The Divine Image Essay Example

The human dress." (Blake 10-12). He displays that these four virtues have characteristics of humanity also. Blake's emotions lead him to feel that the ideal human models God. Blake believes that man holds the same virtues that each human beholds God as. God obtains all these virtues and Blake says that each virtue has a human characteristic to show that God and humans are alike.

Romantic poetry emphasizes "the free activity of the imagination" (Abrams 1321). Blake "regards his imagination as the divine source, the creator" (Britton 179). Blake also considers "Belief" as the act of creation and "Self- doubt" as the act of destruction (Britton 179). The ability to use the imagination enables everyone to have a free spirit and write about the feeling in your heart or mind. Blake utilizes his imagination by using the four virtues usually associated with Jesus to further prove that God and man are similar.

He personifies Jesus's virtues to man to vividly illustrate that Jesus "Becomes the vehicle for Blake's mediation between" God and man (Janjua 14). Although Blake does not overtly mention Christ in the poem Jesus becomes known as an abstract. Blake uses his imagination to incorporate Jesus as a conceptual figure in "the Divine Image" to prove the similarity of God and man. Blake even believes "Mental things alone are real" (Britton 180).

The Divine Image not only emphasizes Blake's imagination, but also habitually bestows human expressiveness in the love of the human form. Human expressiveness in poetry enables the poet to write in what pertains to him in his life. Blake puts an emphasis on these four virtues that do not embody God but are

his substance. The four virtues correspond to man because Blake expresses that these virtues embody the human being through the heart, the body, the face, and the clothes.

Then, "all must love the human form, in heathen, Turk, or Jew" because no matter what race or nationality an individual may be Blake believes that everyone prays for each other, the ideal human being (Blake 17-18). Blake conveys, "every man of every clime, that prays in his distress, prays to the human form divine" (Blake 13-15). Every man on the verge of accomplishing some feet or struggling who prays to God actually prays to the ideal human. He feels that to pray to God in actuality means to pray to every human because we embody the same virtues we perceive God as.

Blake expresses that "God is the image of man" rather in the Bible where man illustrates the image of God (Janjua 14). The insinuation of God " Being a mental creation reflects Blake's belief that all deities reside in the human breast" (Janjua 14). Whomever an individual worships to, they ultimately worship themselves as ideal humans creating a "brotherhood" of mankind ("analysis of William Blake").In conclusion, Blake conveys the characteristics of the Romantic period through his emotions, Imagination, and human expressiveness.

After the occurrence in William Blake's life that changed his style of writing, his work became vivid that all his art and poems were part of the Romantic period. Blake feels that the four virtues that describe God and human bring a sense of similarity between them. He also uses his imagination to use Jesus as a connection to between man and God.

Blake also uses Human expressiveness to reveal that no mater what type of person we are or where we come from we all pray to the human form divine. God does not embody the four virtues but are his components.

Overall, Blake expresses that humans embody the four virtues that we behold God as, so to pray to God essentially means to pray to all human forms.