

You did. You’s come along

And say you’d nearly brought me flowers

But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts–

The sort that minds like ours

Dream up incessantly. You thought

I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.

Now I can only smile.

But, look, the flowers you nearly brought

Have lasted all this while.

Love- exclusive ‘you did’

Love  not immortal ‘now I can only smile’ – can no longer hug? Dead?

Didn’t want to give flowers, flower die? Symbol of their love having a time stamp as death will part them. ‘the flowers you nearly brought have lasted all this while’ optimism, it is more than physical. The sentiment of such acts is what lasts, as if she prefers him not bringing her flowers.

Use of hyphen, shows a stopping of a trail of thought, disjointed. Reflective of ‘doubts’.

Syntactic Parallelism ‘The shop was closed, The sort that minds…’

Oxymornic. She can only smile not hug, has lost him to death. However, she is speaking to him as if he is still there, so perhaps the sentiment takes their love beyond death: ‘look’, ‘you did’

Wider Reading Quotes on LOVE and GENDER

Wide Sargasso Sea:

The distorted point of view of the novel that can be seen from the constant switching of narrator can be reflective of the loss of self and identity alongside personal voice as Bertha begins to go mad.

Symbolism when considering the land and what it represents, it's lure. And the animals. What they may be reflecting or representing. Fireflies, moths- come out at night. Attracted to light/make points of light. Like Bertha with the candle? Dramatic irony? Foreboding. Symbolism of RED DRESS and FIRE. Danger, seduction?

• "She's mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself. If she smiles or weeps or both. For me."
• "I hate [the place] now like I hate you and before I die I will show you how much I hate you."
• "I hated [the island's] beauty and its magic and the cruelty that was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. for she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it."
• Coco the parrot reflects Antoinette's own conflicted identity when he calls out, "Qui est la?"
• "white cockroach" acts as a derogatory epithet.
• 'I did not love her. I was thirsty for her, but that is not love'
• 'Her mind was already made up. Some romantic novel, a stray remark never forgotten, a sketch, a picture, a song, a waltz, some note of music, and her ideas were fixed.'
• 'Reality might disconcert her, bewilder her, hurt her, but it would not be a reality. It would be only a mistake, a misfortune, a wrong path taken, her fixed ideas would never change.'
• 'Die then. Sleep. It is all I can give you...wonder if she ever guessed how near she came to dying. In her way, not in mine.'

Gender Politics – Streetcar and Antony and Cleopatra

Gender Politics – Streetcar and Antony and Cleopatra

ž  Judith Butler believed that gender is a product of society. Society has constructed the common forms and conventions of gender. Humans conform to this by performing the gender they are categorised into.

ž  Butler uses the concept of Queer Theory the further explain her point. Stating that identity should not be qualified by the sex of the person. By simply describing someone as male or female we are saying nothing about them as a person, therefore gender has nothing to do with individuality

ž  Blanche performs as a subgenre of stereotypical woman, indulging in glamour and beauty.

ž  Stella conforms to a different aspect of gender politics, still under a female stereotype of a submissive housewife who dotes on her husband

ž  Stanley conform to the stereotypes of the male gender as aspects such as strength shown in his physical violence and his description of being attracted to women reflect qualities of the stereotypical man.

ž  Cleopatra conforms to stereotypical seductive female. Uses her sexuality to grasp power over Antony and dominate him. In some ways this is her way of breaking a common powerless female stereotype as she later becomes violent and incredibly domineering, however her sexuality is the first stepping stone which allowed her to begin her journey and rise to power.

ž  Antony falls from his role of a stereotypical strong man. He is first described as incredibly strong and able to survive in the harshest conditions. His masculinity is spoken of in reference to war, nature and strength.

ž    We see Antony described ‘like a stag’, an animal which hold connotations of mythical power.  This brings us back to his God-like image as within Pagan beliefs the stag was the ‘king of the forest’ and the horns were the animal’s crown. The horns on a stag were also seen by the Pagans as both male and female aspects of the divine being. The horns being representative of the crescent moon which was linked to the female side, and the antlers themselves being the male side. This could also be reflective of how Antony is described as both a man and a woman in the play as later on he is spoken of as ‘not more woman like than Cleopatra’. This follows through to Egyptian faiths as we see many Egyptian Gods wear horns on their heads, a link which could show how Cleopatra sees Antony as a God also ‘one side’s a Gorgon, the other a Mars’.

