You are not currently logged in. Please create an account or log in to view the full course.
William Blake, A Poison Tree (1794)
- About
- Transcript
- Cite
Conflict (Edexcel Poetry Anthology)
In this course, Professor John McRae (University of Nottingham) explores the fifteen poems that make up the ‘Conflict’ cluster for GCSE English Literature (Edexcel). Each poem is read in full, with a short commentary highlighting aspects of language, style, themes, motif, and so on. In the case of Blake’s ‘A Poison Tree’, for example, we think about the concepts of innocence and experience and the symbolism of the apple. When we come to Byron’s ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’, we focus on the figure of Sennacherib and the rhythm of the poem. And so on for the rest of the collection.
The poems discussed in this course are:
1. William Blake, A Poison Tree (1794)
2. Lord Byron, The Destruction of Sennacherib (1815)
3. William Wordsworth, The Prelude: Stealing the Boat (1798-1850)
4. Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed (1902)
5. Christina Rossetti, Cousin Kate (1862)
6. John Agard, Half-Caste (2005)
7. Wilfred Owen, Exposure (1917)
8. Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)
9. Gillian Clarke, Catrin (1978)
10. Carole Satyamurti, War Photographer (1987)
11. Ciaran Carson, Belfast Confetti (1989)
12. Mary Casey, The Class Game (1979)
13. Jane Weir, Poppies (2009)
14. Benjamin Zephaniah, No Problem (1996)
15. Denise Levertov, What Were They Like? (1967)
William Blake, A Poison Tree (1794)
In this module, we read through William Blake’s ‘A Poison Tree’, focusing in particular on the concepts of innocence and experience, the symbolism of the apple, and the lesson we should derive from the poem. Should we, like the speaker of the poem, be “glad” when we see our foes “outstretched beneath the tree”?
Hello, I'm John McCrae,
00:00:02and we're going to be looking at a bunch of poems on the general theme of conflict.
00:00:04Now, of course, it's one of the most universal themes you can get and poetry,
00:00:10right back to ancient Greek talks about conflict and wars.
00:00:15These poems look more at the individual person and their role in conflict.
00:00:20Can it ever be a positive role? Is it possible that conflict can be seen positively?
00:00:28We're going to see lots of
00:00:35individual reactions to conflict situations.
00:00:38We're not going to see an awful lot of solutions to conflict,
00:00:42which is interesting
00:00:47because almost all of the poems do beg the question of How do you solve this situation
00:00:48and what is it in us that
00:00:55makes us react in the way these poems illustrate?
00:00:58We could start anywhere we could start with Shakespeare.
00:01:02We could start with Milton, the conflict between the Good Angels and the Bad Angels.
00:01:05But we're actually starting in the middle of the French Revolution
00:01:12in the 17 nineties
00:01:16with the wonderful poet William Blake.
00:01:18Now Blake had written
00:01:23songs of innocence
00:01:26and published them in about 17 89.
00:01:28This poem called a Poison Tree pretty negative title from The Songs of Experience,
00:01:31published about 17 94.
00:01:38And one of the essential binaries of all poetry at
00:01:41this time is that difference between innocence and experience.
00:01:49Because in 17 89 when the French Revolution happened
00:01:56the most significant historical event of the moment,
00:02:00lots and lots of libertarians and jack it means,
00:02:06as they were called in Britain were happy
00:02:09to see Liberty,
00:02:12equality, fraternity
00:02:14being celebrated,
00:02:16Wordsworth, the romantic poet, said
00:02:19and wrote Bliss. Was it in that dawn to be alive?
00:02:22But that new dawn,
00:02:27as unfortunately with many conflicts and revolutions turned nasty
00:02:28went into the reign of terror,
00:02:35and Blake's innocence
00:02:37turns within four or five years
00:02:40to
00:02:43resignation
00:02:44experience.
00:02:46And a poison tree
00:02:48is one of the few really great poems that exist that I know of anyway,
00:02:50on the theme of what it's like to be angry, to repress your anger, to keep it in,
00:02:56to let it out, to deceive yourself and the other person,
00:03:04these kind of conflicting emotions that anger represents a poison tree.
00:03:08Let's read it.
00:03:17I was angry with my friend.
00:03:19I told my wrath
00:03:20my wrath did end.
00:03:22I was angry with my foe.
00:03:24I told it not.
