Batter my heart, three-person’d God;As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mind
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me know.
—Holy Sonnet XIV
The poet is the voice in the wilderness, using the written words as weapons against an unsuspecting world. In her latest book, Break, Blow, Burn, Camille Paglia reviews what she considers the World’s 43 greatest poems.
Poet John Donne's declares that only strong action is required to rescue him from sin and true freedom comes through strict obedience to God. Paglia uses sexual tone to underscore Donne's theme as she writes, "We will never be pure until we are abducted and raped by God." "Take me to you, imprison me," declares Donne as he begs for God to take control of his life.
It is God who breaks, blows, and burns, and it is God who is the true originator of that is good. The Poet, using sexual imagery, tells of a grace undeserved being given by a forgiving God. Poet implores, "Yet early I love you and would be loved," and understands that God loves him no matter what.
If Donne pursues hope in God, other Poets march away from God and see no hope. William Blake, in "The Chimney Sweeper," tells the story of young boy who is a chimney-sweeper. Written in the first year of the French Revolution, Blake pursues his own attack upon the English monarch. As Rousseau declares, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains," and Blake captures this theme in his poems, "The Chimney Sweeper" and "London."
For a young chimney-sweep, life was brutish and short. These young boys developed chronic throat and lung problems, skin irritation and deformation of the skeleton structure, along with long-term exposure to coal dust. Their parents often apprenticed these chimney-sweeps, since many of these parents couldn’t afford to keep their own children. It represented slavery of youth, forced into labor to do the difficult work required at the beginning of the Industrial age.
The narrator plays the role of the old veteran or maybe father-figure as he offers hope in a world where all are damned. Blake writes, "And by came an Angel who had a bright key, and he open’d the coffins and set them all free," and implies that only death can free these children from their life.
Article comments
1 - Shark
*This is a wonderful book! (*Not such a wonderful book review. Nice try, tho.)
This book is recommended reading for anyone interested in learning how to PARSE a poem -- and a great example of how a brilliant, creative mind [paglia] approaches the writings of another brilliant, creative mind.
Another benefit: although some of paglia's analysis builds on previous examples, this book can pretty much be read in any order -- with only five or ten minutes required for each piece. Great bedtime stuff for those with heavy minds and heavy eyelids.
2 - DrPat
I prefer the closing remarks in Blake's "London":
For the London of Blake's time, the "youthful Harlot," like the "Chimney-sweepers" and the "Soldiers," were a perversion of our modern conception of youth. Blake may have meant all three images to convey a sense of blighted life, enslaved to prostitution, labor, and war - but the factual nature of the blight of venereal disease that could extend to the marriage bed (or the "Marriage hearse") gives the poem extra power.
3 - Shark
Blake packed plenty of implicit criticism of England's contemporary society into his short, effective poems --
note: compare with Dickensm -- who tried it with 100,000 word novels.
4 - sydney
"We will never be pure until we are abducted and raped by God."
Countless numbers of people will be relieved to hear this positive appraisal of their misfortunes. And to think they've wasted so much time in court...oh my.