ž       Epitome of manhood, able to survive in harshest conditions, raw strength. The description of Antony living rough in the harsh confines of nature also shows a disregard for the importance of bodily pleasures and the lower order pleasures of food. We see this disregard as Antony drinks the ‘stale of horses’ and eats ‘strange flesh’ and ‘the roughest berry’, we see no pleasure in this eating and all meaning is in the higher order pleasure of survival and reaching a high intellectual level of leadership. Survival and duty is more important. This is a contrast to his life in Egypt where he lived not for duty or survival but for Cleopatra and all the bodily pleasures such as food and sex that came with her. We see Antony changes as his life suddenly seems to be revolving around the lower order pleasures alone.

ž  ‘I drunk him to his bed, then put my tires and mantles on him whilst I wore his sword Philipipan’ – Sexual connotations, powerful in a sexual way. Uses this to manipulate and overpower, get what she wants. Lower order pleasures, food, sex.

ž  ‘most infectious pestilence upon thee!’ – explosive and angry, lets her emotions dictate her actions, rash, very emotionally driven. Makes a bad leader? Antony puts his emotions aside – marries Octavia for peace even though he loves Cleopatra.

ž  ‘Strikes him down, strikes him, hales him up and down, draws a knife’ – not many stage directions, showing her as violent, male trait. Animalistic level of dominance and power. Lower order pleasures. Less intellectual than Romans, fights to solve problems, doesn’t reason. Bodily.

Streetcar

A Streetcar Named Desire

1)    Elysian fields- Greek: limbo between life and death. Use of colour ‘white’ –foreboding Blanche (white), blank, loss, emptiness, madness. ‘Tender blue’, ‘warm breath’, ‘music’ – comforting homely even though rugged from the outside. Atmosphere ‘atmosphere of decay’. Conflict of desires and comforts, foreboding + fear of death.

2)    Impressions of Stanley from his description: ‘Animal joy’- animalistic, basic, not intellectual? ‘Gaudy seed-bearer’, ‘pleasure with women’, ‘richly feathered male bird among hens’ asserting his masculinity, male form of power is his sexuality.

3)    Blanche described as ‘a moth’, making her seem frail, delicate and ONLY OUT AT NIGHT.

4)    Desire- the desire of Stanley towards Stella, waning her to be everything, wanting to get all he wants. Blanche’s past, how desire can ruin and taint you- gets her reputation because of desire. Cemeteries- link to all the deaths at Belle Reve, death is in the past and future, unavoidable curse that follows you wherever you go. Elysian fields- heavenly image, sense of being trapped between life and death- like Stella trapped between Stanley and the men and Blanche/Eunice and the women. Belle Reve- ‘Sweet Dream’ in French, shows dreams as never lasting, crumbling.

5)    She is destitute, she has lost Belle Reve and has no money.

6)    Belle Reve has been lost, she has had many close encounters to death and this traumatises her and she has taken a leave of absence from her English teaching job.

7)    Blanche is received with tension. Stanley is blunt but not rude. Asking questions about her. Blanche offers nothing to him, on her guard- creates tension between them. Short, disinterested answers to him p.17

8)    To signify pain being drowned out by the outside world, signifying the lack of care and power the distressed women have? Could signify the hidden world of violence in the home. Music, comfort, smothering, shrieking as pain, suppression.

9)    The topic of death surfaced, she has a fear of death and decay and has experienced it close at hand, she is traumatised of the topic so bringing it up makes her ill. 

Sexing the Cherry

Sexing the Cherry

‘When Jordan was a baby he sat on top of me much as a fly rests on a hill of dung. And I nourished him as a hill of dung nourishes a fly, and when he had eaten his fill he left me’

Similar to Antony and Cleopatra yet different. Women both referred to as food of sorts, Cleopatra as ‘his Egyptian dish’. The woman’s role is to fulfil the man, let the man take what he wants from her even if it destroys her in the process, this is their job.

