The Schoolboy (WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature): Revision Note

The Schoolboy

Here is a guide to William Blake’s poem ‘The Schoolboy’ to help prepare you for the Eduqas GCSE English Literature exam. It includes:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an exploration of Blake’s techniques and methods

• Historical and literary context: an exploration of connections between contextual aspects and the themes and ideas within Blake’s poem

• Linking the poems: an understanding of how ‘The Schoolboy’ connects to other poems in the Eduqas GCSE English Literature Poetry Anthology 

Overview

In order to answer questions on any poem, it is vital that you understand what it is about.

This section includes:

• An overview of the poem

• A ‘translation’ of the poem, section-by-section

• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining William Blake’s intention and message

‘The Schoolboy’ overview

‘The Schoolboy’ is a dramatic monologue offering a young boy’s perspective on spending a summer day at school. Blake’s poem criticises the eighteenth-century school system, arguing that it hinders the natural playfulness and imagination of childhood. Highlighting the liberating and uplifting power of the natural world, this poem is an example of Romantic poetry. 

‘The Schoolboy’ translation

Lines 1-5

Translation

• The poem’s child speaker expresses the joy of waking up on a summer morning: he hears birds singing and the “horn” of a hunter

• The speaker sings with the birds, who are good company

Blake’s intention

• Blake elevates the power of nature as he describes the child’s anticipation of spending a summer day outside:

  • Sensory imagery brings to life the pastoral setting

  • This raises ideas about imagination and a connection with nature

• Typical of Romantic poetry, Blake’s simple language presents the child speaker as innocent:

  • Blake’s description of joyful birdsong works alongside the child’s exclamation about the sweetness of spending free time in nature 

Lines 6-10

Translation

• The child speaker contrasts the excitement of a day spent outside with a school day that brings sadness and rids them of “all joy”:

  • The speaker describes a “cruel” teacher who watches the “little ones” 

  • Instead of enjoying the freedom outside, they spend the day inside “sighing”

Blake’s intention

• Blake begins the second stanza with a conjunction (‘But”) to change the mood

• He describes an eighteenth-century schoolday as joyless and tense:

  • Supervision is constant and strict, which leads to children in distress 

• Blake emphasises the innocence of the children with the phrase “little ones”

Lines 11-15

Translation

• The speaker describes his anxiety and boredom at school (he sits “drooping”)

• The child can neither learn nor enjoy his education as he finds it “dreary” and depressing

Blake’s intention

• Blake’s exclamations highlights the child’s innocent, emotional responses:

  • Anaphora (“Nor”) emphasises the lack of learning achieved when children are worried and bored

  • Blake elevates ideas of imagination and joy with the noun “delight”

• Blake juxtaposes the confinement of school against an outdoor setting that brings freedom and joy:

  • The phrase “learnings bower” may connect learning to the natural environment, specifically to the branches of trees

  • Pathetic fallacy is used to connect the idea of rain (“shower”) with the “dreary” school day

Lines 16-20

Translation

• The tone shifts as the child speaker begins an hypothetical argument

• The speaker compares children at school to birds in a “cage”:

  • He asks how a child could thrive in confinement if they are “born for joy”, that a child’s “wing” will naturally “droop” when afraid

  • The speaker suggests school is like a prison that results in a child forgetting how to be playful

 Blake’s intention

• Blake’s metaphor (of children as birds) alludes to the idea of freedom:

  • He criticises school as a place of fear and imprisonment (a “cage”)

  • The image of a “tender” wing presents children as vulnerable and innocent

• Blake raises the idea of a child’s natural exuberance in the phrase “youthful spring”, a typical theme in his collection ‘Songs of Experience’

Lines 21-25

Translation

• The speaker addresses parents, calling on them to question their parental role:

  • He asks parents to consider the damage of limiting a child’s joy

• The speaker suggests a childhood of “sorrow” and worry is harmful

• Children are compared to “tender plants” whose potential “blossoms” may be “nip’d” or “strip’d” (cut short and left bare) if they cannot grow naturally

Blake’s intention

• Blake’s conditional sentences question the consequences of a child’s lost innocence

• The idea of “joy” and “sorrow” are juxtaposed to present an extreme view

• Metaphor connotes to a child’s potential (a growing, flowering plant):

  • Verbs “nip’d” and “strip’d” vividly portray a child’s happiness cut short

  • Blake suggests this would hinder their ability to thrive

Lines 26-30

Translation

• The speaker asks how children could grow up healthily if joy is repressed

• Seasons symbolise the passing of time and the growing child:

  • The “summer” refers to the child’s next phase in life, as they ‘blossom’

  • The speaker asks how a child will come of age and cope with “griefs” or appreciate nature if they cannot enjoy it in their youth or “springtime”

  • An allusion to autumn represents the idea of harvesting (“gather”, “fruits”, and “mellowing year”), connoting to potential or productivity

  • The speaker explains that when “the blasts of winter” arrive (bad times or old age, perhaps), the child will have little resilience 

Blake’s intention

• Blake uses the symbolism of seasons to encourage a consideration of a child’s future, arguing for a natural cycle of life

• Blake suggests that the destruction of a child’s natural joy and imagination, as well as limited time spent free in nature, leads to an unproductive adulthood

Writer’s methods

This section is divided into three sections: form, structure and language. When you write about a poem, aim to expand your interpretation of what the poet is writing about by exploring how they present their ideas and why they have made the technical choices they have. 

