영 어 과목에 필수로 들어가는 literature study는 가장 까다로운 과목 중 하나 입니다. Literature study는 일반적으로 prose genre (일반 수필 또는 에세이), Novel study (소설 - 극중 케릭터 분석, 배경, 테마 분석 등등), Poetry(시), 그리고 마지막으로 Shakespear(일반적으로 Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Rear, One midsummer's night,...)으로 이루어 집니다. 이번에는 샘플로서 시에 관해서 다루어 보도록 하겠습니다.

William Blake의 A Poison Tree라는 시인데, 짧지만 상당히 많은 metaphor와 Allusion이 들어가 있는 시이며 이 시에 관한 분석및 작가에 관해 프레젠테이션을 하는 것입니다.

우선 William Blake에 관한 Background Information입니다. 시인의 정보를 이야기 할때는 기본적인 정보도 필요하지만 그 시에 연관이 있는 정보로서 프레젠트를 하는 것이 좋습니다.

William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757. His parents, James and Catherine were political radicals and religious Dissenters.

From childhood, he read works of philosophy and literature, especially the Bible. Blake's father encouraged him to write and to draw and bought him prints of classic drawings, paintings, and sculptures. When he was ten, Blake was enrolled in a drawing school. At fifteen, he became an apprentice to an engraver. On August 18, 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher, who was a lifelong admiring and loving companion to him and assisted him in his workshop.

Blake's poetry is marked by a private mythology. Blake personified forces of nature, the psyche, and the spirit and gave them names such as Orc, Urizen, and Rintra. He showed these forces in dramatic and mortal conflict with one another.

"A Poison Tree" is one of the lesser-known of the twenty-six poems William Blake published in 1793 as Songs of Experience.

In the poems of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, Blake contrasts how the human spirit blossoms when allowed its own free movement, which he calls a state of "innocence," and how it turns in on itself after it has been suppressed and forced to conform to rules, systems, and doctrines, which he calls a state of "experience." The two states recall one of the principal events in the Judeo-Christian story, the fall from innocence caused by Adam and Eve when they eat fruit from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. The poison tree of Blake's poem suggests that biblical tree.In Blake's Notebook, the original title of "A Poison Tree" is "Christian Forbearance," which the poem criticizes as the cause of hypocrisy.

Blake lived all his life in poverty, indebted to several benefactors who provided him with commissions. Blake died in London on August 12, 1827, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Bunhill Fields, a Dissenters' cemetery.


이제 실제 시의 분석 파트 입니다.

6가지 주제를 가지고서 시를 분석한 것인데 대부분 poetry analysis에서 사용하는 포맷 입니다.


1. Subject Matter or content:

Poison Tree is about the truth of human nature, in particular, anger, which can be made go away by goodwill or leave it to develop to become a lethal poison.

2. Theme
The main idea of Poison Tree is about the deliberate development of anger. Suppressing anger rather than expressing it and trying to resolve it eventually makes it so poisoneous that it will grow to be very destructive.

3. A special form in which they belong
"A Poison Tree" is a narrative poem. Even though it sounds all about "my" feelings, it actually tells the story of how anger grows to become poisonous.

4.A special time period to which they belong
In addition to personal feelings and stories, the poem borrows a few ideas and metaphors from the Bible - an apple tree that represents the fruit of all troubles. However, since it does not really tell us about any specific time period, and I think anger is a universal human feeling that exist regardeless of any specific time period, I would classify this poem as modern.

5. A special style in which they have been writing
William Blake's "A Poison Tree" is in iambic tetrameter.

Also the metaphor of the tree, the apple, and the gardens represent the speaker's anger, its tangible result, and the boundaries accordingly.

Allusion is used as well. By mentioning an apple tree, we all know that this tree also means the biblical tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The apple is of course the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.


6. The Power to evoke a Mood
After reading this poem, I started thinking about anger and its consequences. Expressing anger also does not seem appropriate in our society. We learn to control our hard emotions to be more sociable; however, Blake argues that suppressing this feeling until the anger consumes themselves is far more dangerous and deceitful, just like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.