Blanca 1 Jesse C Blanca Instructor M.

Duckworth English 46B Extra Credit: Assignment 2

Red Dragon and A Cradle Song I recall one of the strangest experience Ive ever had in class, it was a moment that rival revelation. It was past midterm in Psychology 1 and we were covering child development. Dispelling myth from facts, and what is known today vs. what people believe then, and to some degree still do. The brain for instance was not fully developed like the heart or the lungs. As the child grows certain sections of the brain starts to kick in, more importantly the visual perception. Colors to me have a different meaning today with what it once felt when I was younger. While I read William Blakes children poem series, at first I had an eerie pedophilic tinge, for it imbues the kind of interest in the mundane that only an obsequiously pervert would. At least that was my impressions at first read, and when I read again this time looking at his painting a lightbulb lit up. Especially when I coupled the Red Dragon with A Cradle Song. Seated in my Psychology 1, I suddenly realized the reason why I dont see color the same is because my brain was not the same, whenever I felt an emotion a color would sign for it. At 8 when my father died I suddenly had a strange urge to draw everything and anything important around me, which was in a way a kind of empowerment for an 8 year old. Something I can do to hold on to things and not feel helpless. Red Dragon would have been the kind of painting an angry 8 year old would draw, the strikes are harsh, the color tone angry, all the muscles contracted, ready to pounce on a prey. Yet his words evoke a misplaced sadness, a bygone torrent of emotion that still runs deep in his heart. All of this can be a delusion, for I cannot account for true reality in my own childhood just a lying hindsight. So when Blake writes of childhood, is it the childhood he think he should have had, have had,

Blanca 2 or a complete fabrication of a creative mind? Emotion have to come from somewhere even the best lies have an element of truth. 1Sweet dreams, form a shade is a peculiar coupling, for it calls on a shroud to engulf an infant and to jumpstart a dream but is it the childs dream or a person dreaming of a child or Blake dreaming of himself as a child? 2O'er my lovely infant's head! suggest that its his child but he had none and so the work becomes a short disquisition on lament. 6Weave thy brows an infant crown! bestowing innocence only found on humans without the influence of humanity, untainted by personal history. 7Sweet Sleep, angel mild, Hover o'er my happy child! calling upon a guardian. 10Hover over my delight! this line can go two ways, delight could be a euphemism for the child or my delight could mean to his lovely bidding, controlling the atmosphere, emotional tonality like the entire piece screams of control. Calling upon the veil of night, lack of lights intimate nature tends to concentrate on principle elements, focused, undisturbed by broad sight. Couplings in the middle stanzas begin to placate what an infant does best, make noise 13 Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,. Childbirth mortality rate in the 1800s was one in every 200, and the odds become worse for every succeeding pregnancy. 20While o'er thee thy mother weep. either speaks of postpartum depression or something else, but enough to bring the mother to that emotional state. Sweet babe, once like thee, here is the answer to my first question, the poem is spoken by a person hovering over a child at least thats what the images evokes, and Thy Maker lay, and wept for me: if its God, why, if its the mother then its a kind of depression in my semi literal interpretation. If I may channel Freud, the Red Dragon hovering over a frightened woman glowing in gold plays like an angry child, pensive, a reservoir of primitive emotion, angry! Her leering eyes, more in disbelief than fear, she knows the Dragon. The Dragon is a synonymous symbol of power, grace, control, something that demands authority, which if speaking metaphorically could antithetically mean all that he desires in the mind. Blakes internal lament plays a kind of duality that exist

Blanca 3 in his mind by way of imagery but differs in whether which avenue is taken. The pen or rather in words Blake cannot seem to break the minds built in self-editing apparatus and so melancholy takes on a rhythmic melody. In pigments, the brush, the canvas, is free from self-edit, here raw emotion unleashes yet you can still see all the elements present in the prose.

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A CRADLE SONG Sweet dreams, form a shade O'er my lovely infant's head! Sweet dreams of pleasant streams By happy, silent, moony beams! Sweet Sleep, with soft down Weave thy brows an infant crown! Sweet Sleep, angel mild, Hover o'er my happy child! Sweet smiles, in the night Hover over my delight! Sweet smiles, mother's smiles, All the livelong night beguiles. Sweet moans, dovelike sighs, Chase not slumber from thy eyes! Sweet moans, sweeter smiles, All the dovelike moans beguiles. Sleep, sleep, happy child! All creation slept and smiled. Sleep, sleep, happy sleep, While o'er thee thy mother weep. Sweet babe, in thy face Holy image I can trace; Sweet babe, once like thee Thy Maker lay, and wept for me: Wept for me, for thee, for all, When He was an infant small. Thou His image ever see, Heavenly face that smiles on thee! Smiles on thee, on me, on all, Who became an infant small; Infant smiles are His own smiles; Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.