Vice and Virtue in Barnard Mandeville and William Blake: Reconciliation and Opposition (original) (raw)
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" The Divine Image " and " A Divine Image "
Blake's " The Divine Image " , in fact, celebrates the traditional Christian virtues of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love. Man, by nature, also possesses these virtues, but fails to realize it. A man can rise up to the level of God if only he realizes the inherent qualities in him. In this regard the poem adopts a didactic tone. It is nothing but a sermon in verse. It is extremely simple but this deceptive simplicity deepens once the reader deflects his thought towards the philosophical suggestions of the poem. For Blake man is not merely created in the image of God, but Man is God and God is Man. God and Man are the same, in so far as these attributes of God viz., Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love are shared by God and Man. The poem " A Divine Image " on the other hand, tries to show that cruelty, jealousy, terror and secrecy are abstract ideas but they have no reality apart from human beings. It is from the heart of human beings that cruelty comes. It is human beings who are jealous, who cause terror, who create secrecy. Human heart is strong like iron. It is as powerful and as full of potentially destructive, as well as constructive, energy as a forge or a furnace. The human heart is not soft and tender but a consuming mouth, like that of a beast. The experience, for Blake means the sophisticated, post-lapsarian plight of the human beings. Blake might have wished to include this poem as the counterpart to " The Divine Image " , just as he did with regard to " The Lamb " and " The Tyger " and formulated the lines in a way resembling that of " The Tyger " , but never included this in the Songs of Experience during his life time. These two poems of William Blake, " The Divine Image " and " A Divine Image " , are approached in a threefold way concentrating on the design, text and biblical context of these poems, and a critical analysis of these poems as in the case of all Songs of Innocence and of Experience comes under the purview of this study.
A Posteriori Fall - Representations of the Fall in Blake's Songs
overSEAS, 2013
In this BA thesis, it is argued that Songs of Innocence and of Experience display certain features that lead the reader towards the supposition that the Fall is an underlying principle in the poems. Even though the songs do not emphasize the notion of the Fall per se, the various characteristics and ideas appearing in them imply that it is, in fact, a central notion to them. By supposing the centrality of the Fall, one can arrive at a view on the Songs somewhat different from the traditional one.
SONGSOF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE ANALYSIS
Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience are a much studied part of the English canon, and for good reason. Blake's work depicts a quandary that continues to haunt humanity today: the struggle of high-order humanity against the 'real' rationality and morals of institutionalised society. This essay seeks to explore both Blake's literary reaction to the Enlightenment and the response of early readers to his work.
Politics & Policy, 2009
While most specialists have come to recognize that Bernard Mandeville wrote satirically, most nonspecialists have not. Moreover, even among those specialists who do recognize him as a satirist, their conclusions have not been made relevant to a political science audience nor have they successfully argued why some of his statements should be taken literally and others not. This essay tries to rectify both these deficiencies. Mandeville argues that in commercial societies, one cannot be a good person and a good citizen, since commercial societies require citizens to be motivated by greed and ambition, whereas being a good citizen requires the opposite: self-denial and moderation. We must, as Mandeville does, consider the implications for a society that prefers vice to virtue and institutionalizes that preference.
Bees on paper: the British press reads the Fable
The British press played a significant role by influencing public debates following the publication of Mandeville's The fable of the bees. Between 1714 and 1732, British newspapers published over three hundred reports on the Fable that circulated in the form of editorials and advertising announcements. These publications not only offered general information on the Fable, they also fueled controversy surrounding Mandeville's text. In this article I will analyse how the British press introduced the Fable to its readers and influenced its reception. Specifically, my aim is to show how the Fable's reception was shaped by the political and economic orientation of the newspapers in question. In doing so, I will analyze appearances of the Fable and its critics in the British press. I will then examine the language and topics used by two popular essay-papers, the Mist weekly journal and the Craftsman, who presented Mandeville's book.