A Poison Tree - William Blake

A Poison Tree - William Blake

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I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

MEANING OF DIFFICULT WORDS
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1.      Wrath - strong, stern, or fierce anger; deeply resentful indignation; ire.
2.      Deceit – distortion of the truth for the purpose of misleading; duplicity; fraud; cheating
3.      Wiles – Trick, trap
4.      Veiled – conceal, lacking clarity or distinctness

POETIC/LITERARY DEVICES
1.      Personification
-       Waters the wrath with fear
-        I told my wrath, my wrath did end

2.      Metaphor
-The tree is considered as a wrath/anger
-"Till it bore an apple bright", the apple is a metaphor for the "fruit" of his grudge.

3.      Alliteration
-sunned and smiles
-friend and foe
-bore and bright

4.      Imagery
- Throughout the poem

5.      Irony
-the foe beneath the tree of hatred

6.      Repitition
-“I was angry with my friend… I was angry with my foe”

7.      Allusion
-"Garden.. apple...tree" alludes to Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden.

STANZA BY STANZA ANALYSIS
Stanza 1: William Blake speaks of someone, his friend and his foe, whom has he is angry with. When he says ‘I told my wrath, my wrath did end’ after he said he was angry with his friend, he is saying he was able to get over being angry with his friend and forgot about it. Although, it is quite the opposite when he mentions’ I told it not, and my wrath did grow’. Blake is saying that with his enemy, he allowed himself to get angry, and therefore, his wrath did grow.

Stanza 2: In this stanza, Blake begins to make his anger grow and he takes pleasure in it, comparing his anger with something, in this case, a tree or plant. The speaker says he ‘sunned it with smiles’ and ‘and with soft, deceitful wiles’. This means he is creating an illusion with his enemy saying he is pretending to be friendly to seduce and bring him closer.

Stanza 3: ‘And it grew both day and night’ and ‘til it bore an apple bright’ are meaning that his illusion with his enemy is growing and growing until it became a strong and tempting thing. His illusion has a metaphor and it is an apple. After, his foe believes it shines, which means he thinks it’s true and means something, and takes Blake illusion seriously. ‘And he knew it was mine’ suggests that he really thinks Blake is his friend.

Stanza 4: Being the last stanza, Blake needed to come up with a conclusion. He has used the two lines ‘in the morning glad I see’ and ‘my foe outstretched beneath the tree’ to say that his foe finally fell to his tempting illusion and metaphorically, consumed his poison apple and died. So, obviously, his malicious intentions were hidden behind illusion and he prevailed over his enemy.

CRITICAL APPRECIATION
In the first stanza, the consequence of allowing anger to continue instead of stopping it as it begins is shown. This consequence is simply that it will continue to grow. However, as the poem progresses, it is seen that this continued growth of anger can yield harmful results as the enemy, or foe, is lured toward the tree and eats of its fruit, the poison apple. This kills his foe, as he is seen outstretched beneath the tree, a sight the speaker is glad to see the next morning. These final two lines explain one of the main themes of the poem, which is that anger leads to self-destruction. The speaker’s anger grows and eventually becomes so powerful that it has changes from simple anger with another person, to desire to see them dead. One of the subjects of Blake’s work was the underworld, or Hell, and knowing this, it can be seen that the destruction which results from anger is not physical, but spiritual. In addition, the death of the foe, which the speaker is glad to see, does not spiritually affect the foe as the speaker is affected, but only physically harms the foe.

READING MATERIAL
Interpretation and Symbolism
After reading such an amoral poem, the search for hope or alternate meaning begins. A metaphor lives inside the poem, but instead of making the poem less wicked, the analogy confuses and questions faith.
Symbolically, the speaker represents God, the foe and garden represent Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the tree represents the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis. If this analogy is true, it shows God rejoicing in killing his enemies, which most people think the God they know would never do.
Blake’s poem is peculiar even for today’s standards, and his analogy may be ruthless and insensitive, but he does get the reader thinking. By looking further into the poem, we find that the speaker nourishes and feeds his wrath, which symbolically is the tree from the Garden of Eden. Is Blake suggesting that God fed his wrath and anger into the tree and intended for man to eat from it? If so, He is creating a world doomed to His wrath and anger, an idea just about anybody would shutter at.

Note:
William Blake was an English Dissenter and Dissenter members broke away from the Anglican Church. Dissenters believed that the policies of the Anglican Church were wrong and so opposed it. Blake began writing a collection of poems called Songs of Experience to protest the Anglican Church's policy of stifling "sinful" emotions in people, such as anger. A Poison Tree is a good example of this because it shows how Blake believed that stifling anger would only cause the anger to grow. In fact, Blake even decided to call the original draft of a Poison Tree, "Christian Forebearance." However, the English government did not tolerate the radical actions of the English Dissenters and they persecuted them.