Focusing on the poet’s ideas and how they express them will gain you far more marks than examining individual poetic techniques. Look at the analysis in the sections below, which is organised by the main themes of ‘The Schoolboy’ and demonstrates the methods and reasons for William Blake’s choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

‘The Schoolboy’ is a lyrical ballad, typical of the Romantic tradition. Its rhythmic, song-like quality reflects themes of childhood freedom, while the regular structure contrasts this in its representation of a rigid, oppressive schoolday. 

Structure

The poem is a dramatic monologue that expresses a young schoolboy’s perspective. The poem begins by juxtaposing joyful time spent in the natural world against descriptions of a miserable school day. This shifts into a rhetorical argument addressed to parents on the cyclical nature of life.

Language

Blake contrasts a lively natural world with a stifling classroom. He compares children to flowering, fruit-bearing plants to raise ideas about the effects of repressing joy and freedom on a child’s development.  

Historical and literary context

Context offers you a different perspective on a poem and can enrich your engagement with it. However, examiners don’t want chunks of information bolted on at the end of your essay, or even to start it. Instead, use your knowledge of Blake’s life, the times he lived in, and the kind of poetry he wrote to explore themes and support your analysis of the poem.

The ideas explored in 'The Schoolboy' centre around the repression of children’s natural innocence, as well as the importance of the natural environment. Therefore, this section has been bullet-pointed under the following themes:

• Destruction of innocence

• The power of nature and place

Destruction of innocence

• Blake, born in England in 1757, strongly criticised his society, from the lack of charity offered by the church to the harsh treatment of vulnerable children

• At the time, children were either sent to work (often up chimneys or in factories) or were sent to schools where they were treated severely

• William Blake’s poem ‘The Schoolboy’ is from his 1794 collection ‘Songs of Experience’:

  • This collection explores Blake’s visions of a brutal society where traumatic experiences destroy innocence and joy

• Blake’s ‘The Schoolboy’ raises questions about a child’s loss of innocence, imagination, and freedom in a harsh eighteenth century education system:

  • The poem suggests joyfulness is the natural state of childhood

  • A lack of joy is presented as loss of spirit and imagination

• Blake presents the eighteenth-century school as a place of confinement and repression, portrayed through images of a fearful child and a “cruel” teacher:

  • The boy is forced to "drooping sit" and spend "many an anxious hour" under a "cruel eye outworn"

  • This "eye" represents constant monitoring which "drives all joy away"

The power of nature and place

• William Blake lived in London during a time of great change

• The Industrial Revolution was taking hold, making London busier, dirtier, and drearier:

  • Poets, particularly, began to comment on the misery they observed

  • They contributed much of the misery to humanity’s lost connection with the natural world and the monotony of factory work

• The poem ‘The Schoolboy’ is an example of the Romantic movement, which was largely a literary response to the Industrial Revolution

• The period of Romanticism coincided with societal rebellion and protest, such as revolutions in the United States (1776) and France (1789)

• Blake’s poem ‘The Schoolboy’ examines the consequences of a childhood spent in fear and “sorrow”, confined in a schoolroom on a “summer morn”:

  • Blake links the "sweet company" of the birds with a sense of harmony and joy: the “sky-lark" that "sings with me" and the "birds [that] sing on every tree"

  • Later, the poem compares children to birds, implying they need similar freedom and the sense of unity found in nature

• The poem argues against the lost potential of a child who is denied the freedom to wander and play in nature, to grow “blossoms” and bear “fruits”

Linking the poems

The Eduqas GCSE English Literature exam asks you to compare two poems from the anthology. You will be given the text of one poem in the question paper, but you will need to compare this with another poem of your choice, one that comments on the particular theme in the question. It stands to reason, then, that it will be a good idea to understand your anthology poems according to their themes.

Here, you will find a guided list of poems that work well together, and how they are linked by a common theme. Do remember, though, the list below is not exhaustive and themes and ideas often overlap.

The poems you could link with William Blake’s ‘The Schoolboy’ are: 

• ‘Drummer Hodge’ by Thomas Hardy

• ‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen

• ‘Cousin Kate’ by Christina Rossetti

• ‘Blackberry Picking’ by Seamus Heaney

• ‘Remains’ by Simon Armitage

• ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ by William Wordsworth

• ‘Sonnet 29’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• ‘I Shall Return’ by Claude McKay

Sources:

Poetry Anthology (C720) (opens in a new tab)