The School Boy

overview

• embodies the tension of innocence vs experience

• childhood is presented as an Edenic state that is eventually destroyed by oppressive social structures particularly formal education

• critic about societal control

“I love to rise in a summer morn/ When the birds sing on every tree” “An the Sky-lark sings with me”

• pastoral imagery

• child’s joy is evident in this

• repetition of natural sounds creates an immersive sensory experience

• lightness in his language - through repetition of “sing” - capturing the pure joy of childhood

“But to go to School in a summer morn, O! it drives all joy away”

• abrupt shift shattering bliss - transition from freedom to dismay

• exclamation mark marks the child’s loss of agency

“learning’s bower”

• phrase suggesting education should be a place of comfort and shelter yet instead its depicted as lifeless and oppressive

“How can the bird that is born for joy/ Sit in a cage and sing?”

• power central metaphor

• comparison between child and caged bord = crucial

• cage bird is physically trapped and emotionally stifled

• child caged by school

“if buds are nip’d/ And blossoms blown away,”

• Equating childhood to the budding of a flower

• if children’s joy, curiosity and innocence are controlled early how can they ever be expected to flourish

• botanical imagery transforms the poem into a warning — a society the stifles the natural development of it’s youth will ultimately face decay

“How shall the summer arise in joy, / Or the summer fruits appear?”

• Rhetorical question that challenges the reader

• Blake suggests that education as it stands is not simply flawed but actively harmful destroying the potential for future growth

• about society as a whole

Blake’s beliefs about education and its links to the imagination

• Radical thinker

• believed true education should be aligned with the imagination and personal freedom

• not discipline and repression

• are our systems of education fostering growth? or restricting it?

Diction

• contrasts between childhood joy and the schooling system

Who were local schools run by in the 18th century

• churches or local dames

• curiosity was not encouraged

“under a cruel eye outworn”

• suggests harsh discipline and the exhaustion of an oppressive education system

Hannah More’s beliefs on childhood

• children were sinful and needed strict discipline

• believed it was “ a fundamental error to consider children as innocent beings”

John Locke on Childhood

• child’s mind was a blank canvas - Tabla rasa - open to any suggestions

• therefore child development should be carefully managed to create worthy and useful citizens

Rousseau beliefs on childhood

• disagreed with More and Locke

• claimed children should be seen as distinct entities - innately moral and only degraded by exposure to adult’s behaviour

Structure

• 6 stanzas - 5 lines - orderly, restrictive nature of school

• rhyme scheme - ABABB

• End rhymes - links concepts together or provide contrast - “sit … delight” - half- rhyme - suggesting school and fun don’t fit together