00:03:27My wrath did grow
00:03:29and I watered it in fears night and morning with my tears
00:03:31And I
00:03:35summed it with smiles and with soft, deceitful wiles.
00:03:37And it grew both day and night till it bore an apple. Bright
00:03:42and my foe beheld it shine and he knew that it was mine
00:03:47and into my garden stole when the night had veiled the pole
00:03:52in the morning. Glad I see
00:03:57my full outstretched beneath the tree.
00:04:01Wow,
00:04:06You didn't expect that first time you looked at it.
00:04:09Because
00:04:13when you tell your anger to your friend and you get it out and your old friends again,
00:04:16it's all over.
00:04:20But no, his enemy, his full.
00:04:23He doesn't time. He lets it fester. He lets it grow. He waters it over the years.
00:04:25There's a lovely expression in a poem by Robert Burns
00:04:33nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
00:04:36Yeah, we've all done that.
00:04:39You build up the angle, you build up the resentment or whatever it is,
00:04:41Then he suddenly
00:04:46plants it and lets it grow. Line nine. It grew both day and night
00:04:48til it bore an apple
00:04:54bright.
00:04:57Now that apple
00:04:59everywhere in literature, the apple represents the Garden of Eden,
00:05:01the apple of knowledge, the forbidden fruit.
00:05:05If you like
00:05:09that, Ive is tempted
00:05:11to eat by the devil.
00:05:13So there's a devilish association.
00:05:16Don't put through that too far.
00:05:19Just take it on board.
00:05:21Garden of Eden. Devil.
00:05:23Negative Consequences.
00:05:26Now he's told us in the title is a poison tree. He never tells us that in the actual text
00:05:28we have to discover it just the way his full discovers it.
00:05:34His full whom we No idea who he she or it is. It's obviously some symbolic enemy.
00:05:38The night had veiled the pole and into the garden, stole this enemy
00:05:49and still the apple off the tree because the apple looked beautiful. Hm.
00:05:54But it was a poisoned
00:06:02apple.
00:06:04And so
00:06:06the fall
00:06:07was destroyed,
00:06:08and I the eye of the text.
00:06:11I was glad to see it.
00:06:15No,
00:06:18this poses one or two pretty existential problems.
00:06:19What you're supposed to do.
00:06:25Is he saying keep the anger, go and nourish it, nourish it, nourish it,
00:06:26make it something attractive, big and beautiful.
00:06:29And your phone will come and try and steal it.
00:06:32Duh!
00:06:36That doesn't really make a lot of sense, although it's there in the poem,
00:06:38Um, does it mean that keeping the anger going was a good thing
00:06:43because eventually keeping the anger going
00:06:50killed off the enemy?
00:06:53Question mark. Question mark question Mark,
00:06:57What's he getting at here?
00:07:00Well, I feel that the whole thing is about the idea of poison.
00:07:03The anger is a poison
00:07:11and that, in effect, the first two lines are crucial here
00:07:16before he starts nourishing
00:07:22this negative anger. I was angry with my friend. I told my wrath my wrath did end.
00:07:25Now here's a binary
00:07:32ending
00:07:34and growing.
00:07:35And obviously
00:07:37the better thing
00:07:39is that the anger
00:07:40end
00:07:42once we get off on this huge, big metaphor of growing the anger and it being Sund
00:07:43as if positive,
00:07:50as if bearing fruit, literally.
00:07:53The anger bears fruit in
00:07:57death,
00:08:01and I don't think
00:08:04Blake is making that out to be a good thing.
00:08:06I think he's making it out as
00:08:10tell your anger,
00:08:13get it out
00:08:15and your anger might end
00:08:17in which gets the world would be a better place,
00:08:20very much a bitter song
00:08:23of experience.
00:08:26But I like to see the first two lines
00:08:28as the positive thrust
00:08:30of this conflict
00:08:33
Cite this Lecture
APA style
McRae, J. (2019, March 06). Conflict (Edexcel Poetry Anthology) - William Blake, A Poison Tree (1794) [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/conflict-edexcel-poetry-anthology/thomas-hardy-the-man-he-killed-1902
MLA style
McRae, J. "Conflict (Edexcel Poetry Anthology) – William Blake, A Poison Tree (1794)." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 06 Mar 2019, https://massolit.io/courses/conflict-edexcel-poetry-anthology/thomas-hardy-the-man-he-killed-1902