Jordan is like Antony? He leaves her when he has what he wants. However Dog-woman is powerless to Jordan’s leaving just as Cleopatra is powerless to Antony’s but is more controlled and tame with her sadness. Cleopatra still tries to assert herself; Dog-Woman has given up.

‘I’d cram his face so hard into my breasts that he’d wish he’d never been suckled by a woman, so truly I would smother him’ – similar to Cleopatra ‘I drunk him to his bed, then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst I wore his sword to Philippan’. Using her sexuality for power over men. Female dominance towards men.

‘He’ll make you love him and he’ll break your heart’ – just as Antony did to Cleopatra.

‘That night two lovers whispering under the lead canopy of the church were killed by their own passion’ – just as Antony and Cleopatra were. Whispering- secrets, affairs, abandoning the duties they needed to uphold for their country. Power of love, destructive.

‘How hideous am I?’ contrast to Cleopatra and how she is described as female ‘everything is becoming to her’, ‘age cannot wither her’ , ‘th’air, which, but for vacancy, had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, and made a gap in nature’

‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ – not like Cleopatra? Cleopatra, links to Isis ‘godess’ constant reference, but is she cleanly? Metaphorical? Not clean in a sexual sense.

‘I know that people are afraid of me, either for the yapping of dogs or because I stand taller than any of them’, links to being tall and power? Fear? Cleopatra asks about Octavia ‘how tall she is’ , threatened, knows if she’s taller she is more powerful and beautiful, so Octavia is no threat.

‘What you fear you find’ , like Charmian ‘In time we hate that which we often fear’

‘Women have a private language. A language not dependant on the constructions of men but structured by signs and expressions, and the uses ordinary words as code-words meaning some other.’ – like Cleopatra’s illogical emotional blackmail when Antony says he must leave, at first says he cannot, then tells him to ‘be deaf to my unpitied folly’ yet still bitter ‘go now, play one scene of excellent dissembling and let it look like perfect honour’ – how manipulative and powerful woman are with language.

‘I watched woman flirting with men, pleasing men, doing business with men, and then I watched them collapsing into laughter, sharing the joke, while the men, all unknowing, felt themselves master of the situations and went off to brag in bar-rooms and to preach from pulpits the folly of the weaker sex.’

‘I never guessed how much they [women] hated us or how deeply they pity us’

‘They think we are children with too much pocket money.’

‘The woman who owned the fish stall warned me never to try and cheat a woman but always to try and charge the men double or send them away with a bad catch’

‘She asked me to remember that a woman, if cheated, will never forget and will someday pay you back, even if it takes years, while a man will rave and roar and slap you perhaps and then be distracted by some other thing’ – shows men as lower order (Aristotle) bodily, not intellectual. Women are more intellectual and in control. They know what they are doing but let the men think they are the ones in control.

P.32-3 ‘Men are easy to please but are not pleased for long before some new novelty must delight them’

‘Men are easy to make passionate, but are unable to sustain it’

‘Men are always seeking soft women but find their lives in ruins without strong women’ – Antony with Octavia and Cleopatra.

‘Your greatest strength is that every man believes he knows the sum and possibility of every woman.’

      ‘only God can truly love us and the rest is lust and selfishness’

‘Their companions are serpents, the very beast that drove us all from Paradise and makes us still to sin’

‘if only he could reach my mouth he would kiss me thereand then. I swept him from his feet and said ‘kiss me now’…’ – Woman is taking on a male role in romance. Taking the lead,  acting as the man in the relationship- power? Like Cleopatra over Antony? Dictates how their love should be, overpowers him?

‘love is better ignored than explored’

‘Love, if it be allowed at all, must be kept tame by marriage vows and family ties so that its fiery heat warms the hearth but does not burn down the house.’

