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About

Genius Annotation

From Blake’s Songs of Experience. published in the 1794, this was one of the series of poems which explore the harsh realities of late 18th and early 19th Century life during the time of King George III, known — ironically given the terrible social conditions of the time — as the Romantic Era. Each poem in the “Songs of Experience” category is matched by an idealistic portrayal in Songs of Innocence. The contrast is Blake’s method of social protest.

This poem is, ostensibly about a diseased flower but the sexual reference is not difficult to identify. Its subject is, in essence, the wrong kind of love — an illicit affair or loveless sex — because it is hidden in the night, and not embraced as a natural and open fulfillment. It is is based on unfulfilled desire (“the howling storm” of lust) and hidden passion (dark and secret and guilt-filled). It wastes true vitality and destroys rather than creates joy.

We need to bear in mind that Blake believed in free love and was critical of the constraints of conventional morality and marriage based on financial convenience. What he was criticising was relationships, love and sex', that were exploitative, selfish, and hurtful to other parties.

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