The Mental Traveller by Caitlin Evans

2022-12-08 14:50:59 UTC

Some ideas!!

1. Poem starts as an extended metaphor / allegory for religion being unintelligible. Like a riddle for us “cyclical” goes in a loop cannot be solved as it has no end or beginning. We have contrast & juxtaposition throughout (“both cold and heat” “born in joy… begotten in woe” “reap in joy the fruit which we did in bitter tears sow”) which exemplify how religion is full of duality and conflicts we can never begin to understand e.g. why is there suffering? Abstract for a reason!

2022-12-08 14:52:41 UTC

A “mental traveller” being in reference to the mind, equally as complex and mysterious as religion. Mental also synonymous with insanity and minds states; religious believers may be considered as insane due to others not being able to understand spiritual experiences. Can connect to Blake’s “visions” of angels which his parents rejected.

2022-12-08 14:55:46 UTC

Starts off with pronoun “I” hinting this is being told from first person, like a narrative. Blake is telling us the story of a spiritual journey in “a land of men… and women too”. He contrasts what he sees with what “cold earth-wanderers never knew”, making them seem alien to him due to their lack of a connection to the spiritual or Romantic ideas of religion. The poem can also be supported contextually by readings of the Bible as a historiography, instead of having direct meaning, it’s telling us a moral truth in the form of a story.

2022-12-08 14:58:40 UTC

Contextual references figures like Jesus (“iron thorns… pierces both hands and feet”), Prometheus (“nails him down upon a rock”), and Dionysus (“cut his heart out at his side”) to personify suffering. The use of people throughout history who have died at the hands of others for noble reasons intensifies pathos for the figure in the poem, and illustrates how he will continue to suffer as time and history move on, because humanity cannot break the senseless cycle of violence.

2022-12-08 15:02:22 UTC

Implicit criticisms of wealth and money start in the fifth stanza and continue throughout the poem, with the woman derogatorily labelled as a “miser” counting “gold”. The suggestion of villainous characters being focused on treasure and wealth is a reminder of how humans can’t be free from their suffering due to them valuing the wrong things. Instead of aiding him, the Old Woman sadistically “catches his shrieks in cups of gold”, profiting off the unjust pain of the wounded, despite having the wealth as indicated by the repetition of “gold” to stop it if she wanted to.

2022-12-08 15:06:53 UTC

The poem keeps themes of ad nauseum- circularity and cycles repeating through the echoing of the third stanza being the last. Blake harrows home the fact the woman still “nails him down upon the rock” and that “all is done as I have told” to emphasise nothing has changed. Since Biblical times, people have refused to break the chain and stop inter-generational pain in favour of taking power from the weak and vulnerable. This ending is arguably bleak, as the narrator leaves us assuming the world remains “as I have told”, implying that humans lack to will to even defy their nature and make the change which aligns with Blake’s Romantic beliefs in the power of human beings. Only we can end the loop.

2022-12-08 15:07:19 UTC

stanza 6- ‘he becomes a bleeding youth and she becomes a virgin bright’ gives away his youth to her, connotations of purity and innocence
‘rends up his manacles’ he frees himself from the woman and gains power over her. ‘binds her down for his delight’ sexual violence, inflicts suffering onto her as she did him, inequality and discourse between men and women

“If young or old, or rich or poor” - no matter what, they will always come back to each other. It’s a constant cycle of coming back. They have a soul tie, this line is like vows, they can’t break them

2022-12-08 15:07:40 UTC

2022-12-08 15:07:59 UTC

stanza 7- ‘plants himself in all her nerves’ encompassing/ controlling, he gains control over the natural world, blake’s work was influenced by the natural world

‘husbandman’ = farmer ‘mould’ = land, comparison of fertility of the land to fertility of the woman’s youth

‘garden fruitful seventyfold’ garden of eden, biblical connotations

2022-12-08 15:08:13 UTC

stanza 8- ‘soon he fades’ cycle of life and suffering, ageing, loss of power and youth. ‘gems and gold which he by industry had got’ success and power, link to industrial revolution

2022-12-08 15:08:31 UTC

stanza 10- ‘he feeds the beggar and the poor’ gives to the community, lives in solitude with his riches. ‘for ever open is his door’ warm, welcoming

“Swaddling- band”- this is her gaining control over him, metaphor, swaddling him, claustrophobic, no escape from this

2022-12-08 15:09:06 UTC

2022-12-08 15:10:27 UTC

• Famine, Spiritual, Religious: “nothing left to eat or drink” and “The bread and wine of her sweet lips” - Thirst, hunger, taking from each other. Innocent.
• “A desert vast without a bound” - “desert” barren, isolated, infertility, never ending.
• “the stars, sun, moon, all shrink away” - life is not worth living without purpose, eternity is forgotten, eden. Being Barren is a sin, celestial.
• “wander in terror and dismay” Lost, finding happiness, no balance, a cycle of unhappiness and suffering.
• A man is now deceiving and “beguiling”
• sexual connotations “he purses her night and day, by various arts of love and beguile” - predator, toxic

“ his grief is their eternal joy” - they are never at the same point, always opposite to each other, on a balance scale but never even

2022-12-08 15:10:58 UTC

“The poor man takes her in his arms” - there is love between them, there is compassion and comfort. There is comfort within this cycle between the both.

2022-12-08 15:14:40 UTC

21-26

2022-12-08 15:15:34 UTC

Stanza 21-26 portrays a vision of a continuous cycle of life and how power is transferred between love. Within stanza 23, Blake references the development of life as of ‘desert roam’ to ‘city there is built’. This emphasises the cycle of life and how nothing can become something over a period of time.
In stanza 21 Blake references ‘the lion, wolf and boar’. In stanza 25 he states ‘lions, boats, wolves, all howling flee. Due to this being plural, Blake is referencing the expansion of life. ‘She nails him down upon the rock’ in stanza 26 represents fight and conflict. This line also illustrates the eternal cycle of suffering.