‘Only passion freed the soul from its mud-hut, and that only by loosing the heart like a coursing hare and following it until sundown could a man and woman sleep quietly at night’

‘Passion must spend its life in chains’

‘Sappho, who rather than lose her lover to a man flung herself from the windy cliffs and turned her body into a bird’ – unrequited love. Like Cleopatra committing suicide as she cannot live on with Antony.

‘lust without romantic matter must be wearisome after a time’

‘I came to a coral cave and saw a mermaid combing her hair. I fell in love with her at once, and after a few months of illicit meetings, my husband complaining all the time that I stank of fish, I ran away and began housekeeping with her in perfect salty bliss’ – Like Antony running between Octavia and Cleopatra in Egypt and Rome.

‘My husband married me so that his liaisons with other women, being forbidden, would be more exciting’ –This is what Antony did? Married Octavia despite still keeping up his affair with Cleopatra.

      ‘Danger was an aphrodisiac to him’ – like Antony. Cleopatra is dangerous and powerful- attractive.

‘stag jumped over…in that second of flight I remembered my past, when I had been free to fly long ago…’ Antony described as ‘stag’ (connotations of mythical power.  This brings us back to his God-like image as within Pagan beliefs the stag was the ‘king of the forest’ and the horns were the animal’s crown. The horns on a stag were also seen by the Pagans as both male and female aspects of the divine being. The horns being representative of the crescent moon which was linked to the female side, and the antlers themselves being the male side. This could also be reflective of how Antony is described as both a man and a woman in the play as later on he is spoken of as ‘not more woman like than Cleopatra’. This follows through to Egyptian faiths as we see many Egyptian Gods wear horns on their heads, a link which could show how Cleopatra sees Antony as a God also ‘one side’s a Gorgon, the other a Mars’.)

Cleopatra Notes

Cleopatra Notes

·      ‘tawny’, ‘gypsy’, ‘strumpet’ – indications of her being loose with her sexuality, foreign, lower human- almost like an animal.

·      ‘wrangling Queen, whom everything becomes’ – every emotion suits her, she is powerful, can manipulate herself into fitting any form.

·      ‘wonderful piece of work’ – not human, objectified, viewed in terms of her sexuality, not as a leader.

·      ‘If you find him sad, say I am dancing; if in mirth, report I am sudden sick’ –manipulative.

·      ‘never was there a queen so mightily betrayed’ –use of emotional blackmail.

·      ‘she pursed up his heart’ – more powerful than a man. Can control him.

·      ‘whistling to th’air, which, but for vacancy, had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, and made a gap in nature’ –beauty controls humanity and nature. Mark of how powerful she is, draws people to her. Shows how she completely overpowers Antony in comparison as all leave him to see her.

·      ‘Age cannot wither her’ – love personified, everlasting, overcomes death- she chooses death. Witch?

·      ‘I will betray tawny-finned fishes. My bended hook shall pierce their slimy jaws, and, as I draw them up, I’ll think them every one an Antony, And say ‘Ah, ha! You’re caught!’ – Love is a game to her, thinks nothing of the hurt she causes by her games. Demonstrates her power over Antony as she is tricking him and playing with him. Sexual connotations?

·      ‘I drunk him to his bed, then put my tires and mantles on him whilst I wore his sword Philipipan’ – Sexual connotations, powerful in a sexual way. Uses this to manipulate and overpower, get what she wants. Lower order pleasures, food, sex.

·      ‘most infectious pestilence upon thee!’ – explosive and angry, lets her emotions dictate her actions, rash, very emotionally driven. Makes a bad leader? Antony puts his emotions aside – marries Octavia for peace even though he loves Cleopatra.

·      ‘Strikes him down, strikes him, hales him up and down, draws a knife’ – not many stage directions, showing her as violent, male trait. Animalistic level of dominance and power. Lower order pleasures. Less intellectual than Romans, fights to solve problems, doesn’t reason. Bodily.

·      ‘Melt Egypt into Nile…Turn all to serpents’ – Doesn’t care of her kingdom, just Antony. Selfish.

·      ‘I will not bite him’ dramatic irony, snake bite kills her. Bite- animalistic, sexual?

