The Garden of Love

This metrical composition uses the deterioration of an Edenic garden to represent the degrading effect of organised religion upon our internal state of being. Blakes The Garden of Love functions as a criticism upon organised religion, touchingly reflecting on its capacity to deputise mankinds innocent joys with rules and empty routines. Stanza 1 The name Garden of Love almost appears hackneyed through its traditional, Edenic con nonations. It is a representation of innocence, with green, open spaces often being associated with childhood in Blakes poetry.The speaker comments that they saw what they never had seen, which seems to imply that something material has changed outdoor(a) to themselves, namely the altered landscape that is subsequently detailed however, this poem, in the mise en scene of the Songs of Innocence and Experience, symbolises an internal fall from innocence, and it is therefore only the speakers perspective that has changed. The church service is then intro duced as the object of the poets condemnation, represented through the synecdoche of the Chapel.It is create in the midst, implying that organised religion is central to the corruption that septic the zeitgeist of the late 18th century. Furthermore, the aural suggestion of mist subtly evokes a sanely disquieting image of the Chapel being shrouded in vapour, which is often a symbol of materialism in Blake and could therefore imply a engrossment with wealth in Christianity. This contrasts with the green, a representation of childhood, where the speaker utilise to play, a verb with similar connotations.Stanza 2 The gates of the chapel ar said to be shut, suggesting that the religiosity of the Church is an exclusive privilege. Indeed, Blake was genuinely critical of an institution which effectively heralds its clergy as closer to God than mediocre worshippers in his eyes, every human is equal before the natural order. He extends his condemnation to the Old Testament in the subseq uent line, commenting that Thou shalt not was writ over the door.This is an allusion to the Ten Commandments, which Blake deemed to be overly restrictive he instead put his faith into the New Testament, which conversely advises humanity as to how it should conduct itself, therefore placing a greater emphasis on free will. The speaker then turns to the Garden of Love, unveiling a poignant tableau in which they realise that the green innocence of their youth, which so many sweet flowers bore, has become devastated beyond hope.The final stanza is extremely bleak, alluding to cobblers last through its evocation of graves and tombstones, which have now replaced the flowers of the speakers youth. The poem ends with a rhyming couplet, whose swaying rhythm represents an endless cycle of innocence into experience, an idea fortify by the use of language such as rounds and briars. The reference to priests confirms that this poem is an attack on organised religion, which has repressed our jo ys and desires. It therefore serves to mentally confine us, acting, along with the government, monarchy and other formal institutions, as a fortification of experience.