'The Schoolboy' and this extract from Byron's epic Don Juan are concerned with the theme of learning. Blake regards formal schooling as confining and destructive to a child's nature, whereas Byron ridicules and shows the ineffectuality of strict puritan education.
'The Schoolboy' comprises six stanzas of five lines with a strict ABABB rhyme scheme. The rhythm is iambic, the natural speech pattern, loose tetrameter and trimeter, representing the child's struggle against the confinement of school. The schoolboy is the speaker of the first three stanzas, but the voice then changes to that of an adult appealing on behalf of the children. The entire poem is composed in the present tense which gives it a sense of immediacy.
Blake begins his poem by presenting the reader with a pastoral idyll. The child who rises 'in the summer morn' (1.1) and with whom 'the sky-lark sings' (1.4) is part of nature which provides such 'sweet company' (1.5).
Teresa Makri, the subject of George Gordon Byron's...
Monument near Blake's unmarked grave at Bunhill Fi...
BLAKE FERGUSONThis general bliss is also compounded with the use of positively charged words such as 'love' (1.1), 'sweet' (1.4) and the satisfied exclamation of 'Oh' (1.5). On reading the words aloud the mouth widens to form a smile.
The 'But' of the second stanza alerts the reader that this gentle happiness is to be broken. 'But to go to school in a summer morn' (2.1) echoes the opening line of the poem and in so doing draws attention to the differences between the two. The singing is now 'sighing' and this is reflected by the tone which becomes heavy and listless (2.5). The school itself is
personified as it 'drives all joy away' (2.2). Blake uses the word 'joy' on three occasions: here and again in the fourth and fifth stanzas. In each case the joy is equated with the natural state and is...
Blake and Byron
You have submitted a superior essay in which you compare and contrast Blake's "The Schoolboy" and stanzas 37-48 of Byron's "Don Juan." Because William Blake and Lord Byron are two of the more famous poets of the Romantic tradition, it is not surprising that parallels can be found, although they may not at first seem readily apparent because of stylistic differences. You have done well to illustrate with aptly chosen textual examples not only the similarities but also the differences in the works of these two eminent poets.
I agree that formal education can deaden a child's natural curiosity to learn. Formal education does not have to be harsh and dull, but too often it is. You've underscored this point effectively in one particularly well turned remark which bears repeating: "Blake is pleading for an approach to learning in which natural experience will not be subjugated to insensitive classroom rules."
Your report appears to have been expertly edited and proofread. If you have a tutor, you should pay him more. Although you somewhat exceeded the 1,500 word requirement, it shouldn't be a problem because there is no extraneous material in your report and nothing should be cut. Excellent job!
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