Little Black Boy by William Blake: Used Imagery, Language and Structure

In this essay, I will analyse the effect of the use imagery, language and structure interwoven throughout ‘The Little Black Boy’ by William Blake. Furthermore, I will also examine the poems context through a religious and slave trade lens.

Blake published this poem in one of his most prominent collections named ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’. Half of the collection called ‘Songs of Innocence’ are about poems that focus on childhood and purity. The latter, titled ‘Songs of Experience’ focuses on coming of age, violence and exploitation.

The Little Black Boy was published in the first half of the collection and these aforementioned themes are explored.

Immediately from the title the use of describing the young boy as ‘black’ establishes that the poem will focus primarily on race. This eponymous character comes to terms with his own blackness, which even till this day many black youths struggle to deal with. This gives the poem a universal feel, creating longevity for future generations.

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Blake cleverly contrasts imagery of light and dark continually. The contrast of black skin and the narrator’s beliefs of his soul being white leads to a poignant effect on the reader. Throughout history, white and black has connoted good and evil. He is shameful of his blackness; however, he idolises the purity of whiteness.

The use of this simile further explores the idea that white is full of purity and goodness, which are qualities of an angel. However, Blake juxtaposes this with describing the colour black as ‘bereav’d of light’.

The adjective ‘bereav’d’ intensifies dark skin is mourning the loss of light. Furthermore, opposing white as heavenly and benevolent and black as sorrowful and grief-stricken.

The titular voice describes being born in the ‘southern wild’ the use of the adjective wild creates an image that black people are feral or barbaric. Throughout the slave trade African’s were dehumanised and stripped down of their identity. The poet, William Blake was active during the Romantic era, this era focused on intense emotions and nature which are further explored in the poem. Blake displays a lexical field of nature dispersed throughout the poem. ‘sun, wild, heat, sun-burnt, flowers, trees’. The nouns and adjectives earlier on the list display intensity and tension. Furthermore, the punctuation can be seen as loud and fiery likewise.

This can be seen through Blake’s use of imagery. The colour white is generally always symbolised with the colour white, purity and innocence. the poem has a lexis of white purity: ‘angel’ ‘light’ ‘silver’. The poem also taps in religion. Historically, Catholicism was brought onto the black race through the means of slavery. The longing the titular character has for white acceptance runs rapid throughout the poem.

There is a present lexis of religion: angel, God, souls, rejoice. These words all corelate to strength. At this point of the poem a revelation has been uncovered. This is further intensified with the imagery of a cloud vanishing, clearing sight for the truth. Blake echoes these themes with religion. For example, the tree can be an allusion to the first book in the Bible, Genesis. The forbidden tree.

The poem contains a traditional ABAB rhyme scheme. There are seven quatrains. The first and third stanzas rhyme and the second and fourth stanzas rhyme. This enables the poem to have a sense of balance and continuity. Furthermore, it gives the poem a storybook feel. The rhymes also help to make the poem memorable

Overall, Blake remarkably strives to create the feelings of an oppressed child to a great extent. Blake writes from the viewpoint of an oppressed black child. The child believes that he will never truly be equal as with his white counterparts until they are released from the constrains of this physical world. But what truly remains is the

Works cited

1. Blake, W. (1789). The Little Black Boy. In Songs of Innocence and Experience (pp. 8-9). London: Printed and sold by W. Blake.
2. Burrows, M. (2015). William Blake and the cultures of radical Christianity. Routledge.
3. Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. Harvard University Press.
4. Hill, C. (2013). William Blake: A new kind of man. University of Georgia Press.
5. Kudler, D. (2011). Blake’s “The Little Black Boy” and the Bible: An Interpretation. Studies in Philology, 108(1), 1-17.
6. Mack, M. (1994). William Blake: The politics of vision. University of California Press.
7. Nelson, E. (2007). William Blake's The Little Black Boy: An antislavery message. The Explicator, 65(3), 174-176.
8. Piper, D. (2004). The language of Blake's "The Little Black Boy". The Review of English Studies, 55(220), 626-637.
9. Simpson, M. (2012). The Cambridge introduction to William Blake. Cambridge University Press.
10. Worrall, D. (2013). The politics of Romantic poetry: In search of the pure Commonwealth. Palgrave Macmillan.