·      ‘these hands do lack nobility that they strike a meaner than myself’ – not going to hurt him again not because she’s a good person or takes pity, but because he’s a commoner. Below her. Pride. Not a good leader. Not fair or good to her people. Or Antony.

·      ‘bring me word how tall she is…’ – jealous, threatened, not used to this emotion. Used to being in control, cannot function or remain stable when she is not.

·      ‘his Egyptian dish’ – referred to as something to eat. Bodily pleasures. Food- lower order pleasure. 

Dover Beach - Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach – Matthew Arnold

This vast expression of a lack of faith by Matthew Arnold creates an illusion of being caught up in the world, powerless to change our path or shape ourselves within it. There is some distant wish to be formed within the world, yet it still seems very much out of reach ‘he who finds himself, loses his misery.’ Written on one of the nights of his honeymoon in Dover we hear a man speaking who has failed to live up to expectations and lost who he is within the world as he has slipped out of touch from situations arising which he was unable to change- demonstrating how this boundless, powerful world is what dictates our lives. The death of his father who had held no real expectations of him left him at a loss, no longer even knowing himself, something which is reflected within his poetry.

     Matthew Arnold broke literary conventions; because of this many people regard his poetry as marking a turning point for literature. This point of change arises from his clear lack of faith alongside with the idea of there being nothing out there in the world for us. Despite the darkness of this idea his poetry is very much indulging in the beauty of the world, however cruel and fixed it might be behind the scenes.

     In his poem ‘Dover Beach’ we see that he seems to be talking to somebody, whom we are lead to assume as Arnold’s wife. There is no reply to his words to her however. This leads us to see the possibility that even though he may be with somebody at the time he still feels alone as words such as ‘misery’ and ‘sadness’ crop up further in the poem.

     Arnold goes on to describe the land as ‘moon-blanched’ as the sea comes to meet it. The idea of the land being ‘moon-blanched’ incorporates a vivid use of imagery building up the picture of a landscape that is in many respects pale and dead- the life having been drained from it. The sea meeting this landscape is a contrast, described as ‘glimmering’ and ‘vast’ capturing a potent and unattainable sense of freedom from the world, rules, and any expectations which life on land captures society within. The sea in contrast to the land is capturing the very essence of life. ‘Bright’ and showing life within its very incessant movement as the waves ‘Begin, and cease, and then again begin.’ However, the ocean is an unattainable freedom, which lurks just out of reach for Arnold, tantalisingly close but still too far away as he remains trapped on the lifeless earth only able to wistfully observe.

     There seems to be a distinct feeling of being lost within the world- too small to make a difference or to change the constant cycle. This sense of repetition and being trapped within a system is held within ‘Dover Beach’ as the feeling of ‘sadness’ is described as ‘eternal’, showing how Arnold truly sees no way out of where he is. The repetition of the waves as they ‘Begin, and cease, and then again begin’ is a reflection of how you could feel trapped in a system such as society and how life can sink into a monotonous, empty state over time.

     Arnold’s line ‘Ah, love, let us be true’ signifies to me how he is uniting with his wife as they are both small playing pieces in this world, imprisoned together. As they are both alone in the world they must come together to face the hardships ahead laid out for them by the world.

The fact that the world is described as having ‘neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain’ shows the earth as emotionless in many senses, almost as if these qualities are strictly human alone, both the beautiful and the difficult. We see ‘human misery’ commented on, distinctly showing how this is only a human trait. This could be Arnold’s use of language telling us that we as humans only have ourselves to blame for sadness as the emotions belong to us and are essentially our own.

Company of Wolves

Company of Wolves

Love-

-       Not love, infatuation. ‘rustic seduction’. ‘There’s beggary in love that can be reckoned’

-       Not love, just sexual attraction- similar in Ant and Cleo. ‘my pet’ – burning clothes in fire, symbolic of passion, lust, loss of innocence- journey to hell?

Gender-

-       Red assumes a very female submissive role asking instruction from wolf ‘what shall I do with my shawl, my blouse’ obeys him. Sexually and by throwing her clothes on the fire.

