William Blake's "A Little Girl Lost"

           Katelin Trowbridge’s “Blake’s A Little Girl Lost”, annotates and explains William Blake’s poem, “A Little Girl Lost.” Trowbridge identifies that society impacts on civilization by taking away innocence and controlling each individual. This poem clearly states Blake’s wrath of how religion steers people into a direction they don’t want to go. By doing so it causes stress and unhappiness to all. When living by the Bible every action or thought needs guidance. So, therefore shame overcomes the lovers whenever they come together. Even though the maiden and her lover have freedom, rules of the church create limitation. William believes the Bible that inflicts “love” actually justifies the injustice that appears all over the world. The small fraction of freedom earned by the church has created control over an individual. So, every thought or action may be influenced severely. When a individual disobeys many believe that, The Garden of Eden disappears. These ideas shown through Katelin’s annotation of “Instead of enjoying Eden’s eternal spring, these lost souls can only lament their own misery and exhaustion as they blunder through the dark night.” This quote shows great significance because it explains that by not following the churches rules darkness will overcome the individual and The Garden of Eden will be lost forever and never experienced. Overall the article explains that freedom and innocence create a loss in society, due to religion having so many rules. Also by living in a self-imprisonment of self-denial and guilt. Throwbridge’s annotation of “ A Little Girl Lost”, relates to my groups blog because this article explains one of Blake’s many masterpieces revealed along with his emotions throughout the text. Throwbridge’s annotation creates importance to our blog since it identifies how important these poems meant to Blake. William’s poems mean more then words they influence and explain life that expresses everyday occurrences. When expressed as what they mean and not what they seem. Blake did not take these occurrences for granted so therefore changed them into beautiful figures. By doing so these occurrences could be transformed into something more beautiful just as Blake viewed them. Even though Throwbridge’s annotation explains the aspects of life through the lines in Blake’s poem, an individual may have different viewings of “A little Girl Lost“.
          Throwbridge and I had a few of the same views about the poem, “A Little Girl Lost”. In the first stanza Throwbridge believes that anger behaves as the culprit and that in the future, civilization will then convert to pure souls again. I interpreted this stanza as a simple piece of advice. When it mentions the “ children of the future age”, I feel as if it speaks to those of the future, just as Throwbridge annotated it as. A difference appears through our annotation through “Love! Sweet Love! Was thought a crime.”, this section of the poem came to me as advice to the future children that we should be lucky to have what we got and to enjoy it while we can. The piece of advice creates importance because in the 1800’s they did not have as much freedom or choice as we do now. Throwbridge annotates the following lines (7-9) as two young lovers that will get to know The Garden of Eden and experience freedom without limitations. When the poem states “Naked in the sunny beams delight.” Throwbridge explains the mood of happiness without worry or stress. When looking at the poem at first glance I can relate to where she gets her annotation but when looking closely at the text one can see that once were dead we will then experience love without limits. Once these limits disappear great fortune and love with overcome us all to where no worries or concerns will surround us. The third stanza I believe depicts that once death comes amongst us that the rules of the church will not exist any longer. Also that the world of darkness will then have light and all of our worries will disappear. Where Throwbridge’s explanation of the stanza transforms the lines into a pitiful parody of the “Children of the future age.” Katelin describes (15-19) that before The Garden of Eden everyone would sneak around even if afraid of disapproval, which I happen to agree with. My interpretation of the following stanza lays entirely on “Tired with Kisses Sweet” the reason is because when evaluated one can see that after awhile sneaking around and with disapproval can make someone tired of another. So, therefore want to take a break from each other. Throwbridge does not identify this line but explains line 24 as not enjoying The Garden of Eden because these lost souls keep hiding in the dark. The most important stanza is the last which I had interpreted as the Lord forgiving the maiden for sinning. His hoary hair represents the old in him and that worst things have happened for him to not forgive her. Where Katelin describes the final stanza as being told in two different perspectives with the voice of Ona’s angry father and of Blake having a great appeal to Ona.