romantic poem

THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE


Love seeketh not Itself to please

,Nor for itself hath any care;

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

So sang a little Clod of Clay, ا

Trodden with the cattle's feet:

But a pebble of the brook,

Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,

To bind another to Its delight:

Joys in another's loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.
w.blake

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution.[1] It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.
The movement stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and custom to something noble, and argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language, custom and usage.
Our modern sense of a romantic character is sometimes based on Byronic or Romantic ideals. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar and distant in modes more authentic than chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.
The ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which Romanticism emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the nineteenth century, "Realism" was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas

ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
1-Subject;

The poem is about two different points of view from love. One of view is from The Clod and other is from The Pebble. The two views coexist and each view insures each other. The one can not never exist without the other.
The poem shows contrast between these two personalities (the clod and the pebble). The two contrasting points of view on love.
We can see the theme of love and the different aspects form it: love is altruistic, selfish..
2-Structure;

It is not a complex poem. There are two statements from two characters and a comment. Two statements are opposite. It is a basic disagreement, a reply. We can find verbs such as “sung”, “warbled”, which represent the idea of music. We can find a reporting statement from the first speaker. The two participants talk about a third character who is not present. Only the Clod and the Pebble are present. The third character is “love”.
The first line and second line are coordinated but in the third line we have got a different succession because of the word “but” that means that there is a conflict.
We have an image: “Love seeketh not itself to please” means that love is selfless.
The line 1 and 2 indicates that love to the clod is good. The clod´s song is full of optimism
In the second stanza, we have the two participants. The clod is described as “trodden with the cattle feet”, that means that the clod has been trampled on but he does not mind what is going to happen because he accepts that.
In the first line we have the word “clay”, that means that the clod is soft, not hard. Soft means something sentimental, unrealistic, weak.
Later we have the other participant, the Pebble. The Pebble is hard. Hard means something cinical, unsentimental, realistic. He has a different point of view from the Clod. He is someone who has suffered of love. He described love as selfish.
We have another image: the Pebble of the brook. This image says where is the Pebble. In the brook. This image explains the negative vision that love is or what will be. The Pebble has a negative tone.
In the last line of second stanza, the word “meet” has the idea of “appropiate”.
Why the Pebble´s metres are appropiated? Perhaps there is an ambiguity. The two views are balanced one and other. The one can not exist without the other.
In the third stanza, we have a dark image.
The first line: Love seeketh only Self to please means that love is selfish and for this reason the word “Self” is capitalized.
In the first and third line we can observe: please-ease. These words have an idea of pleasure.
We have another image. Heaven has two meanings:
1) it is associated with the idea of pleasure.
2) It is associated with the idea of pain, suffering.
When the poem says: builds a Hell in Heaven´s despite means that the Pebble believes that love corrupts purity, honesty
3-Rhyme:

The rhyme scheme in the first and third stanza is the same: ABBA
4-Personal Response; This poem shows the two contrasting views of love. We can find two participants and maybe we can say that the Clod is a female and the Pebble is a male. Why am I saying this? Because of the characters´s speech since if we see this poem from a context of sexual love, we see that the Clod shows a kind of pure and altruistic love (related with the concept of giving) that belongs to women; and the Pebble shows a selfish love (related with the concept of receiving) that belongs to men.
This poem has been interesting because shows different points of view. These points of view are present in real life since when we fall in love, our relationship can be good (an altruistic love) or bad (selfish love). You decide what kind of love you want to have. But sometimes it does not depends on you.

the clod and the pebble=brief analysis

This poem portrays two very different perceptions of love, one by the pebble and one by the clod. The use of the term clod leads the reader to have a mental image of a lump of earth, and hence mouldable. The clod has a very benevolent image of love entrenched in its mind. It has the impression that love is unselfish and cares -- "Love seekth not itself to please,/Nor for itself hath any care". It also has the impression that love is a release, a warm embrace in contrast to this cold world that we live in, bringing paradise down to this cruel world -- "But for another gives it ease,/And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair". The pebble here in this poem however, has a very different take on love. It is also noted that the image of the pebble gives the reader an image of a rock which has been smoothed by the movement of debbris rubbing against it, attacking it, perhaps symbolising a person in today's cold and harsh society where circumstances and past experiences have constantly bombarded him/her. Here, the pebble sees love as selfish and, in the process, limiting and suffocating, bringing unhappiness to a place which would have been paradise without it -- "Love seekth only Self to please,/To bind another to its delight,/Joys in another's loss of ease,/And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite". However in this poem, the poet says that the "little Clod of Clay/Trodden with the cattle's feet", this could be the opinion of the poet, that the clod, like the many naive innocents we see, has suffered because of love and yet still goes on believing that love is all pure and unselfish, goes on believing in that benevolent imgae of love that it has. Whereas the pebble, in comparison much more experienced and attuned to the workings of love, is aware of the hurt, selfishness and suffocation love brings and the true form that it exists in. The poet William Blake leaves the pebble's words to the last perhaps to further enhance the effects of those words as it leaves the reader with the phrases resounding in his/her mind. This poem is thus essentially pointing out the opinion of the poet that love is not what the naive and innocent make it out to be, it is not all that unselfish and a refuge, instead, the poet is perhaps trying to tell us that love really is selfish and not liberating as the innocents might claim it to be.