-       ‘Only immaculate flesh appeases him’ – didn’t eat Red as she lost her innocence by sleeping with him? Not clean. Idea of the fallen woman.

-       ‘The girl burst out laughing; she knew she was nobody’s meat’ – confidence, standing up to power, more like Cleopatra.

-        

Links to Antony and Cleopatra-

-       Links to animalistic bodily instincts, lower order pleasures ‘the wolves will eat you’, ‘eight wild boars roasted at breakfast and but twelve persons there’ –gluttony.

-       ‘a witch from up the valley once turned an entire wedding party into wolves because the groom had settled on another girl’ , similar to Cleopatra’s destructive wish to ‘Turn all to snakes’ and let ‘Egypt melt into Nile’ -Destructive anger.

-       ‘if you stray from the path the wolves will eat you’ – step into Egypt and you are consumed by Cleopatra.

-       ‘he half welcomes the knife that dispatches him’ – Antony when he wishes for death

-       Sexual connotations, strong links to sexual attractiveness etc ‘stark naked’ , ‘bellows and the fan to cool a gypsy’s lust’

-       ‘I wish I were a wolf again, to teach those whore a lesson!’ – similar to when Antony grows angry with Cleopatra and wishes her dead.

-       Wolf in some ways like Cleopatra. Eats grandmother, wants to sleep with Red Riding Hood, Egyptian bodily lower order pleasures.

-       Wolf in some ways like Antony, controlled by these bodily impulses- Antony will always return to Egypt ‘He will to his Egyptian dish return’ – wolves ‘famished’

-       Wolves eyes ‘shine like candle flames’ – Antony ‘shine like plated mars’ Wolf and Antony live like a beast have roughed survival ‘roughest Berry’

-       Wolf – uses sexual power to manipulate Red Riding Hood. Sexuality is power. Cleopatra is sexual predator. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning- Sonnet 43

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath
,Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose
,I shall but love thee better after death.

Reflection of the power and depth of love and how it can overcome nature and even the tragedy of death.

‘I shall but love thee better after death’ – perhaps mentioning the immense grief that would be felt and how this would show on another level the intensity of love as it can still be felt after death and throughout this unknown barrier. Even death cannot end her love. Love is all powerful and overcomes all obstacles. Love is everlasting. It cannot die.

Loving her partner is the way the writer can tell they even exist. Their whole world and existence is love.

Metaphorical language.

Repetition of ‘th’ sounds giving poem soft and tender tone.

The sun and candle-light could be metaphors of love, too. The sun could be representative of the good times in life where love is blossoming and flourishing and the world seems carefree. The candle-light could show how love is there as a pillar of support when the world around seems dark and unfamiliar, perhaps even threatening. This could be reflective of Browning’s life where she chose to elope with her lover to Italy, leaving her strict father, but also family stability behind for a new uncertain future in an alien place. At this time in her life all Elizabeth had was love to support her, something which may be represented within this poem. She is reliant on love not just for emotional reasons but for survival.

In what ways does William Blake's 'The Garden of Love' show the constraints of Religion upon society?

In what ways does William Blake's 'The Garden of Love' show the constraints of Religion upon society?

William Blake expressed many views on constraint within his poetry, whether this be through love, abuse, sickness or as we will look into now- religion. William Blake had firm ideas on how religion affected society, we see opinions of it being an oppressive negative thing, which is often abused for the high-ranking positions of power and knowledge in society.

     'The Garden of Love' can firstly be linked directly to the Bible as we could trace this back to the Garden of Eden. As the title 'The Garden of Love' is at the beginning of the poem, in fact, the very title itself, this also acts as a similarity between it and the Garden of Eden, which too is at the beginning of something- the Bible. The definition of the word 'Eden' is found in the words 'delight' or 'a state of innocence or bliss'. Both of these definitions, whether derived from the Biblical story or not are very much similar to feelings of love. This could be what William Blake is touching upon in his poem. He may in fact be referring to a modern form of Eden, but perhaps in defiance towards religion refuses to use the Biblically acclaimed word 'Eden' and instead replaces it with 'Love'. This both gives the poem a more modern feel and could show an act of both breaking free of and undermining the Bible.

