SECTION D: NON-AFRICAN POETRY Examine Blake's use of diction in The School Boy.

Answer Details

Diction refers to a poet's deliberate choice of words and the effect that choice creates. In William Blake's The School Boy, from Songs of Experience, the diction is carefully divided between words that celebrate the freedom and joy of nature and words that convey the misery of confinement in school. This contrast in word choice carries the poem's meaning.

Diction of natural joy. In describing the summer morning, Blake selects bright, pleasant words: the boy loves to 'rise in a summer morn,' to hear 'the distant huntsman' and the birds sing on 'every tree,' while the 'skylark sings with me.' Words such as 'sweet,' 'sing' and 'company' create an atmosphere of delight, freedom and harmony with the living world.

Diction of imprisonment and sorrow. Against this, the language of schooling is heavy with images of captivity and decay. The boy speaks of a 'cruel eye outworn,' of spending the day 'in sighing and dismay,' of drooping like a caged bird. Words like 'cage,' 'sigh,' 'dismay,' 'droop' and 'bereaved' turn the classroom into a prison that crushes the natural spirit.

Nature imagery to expose the effect of schooling. Blake extends his diction into an argument through natural metaphor. He asks how a bird can sing when placed in a cage, and how buds and blossoms can flourish if 'nipped' in their spring. This vocabulary of blighted growth suggests that rigid education stifles the child just as frost destroys young plants.

Simple, childlike vocabulary. The whole poem uses plain, direct words suited to a child's voice, which makes the boy's complaint sincere and moving and reinforces Blake's protest against joyless learning.

In conclusion, Blake's diction works by opposition: warm, natural, musical words for freedom and cold, confining, withering words for school. Through this contrast in word choice he condemns an education that imprisons the young mind and robs childhood of its natural delight.