A Divine Image: Rhyme and Rythm

In “A Divine Image”, Blake makes use of many techniques and literary devices, to transmit his thoughts about social injustice, cruelty and human nature, Rhyme and rhythm are two of the principal features in this poem this poem is the rhythm impact the whole mood, tone and meaning of the poem. The poet has chosen various approaches to give the poem particular sounds that influence the pace and structure of the rhythm.

The structure of the 1st stanza helps us recognize the relationships amongst the four elements of human nature presented, cruelty, jealousy, terror and secrecy. The first and third lines start with the most important word, though in the second and fourth ones the words come preceded by the word “And”. This tends to make the reader connect cruelty with terror and jealousy with secrecy automatically. We can notice that the anxiety of the lines in this initial stanza falls onto the primary word, providing an emphasizing effect. As opposed to lots of other Blake poems, such as “The Tyger” or “The Lamb” we can’t come across rhyming couplets in this stanza, but the rhyming and stressing impact is adequate for the reader to tie the suggestions together. This impact is strengthened by the repetition of the word “human” in just about every line and the repetition of the “y” ending sounds in lines one particular, two and 4.

The structure of the second stanza differs from the structure of the very first one particular. We notice that every of the lines present an “answer” in a “symmetrical” way to each one particular in the very first stanza. This structure can also be found in “The Lamb”. This offers the impression to the reader that the poem is a closed circle, ending were it began. On a deeper level, this way of structuring can represent the inflexibility and stiffness of these negative human elements, like immovable objects buried deep inside human nature. We can see that the most outstanding rhythmical function of this stanza is foregrounding. In reality, every line of the poem has the word “human” in it. This excessive repetitiveness, collectively with the traits described, leads the reader to render them exclusively human, the result of our intellectual superiority more than nature. The tension of the lines fall in the word “human” in each case in the second stanza, accomplished by the foregrounding device.

The repetition of the consonant sounds plays a extremely vital part in the rhythm of the second stanza. We notice that the…

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