“O Rose thou art sick”. Unravelling social implications of body and mind’s sickness in William Blake’s poems of experience.

Abstract

William Blake lived through an intense period of historical, economic and social changes that was evolving under the machines and factories of the Industrial Revolution. By living in London all of his existence, he experienced how people’s lives and work were transforming. Literally, Blake witnessed the consequences of the lack of social plans or social reforms leading to unemployment, poverty, child mortality, exploitation, wild urbanisation, precarious health conditions and the spread of diseases, STDs included. Moreover, being a fine observer of life, Blake used his works of art to critically judge and condemn the institutions of power, which mostly acted according to personal interests and forgot human needs. By looking closely at the poem The Sick Rose, which will be compared with the last stanza of the poem London, this paper aims at investigating the symbolical meaning of the works with reference to the spreading of venereal diseases in 1790s London. By proceeding with a close textual analysis, my study will show that Blake’s extended metaphors, symbols and images can be read and interpreted on two different levels. The first one aiming at a condemnation of STDs seen as a social plague and as a consequence to the irresponsible and disastrous direction of governmental institutions. The second level unravelling the implications of bodily contagious infections within humankind’s capacity to interpret and live the world.