BIOGRPY OF WILLIAM BLAKE

William Blake was a famous poet, painter and engraver of the late 18th century and
early 19th century. Blake was a radical, anti authority figure.
William Blake was born at 28 Broad Street in Soho, London on 28 November 1757. His
father James Blake was a hosier. He and his wife Catherine had 6 children. Apart from
William they had 4 boys and 1 girl. From an early age William Blake was artistic. He also
had 'visions' of things like angels. When he was 14 William was made apprentice to an
engraver called James Basire. William served 7 years and became an engraver himself in
1779. Blake also wanted to paint and the same year he became a student at the Royal
Academy of Arts.
On 18 August 1872 William Blake married Catherine Sophie Boucher at the Church of St
Mary in Battersea. Blake also wrote poems. A book of poems called Poetical Sketches was
published in 1783. In 1789 he published a book of poems called The Song of Innocence.
In 1793 Blake published Visions of the Daughters of Albion. The same year, 1793 Blake
published The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Also in 1793 Blake published America, a
Prophecy.
In 1794 Blake published a book of poems called Songs of Experience. It included the famous
poem The Tiger. The Book of Urizen was also published in 1794. Also in 1794 William Blake
published Europe, a Prophecy.
In 1800 William Blake moved to the village of Felpham near Bognor in Sussex. Then on 12
August 1803 Blake got into a fight with a soldier named John Schofield who entered his

garden. Schofield later told a magistrate that Blake damned the king of England during the
altercation. William Blake was tried for sedition (a serious charge) in Chichester in January
1804. However he was acquitted. Meanwhile in 1803 Blake and his wife returned to London.
In the years 1804-1810 William Blake wrote and illustrated his poem Milton. The famous
poem Jerusalem by William Blake was first published in 1820. Also in 1820 Blake painted a
miniature called The Ghost of a Flea.
In 1825 Blake was commissioned illustrate Divine Comedy by Dante but he died before he
could complete the task. William Blake died on 12 August 1827. He was buried in Bunhill
Fields in London.

The Sick Rose

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
Summary
The speaker, addressing a rose, informs it that it is sick. An invisible worm has stolen into
its bed in a howling storm and under the cover of night. The dark secret love of this
worm is destroying the roses life.
Form
The two quatrains of this poem rhyme ABCB. The ominous rhythm of these short, two-beat
lines contributes to the poems sense of foreboding or dread and complements the unflinching
directness with which the speaker tells the rose she is dying.
Commentary
While the rose exists as a beautiful natural object that has become infected by a worm, it also
exists as a literary rose, the conventional symbol of love. The image of the worm resonates

with the Biblical serpent and also suggests a phallus. Worms are quintessentially earthbound,
and symbolize death and decay. The bed into which the worm creeps denotes both the
natural flowerbed and also the lovers bed. The rose is sick, and the poem implies that love is
sick as well. Yet the rose is unaware of its sickness. Of course, an actual rose could not know
anything about its own condition, and so the emphasis falls on the allegorical suggestion that
it is love that does not recognize its own ailing state. This results partly from the insidious
secrecy with which the worm performs its work of corruptionnot only is it invisible, it
enters the bed at night. This secrecy indeed constitutes part of the infection itself. The
crimson joy of the rose connotes both sexual pleasure and shame, thus joining the two
concepts in a way that Blake thought was perverted and unhealthy. The roses joyful attitude
toward love is tainted by the aura of shame and secrecy that our culture attaches to love.
The poem is composed only of two stanzas with four lines in every stanza. The
said poem follows the rhyme scheme A-B, C-B, D-E, F-E. We can say that the
poem is not a total free verse because as you can see there is a rhyme scheme
and a measure being followed. Try to notice that each of the four lines in every
stanza has the measure of 5 except for the second lines which are any number
other than five. Isn't it amazing? The poem obviously uses symbolism. An
imagery can be attained from the lines of the first stanza.

Connotation wise, the poems simply talks about a rose, a plant that is being attacked by
a worm, a tiny worm to be specific, almost impossible for the naked eyes to see that is why it
is described in the poem to be invisible.The worm landed or has found out the bed of crimson
joy which may refer to the the flower of the rose. I this case, it is a red rose because of the
word crimson that can be found in the poem. The worm;s darkest love simply means the
desire of the worm to eat the rose or it's attraction toward the plant.

Denotation wise, the poem may mean a lot or has a lot of meanings depending on the
person reading it and depending on how the reader will interpret and understand the poem.
The rose is a metaphor of life and the invisible worm(s) is(are) its hazard(s). The poem
symbolizes that the person living the life referred to in the poem was defeated by life's trials
and hardships which is being shown by the dying rose because of the attack of the invisible
worm. The word "invisible" is used to describe the worm for it is true that hardships and trials
cannot be sen by the naked eyes.It can only be felt and experienced but can never be touched.

Lines 1
O rose thou art sick
The poem opens with the speaker addressing the rose.
The speaker tells the rose that it is sick.
Lines 2-4
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm
The speaker describes an "invisible worm" that flies.
The worm can also fly when it's raining.
We don't know what this worm is doing in the poem or even what kind of worm it is. An
invisible worm that can fly? Is it some kind of butterfly?

Lines 5-6
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
The speaker tells us more about the worm; it has found the rose's bed.
The status of this "bed" is ambiguous. It could be just a place where the rose sleeps that
happens to be "crimson."
It could also be a "bed" of something, like a "bed of roses" (not unlikely since the poem is
called "The Sick Rose") or something else that's red. This would make the rose a gardener of
some kind.
Lines 7-8
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
The speaker tells us that the worm's "love" kills the rose.
It's strange that "love" is killing something here, since we usually associate love with life.
"Dark secret love" could mean three things. It could mean the worm's love, as in "My love for
you will never die."
It could also refer to something that the worm loves, as in, "Hello, my love, I'm home."
It might even refer to the act of making love, or sex.