Literary Criticism

Literary Criticism                                                                             

What is literary criticism? How do I find it?
                    Literary criticism is the evaluation, analysis, description, or interpretation of literary works. It is usually in the form of a critical essay, but in-depth book reviews can sometimes be considered literary criticism. Criticism may examine a particular literary work, or may look at an author's writings as a whole. Finding literary criticism can be challenging. This pathfinder is designed to help students in researching and writing a paper that requires sources of literary criticism. Read the following literary criticism and study the tendency of the writing method and try to produce the best critics for the given anthology of "The English Vision Programme "

The Garden Of Love
                       William Blake (1757-1827)

I went to the garden of love,
And saw what I never had seen,
A chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this chapel were shut,
And “thou shalt not” writ over the door,
So I turned to the garden of love,
That so many sweet flowers bore. 

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be,
And priests black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

       William Blake  could be classified as a romantic poet. Blake had no particular tendency to follow any specified direction. Swinbarn called him “the only Poet of supreme and poetic genius”
      Blake’s poetry usually dealt with rather psychological problems. His rhythm patterns simple brining out meaning. And he generally varied the rhythm pattern giving weight to the word, and the repetition of words giving emphasis to the meaning. In this poem “The Garden OF Love” Blake recalls to the day, he went to the garden of love and his extreme surprise seeing a chapel built in the midst of the garden where he used to play. The gates to the garden were shut with the words “Thou shalt not writ over the door”.
   The poet had but one choice that is to turn to the Garden of love that so many sweet flowers bear”.
  The poet seems to be emotionally disturbed when he saw “the graves” and “tombstones where flowers should be” To the poet “Where where flowers should be” and Tombs taking the place of the flowers is a surprising situation “Tomb flowers”.
The Poet’s consciousnesses of the Nature’s gift the flowers, tender, beautiful and fascinating and the contrasting situation Tombs where flowers should be.
“That so many sweet flowers bore And I saw it was filled with graves.”
The image of priests in “Black Gowns were walking their rounds. And binding with briars my joys and desirs.”
  The image of the flowers suggesting serene beautiful, tender silky setting and the contrasting image of priests in “Black Gowns” walking their rounds. The colour Black suggesting the sad situation existing.
“And  binding with briars my joys and desires.” Blake’s diction style is simple and unique, with exquisite wording. Blake maintains the rhythm and rhyme keeping the them alive; Blake’s poetry is rather related to “moral problems” he uses symbolism to highlight his intense feelings making his readers share with him. His view and ideas.
“And I saw it was filled with graves,
                  And tombstones where flowers should be,”
“Blake’s quality as a powerful poet is best seen in his shorter poems”(Angela Hussein)
“Sensitive and perceptive analysis of the ideas” in this poem. The structure, the simple rhythm pattern varying in logical manner to bring out the meaning.
“And I saw It was filled with graves,
        And tombstones where flowers should be,
 And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
        And binding with briars my joys and desires”..