The Word Made Flesh: Blake's "A Poison Tree" and the Book of Genesis

Postclassical narratology: approaches and analyses

“…This stripped-down ontology-together with the way Blake has populated it with situations, objects, and events imported from a religious master narrative about the irruption of sin in paradise and the resulting loss of innocence-contributes to the poem's parable-like quality. As already noted, Gallagher (1977) disputes any narrow interpretation of "A Poison Tree" as a parable, in which poetic vehicle is wholly subordinated to thematic tenor. More broadly, however, interpretation of the poem activates inferencing strategies that Turner (1996) associates with fundamental mechanisms of human intelligence and subsumes under the heading of parabolic projection, or the projection of a source story onto a 8.…”

“…True, the first part of line 15, with its mention of a particular morning, would seem to favor the historical-present reading of the tense shift. But the strategic placement of "see" in the poem's final couplet, and the possibility of interpreting "the morning" as a generic reference to any morning (Gallagher 1977), licenses an alternative reading of the narrator's perceptual act as co-occurrent with the act of narration.…”

“…And how can those traditions be used to underscore the relevance of "A Poison Tree" for the project of triangulating narrative, media, and mind? For his part, Gallagher (1977) considers whether "A Poison Tree" should be read as a parabolic poem, in which the specific scenario presented in the poem (the vehicle) is subordinated to the general theme or moral principle it is designed to instantiate (the tenor). As Gallagher puts it, "in a narrative whose tenor ([the idea] that deliberate repression of anger is far more destructive than its spontaneous expression) is a deceptively obvious cliché, it is all too easy to dismiss the poetic vehicle (a poison tree) as merely a convenient parable construed allegorically for the sake of articulating the moral which can be drawn from it" (237).…”

Blake’s Songs, Their Introductions and the Bible

“…266-267). Gallaghar (1977) has attempted a satirical comparison of "A Poison Tree" with the Genesis. When all is said about Blake's poetry, one is forced to affirm with Miner (1969) that Biblical Imagery became almost a sine qua non through which Blake's poetry structured itself, a medium through which his poetry functioned (p. 291).…”