While we looked at the general vision of Blake's "The Lamb" & "The Tyger," we have not yet attempted a close reading of any poem -- as I was reminded when one of you asked about the meaning of a couple terms in "The Tyger" at the end of class. So, let's give "Ah Sun-flower" a close look:
First, we read aloud, then gather the general sense:
[The] sunflower is believed to have been domesticated from wild sunflower around 1000 B.C. in the western U.S. As can be seen along most Missouri roadsides in mid to late summer, wild sunflower is highly branched with small heads and small seeds, in contrast to the large seed head of domesticated sunflower. Spaniards brought the sunflower to Europe in 1510, but it was never really viewed as a food plant by Europeans until it reached Russia in the late 1800s. The process of improving sunflower into a modern crop began in Russia around 1860. By the late 1940s, Americans were able to bring back sunflower varieties with oil contents of nearly 50 percent. American varieties at the time had 20 to 30 percent seed oil content. |
Thus, I'm assuming that Blake is talking about a plant resembling our sunflower,
though we should keep in mind his construction of Sun-flower rather than sunflower.
| Ah, Sun-flower | the plant, or some blooming figure of the light (sun) or even a creation from or growth from the spirit of God (also sun metaphor) |
| weary of time | worn down by life, tired of this earthly existence, worn by the drudgery of day-to-day life |
| Who countest the steps to the sun | Desirous of reunion with the divine, with God; steps indicate a neo-Platonic or a Swedenborgian notion of everything emanating from God and desiring to climb the ladder to reunite with God |
| Seeking after that sweet golden clime | The sweet, golden climate of heaven; note gold is the color of the sun and the sunflower's petals; "clime" for climate keeps the rhyme intact, but also is a homophone for climb, again suggesting that upward ladder |
| Where the traveller's journey is done; | The traditional images of the journey of life, of the human obligation to journey, linking naturally with that notion of the traveller emanating out from God for the journey of life and returning home (to God) at the end |
| Where the Youth pined away with desire, | The image suggests youthful lust, unrequited love, and the pining away of one whose earthly life is keyed to some frustrated desire |
| And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow, | We have white, the color of purity here: pale, snow, and that pure state of virginity; more strongly, however, we see the images of death: pale like the dead; virginal, young innocent and prematurely dead; shrouded, a clear illusion to the burial shroud; snow: cold, dead, frozen |
| Arise from their graves and aspire, | Yes, both the youth who pined away in heat (desire) and the virgin who faded and froze are referred to; both can look upward (aspire) to that goal of the true believer |
| Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. | The Sun-flower is indeed, as we noted from the elements of the word, one who has come from God and whose one desire is the reunion with God; the Sun-flower wishes to return to the One (in effect, aspires to heaven). |
| Summation: | I read this as a mystic piece, and also a piece suggesting that while one may be weary of time (weary of the drudgery of earthly life), frustrated (to death) by unfulfilled desires, or even too weak to go forth into the world (our pale virgin), one is not lost. All may arise from their graves and aspire: as God is the source of all, reunion with God is possible for all. The tone appears tired and wistful in some elements; yet it remains optimistic, transcendently optimistic: there is a heaven above and it is open to all. All Blake appears to me to be consistent with his notion (from "A Song of Liberty") "For everything that lives is Holy.". |