... in a single design, The Songs of Innocence represent an imaginative vision of the state of innocence: the second shows how life challenges and corrupts and destroys it. There were several features of Romanticism to which Blake remained true: Nature was a subject of great interest partly for ... poems was religion. Blake was fascinated with the creation of Man. He believed that: "Imagination is the Divine Body in Every Man" God and the imagination are one; God is the creative and spiritual power in man, and apart from Man the idea of God has no meaning. This can be ... The "rose" is a sy...

• Word Count: 1294
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... of the "rose" in the poem. Blake uses the rose as a metaphor for a young, pure and likely a virgin woman. In the poem, the rose becomes sick due to the appearance of the "invisible worm" and the storm that follows his appearance. The worm is supposed to symbolize a man and his pursuit of the young virgin. Blake reveals that this pursuit is not a welcome one by ... saying, "And his dark secret love/Does thy life destroy". Blake is showing that the act that ... the man or "invisible worm" has committed has ruined the woman in some way. The line "Has found out ... ...

• Word Count: 398
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... Blake uses the rose, which has historically signified femininity, to provide the reader with a sense of the homosexual's frail, feminine nature. The "invisible worm that flies by night", is a bold reference to the turbulent penis of the sick rose, whose debauched behaviors are performed as surreptitiously as ... Nazareth. The use of symbolism in this poem seems less metaphoric than it does discernible. Blake uses the words invisible, night, and secret, evenly throughout the poem so as not to leave the reader with any question as to the private nature of homosexual behavior ... written f...

• Word Count: 556
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the poem "The sick Rose" by William Blake, can be interpreted in many different ways. It is about someone, telling a rose, that it is sick. And "invisible" worm has stolen into its bed in a "howling storm" and under the cover pf night. The "dark secret love" of this worm is destroying the rose's life. I think there are two major themes; one is love ... and how it can be destroyed and being ashamed of love. The first theme is love and how it can be destroyed. The rose symbolizes the beauty of a virgin and the worm a man. The worm fooled the rose into believing that there was true love ev...

• Word Count: 347
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... for all worldly things. The "Rose" in a similar manner, has thorns on its stalk, which spoil the beauty and innocence that it portrays to all. The "invisible worm" illustrates adulthood and all that accompanies it. This is so because like a worm that weaves its way, almost to our oblivion, into anything, adulthood, experience, society as an institution weaves its way into ... should refrain from entering the realm of adulthood and should remain a child forever. The chaotic world that prevailed in Blake's time is illustrated by the words the " howling storm ", because like a storm it sw...

• Word Count: 303
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School