William Blake: The Prophet Poet Quiz

Answer: Songs of Innocence

The prophetic books center around Blake's own invented mythology. "I must Create a System," he wrote, "or be enslaved by another Man's."

Answer: The Sick Rose

Blake's "The Sick Rose" is highly layered, and many competing interpretations have been put forth over the years, but one thing they all seem to have in common is sex. While some critics have argued that the poem represents sexually transmitted disease ("the invisible worm" which "does thy life destroy"), others suggest it is a critique of religious prohibitions placed on sexual experience.

Other interpretations include love sickness, regret following the loss of virginity, the corrupting influence of sexual desire, and rape.

Answer: Art

He went to a drawing school at the age of ten, and his education was continued at the Royal Academy of the Arts. He was an engraver's apprentice from the age of 14 to 21.

Answer: Songs of Innocence and Experience

The "Songs of Innocence" are told in a child-like voice. They often find their contraries in the "Songs of Experience." Thus, in "Innocence" we read of "The Lamb," in "Experience," of "The Tyger."

Answer: The Chimney Sweeper

A version of "The Chimney Sweeper" appears in both of the "Songs." In "Innocence," the child tells of his friend Tom who learns to submit contentedly to his fate and trust in God, but in "Experience," he speaks of his hypocritical parents, who have gone to church to pray while the chimney sweep labors in squalor.

Answer: Yes

Catherine was illiterate when Blake married her, and he taught her not only to read but to assist him with his work.

Answer: The Little Black Boy

This song is deceptively innocent in its voice, all the while revealing the injustice of race-based prejudice.

Answer: Sedition

John Schofield, a private in the Royal Dragoons, brought charges against Blake, accusing him of uttering seditious statements. Blake, however, was acquitted.

Answer: Lamb

The same God made both the gentle lamb and the fierce tiger, and this contrast is cause for reflection in the "Songs".

Answer: False

Blake's one-man show was an utter disaster, and after it, he withdrew from the public eye. He did, however, continue to paint and illustrate his own poetry as well as the works of other writers.

Answer: The Book of Thel

The onlooker is probably Thel, the young shepherdess who matures throughout the work. "The Book of Thel" first appeared in 1789.

Answer: Dante

Blake was working on Dante's "Divine Comedy." Earlier in his life, he also did an illustration for Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales."

Answer: The Hapless Soldier's

This powerful image of an indifferent government using the lives of its subjects for its own gain is found in "London."

Answer: The Bible

He called the Old and New Testaments the "Great Code of Art."

Answer: Priests

"And priests in black gowns, were making their rounds, / And binding with briars my joys and desires." (From "Songs")

Answer: Englishwomen

"Albion is a traditional name for England, in honor of an ancestral giant who conquered the British Isles." (According to Mary Lynn Johnson and John E Grant, editors of the Norton Critical Edition of "Blake's Poetry and Designs.")

Answer: Proverbs of Hell

There is a question as to what Blake is endorsing in this work, and what he is criticizing. Could this devilish proverb really be just another version of Christ's teachings? For Christ said, "Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God . . . No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:60-62).

Answer: Grape

This is one of Blake's more traditional poems, form his "Poetical Sketches," published in 1783. The collection also includes poems to Spring, Summer, and Winter.

Answer: Voltaire

The poem, which begins "Mock on, Mock on Voltaire, Rousseau", challenges the atheistic and rationalistic tendicies of his enlightened time. "You throw the sand against the wind," he tells these figures, "And the wind blows it back again."

Answer: Thomas Merton

This comment is quoted from Merton's autobiography, entitled "The Seven Storey Moiuntain." In it, Merton tells of his slow journey toward Catholicism and, ultimately, the monastery. William Blake was one of the literary influences that early began to awaken his soul: "As Blake worked himself into my system, I became more and more conscious of the necessity of a vital faith, and the total unreality and insubstantiality of the dead, selfish rationalism which had been freezing my mind and will for the last seven years."