Reading Response.

The article “Blake and the Bilble: Biblical Exegisis in the work of William Blake,” written by Christopher Rowland is a factual paper based upon how William Blake wrote his poetry. Throughout the article, there are many valid points made to determine that Blake often uses biblical references to write his poetry. In this article, Rowland speaks many times about how visual. “His method is never systematic and is governed by spontaneity, insight and intuition, not to mention vision,” (Rowland 145).  This quote is reaching out and telling people that Blake writes his poems with nothing shy than a great visual picture. Blake’s references in his poetic writing are often described well enough that the reader has a clear picture of what he is trying to portray. After extended research and spending time on my William Blake blog, I now believe that William Blake successfully wrote symbolic poetry about religion. One of the main reasons Blake was good at writing poetry because he would use personification so that the reader could understand the deeper meanings through a visual picture. Most of my blog posts talk about how Blake was a poet that we look back on today. Comparing my posts to Rowland’s, I thought very similar to him. I also thought that after reading Blake’s poems that the reason he was an amazing poet was because he could use symbolism, but through a more visual picture. Most all Blake’s work had a way to tie into religion. He would often write about Christ himself, or short stories from the bible. Further in Rowland’s article it mentions many paragraphs about prophecies. The romantic era was all about shaping the future and not having it run off of science. Blake, having been a part of the romantic era made prophecies a huge part in his poetry. Rowland say’s it best when he stated this comment upon describing Blake, “The prophecies lay bare the inner dynamic of the history and revolution, the potential for positive change that exists and the corruption of those impulses” (144). I believe that Rowland’s main idea in this article is not only to describe Blake’s visual tactics, but also to see how Blake related to the romantic era as a whole. This article focused mainly on my blog topic, I learned many new features on how Blake wrote poetry and related his stories to previous ones in the bible. After reading this article, my interpretation is very close to the same as Rowland’s, “Blake gives and extended description of the vision of God” (146).

Prior to reading many of William Blake’s poetry, I have came to the conclusion that Rowland was truly right in the sense that Blake brings readers a great vision of God. I strongly agree with the purpose Rowland was getting at, I think that Blake used religious mythology as a visual picture in many of his poetry. The overall reading was challenging to understand, but after further annotation I could see how Rowland’s opinion was leaning on showing many examples of Blake’s visual techniques in his poetry. There were many key factors throughout the text that make my opinion similar to what Rowland was saying. I think that the article had two main focus’s, I believe that what Rowland was trying to say is that Blake relates his poetry to religions of all kinds. Also, Rowland mentioned many times about how Blake was a visual writer. Under my opinion, the poems I have read written by Blake all have great visual usage of religious scenes. For example, stanzas from the poem “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” are fulfilling Rowland’s statements in the article. Due to Rowland’s factual statements and having Blake’s poetry to back prove his acknowledgement I am able to agree with his ideas. Parts of the article talked about how Blake could connect his poetry so well to the Bible. After having this unit on romanticism and reading all about William Blake, I realized that many poems have true religious meaning, but mainly I realized that most all of William Blake’s poetry portrays religion. I believe that Rowland has found a true attribute in Blake’s writing. This article has many parts to it that one can agree with, overall, I could not find one part that I didn’t agree with. Another section in the article Rowland mentioned was how Blake viewed God as the Jesus Christ when interpreted under christianity. Rowland’s article had many intriguing explanations, I felt that his work was clearly thought through and was based on true events. I discovered that religious references are all around Blake’s poetry. I have learned after reading this article you can study religion while reading his poetry.