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A Poison Tree
A Poison Tree
4.
POETIC/LITERARY DEVICES
1.
Personification
2.
Metaphor
3.
Alliteration
4.
Imagery
5.
Irony
6.
Repitition
7.
Allusion
Stanza 3: And it grew both day and night and til it bore an
apple bright are meaning that his illusion with his enemy is
growing and growing until it became a strong and tempting
thing. His illusion has a metaphor and it is an apple. After, his
foe believes it shines, which means he thinks its true and
means something, and takes Blake illusion seriously. And he
knew it was mine suggests that he really thinks Blake is his
friend.
CRITICAL APPRECIATION
In the first stanza, the consequence of allowing anger to
continue instead of stopping it as it begins is shown. This
consequence is simply that it will continue to grow. However, as
the poem progresses, it is seen that this continued growth of
anger can yield harmful results as the enemy, or foe, is lured
toward the tree and eats of its fruit, the poison apple. This kills
his foe, as he is seen outstretched beneath the tree, a sight the
speaker is glad to see the next morning. These final two lines
explain one of the main themes of the poem, which is that
anger leads to self-destruction. The speakers anger grows and
eventually becomes so powerful that it has changes from
simple anger with another person, to desire to see them dead.
One of the subjects of Blakes work was the underworld, or Hell,
and knowing this, it can be seen that the destruction which
results from anger is not physical, but spiritual. In addition, the
death of the foe, which the speaker is glad to see, does not
Synopsis
A Poison Tree is a short and deceptively simple poem
about repressing anger and the consequences of doing
so. The speaker tells of how they fail to communicate
their wrath to their foe and how this continues to grow
until it develops into poisonous hatred.
The speaker describes how when they were angry with
a friend, they talked to their friend about the issue
which helped them to overcome their anger. However,
the speaker was unable to do the same with an enemy
and this leads to developing resentment and an even
stronger degree of hatred. An extended metaphor of a
tree growing in the speaker's garden demonstrates how
the anger continues to grow. In the lines 'And I water'd
it in fears' and 'And I sunned it with smiles' the speaker
actively cultivates the tree/anger.
Eventually the anger blossoms into a poisoned fruit, the
enemy eats the fruit and dies and the speaker seems to
be glad of this. However, there is also a sense that they
see the destructiveness of what has occurred. As the
THEMES
Form
A Poison Tree is written in quatrains. This straightforward
grouping of sets of four lines is one of the simplest and most
recognisable poetic forms.
Structure
The poem has four stanzas. Each stanza consists of a pair of
rhyming couplets in the regular repeated pattern aabb. The
rhythm of the poem is also straightforward and regular which
makes it very easy to read, though not necessarily to
understand. The straightforward and seemingly simple way in
which Blake has written this poem contrasts with the very
complex human emotions he is describing.
The poem also contains two clear turning points which help the
reader to understand the character of the speaker. The first
comes after the opening two lines and shows the difference in
how the speaker handles a difficult situation in two separate