     The capitalisation of words shows a vast importance and emphasis upon them, and when looking upon these words more closely it becomes clear that the capitalised words are all in some form or another Biblical. The capitalisation of 'Chapel', 'Garden of Love' and 'Priests' all link back to the Bible very clearly. The fact that these words alone are capitalised over all the others can be reflective of how the church and everything linked to it is more powerful than the ordinary everyday society. This capitalisation can also be reflective of the influence of the church, too. The only other word capitalised in the poem is 'And', which is used with syntactic parallelism throughout the final stanza. This could be referencing the repetition of 'And it was good' throughout each stage of creation in Genesis, showing how religion goes on to judge people, perhaps unfairly in Blake's eyes. Or it could be a mere statement of how religion creates a form of monotonous order and simplicity to life, something which to Blake's imaginative and creative mind would have most likely despised.

     As a brief overview we read how the writer has returned to a place he knows as 'The Garden of Love', only to find a Chapel with 'shut' gates. The connotations of pessimism radiating from the poem and directed towards religion are extremely condemning. We see how religion and what we see as representations of freedom and happiness are set up as dichotomies 'I turn'd to the Garden of Love that so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it filled with graves' Blake shows the graves by the Chapel as the antithesis of the flowers that had once been there. This image of graves replacing flowers shows an idea of death replacing life, an entrapment or  constraint of the past holding back new life and not allowing it to progress or enjoy what the world holds for it. The 'Garden of Love' is a concept that seems to show a life of simple pleasures, freedom and innocence, yet the replacement of this area of emotion with a cold locked up Chapel shows not only how the Bible may condemn such an existence, but show how love can be ruined perhaps through religious constraints and rules. Love itself is a free emotion, something which Blake may well have felt as a writer, to have the rules of religion attempt to dictate how he should feel a free emotion would have created some form of conflict which may have been expressed in his poetry as a form of protest.

     It is clear that William Blake is seeing something fundamentally wrong with Religion in the poem as he talks of 'tomb-stones where flowers should be'. This sense of what things 'should' be shows not just a vision but the illusion of another more joyful world which has been lost. The idea that things are not as they 'should' be shows a stubbornness to the statement, too, that religion does not belong here and that it is overpowering an area in which it has no place and knows nothing of. It shows a bleak act of suppression, showing that instead of accepting differences, the rules of the church are seen as firm and unyielding, crushing imagination and young love.

     The image of the Chapel being 'shut' also show a coldness to the building, as if it is not welcoming to all, and that it may be somewhat selective about who it chooses to give its blessing to. To contrast this with the idea of a 'Garden', something natural which cannot be contained or controlled to which all beings may enter and exit as they choose, we see a true restriction on freedom. The line of 'Thou shalt not. writ over the door' is again referencing to the Bible fairly directly as we see links to the Decalogue. The idea of being told not to 'writ over the door' shows not just a lack of trust, but a sense of vandalism in the youth. This reckless feeling of mistrust between the church and the outsiders and the feeling that it may pass order onto those within and outside its community as it holds a divine authority is what may have driven Blake to question this authority in his poetry.

    The images of Priests in 'black gowns' seen as 'walking their rounds' shows a firm picture of order and routine. Where everything may be plain and ordered, none of the chaotic life that love and freedom may contain, but order and restrictions alone. Everything seems to be at a slow pace. The fact that the Priests are walking in 'rounds' again brings us back to the idea of monotony and repetition.

     The last line of the poem 'binding with briars, my joys & desires' brings us back to the Biblical imagery. We can see connotations of not just pain, but reference to Jesus' crucifixion with the idea of the crown of thorns. These 'briars' binding Blake's 'joys and desires' could show how the church is not just condemning them, they are being suffocated and killed by the rules of an autonomous leader. 'Binding' and 'briars' are both plosive consonants, incorporating both a sense of anger and emphasis on the words as if the final line of the poem is not ending on a conclusive note at all, but that of frustration at the sheer influence and power of religion as it seeks to control how society should be.