The Garden of Love (e)

Title

• allusion to garden of eden

• potential symbol of innocence, imagination, freedom, desire

I went to the Garden of Love

• anapestic trimeter

• 1st person speaker

A Chapel was built in the midst

• symbol of industrialisation

• religious imagery

• replaced the tree from the ecchoing green

And the gates of this Chapel were shut

• abrasive in contrast to the free garden

• stone - natural resources/unyielding/hard/cold

• final word - end/emphasis

• longer lines and change in meter

‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door

• hostile message to worshippers

• quote - direct address to speaker, oppressive religion

And (x4)

• anaphora/polysyndeton emphasises the change to the garden

it was filled with graves and tomb-stones where flowers should be

• semantic field of death

• melancholic tone

• contrasted with flowers as symbol of life and freedom

Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds

• colour imagery suggests threat/evil of experience

• connotations of prison guards

• gowns and rounds - consuming nature of the church

• imagery personifies death

binding with briars my joys and desires

• connotations of the crown of thorns - state authority destroys joy - plosive alliteration emphasises the aggressive oppression by the state

• internal rhyme, juxtaposition between briars and desires alludes to the repression of sexuality

AO3: Industrial revolution

• 18th and 19th centuries

A05: Sam Parker

• Blake believed that love and sexuality was natural and shouldn't be dictated or limited by a ruling authority - a radical attitude for the time.