Hannah More vs. William Blake :: Poem Poetry Compare Contrast Essays

Hannah More vs. William Blake The Little Black boy and The Sorrows of Yamba are both anti-slavery songs. two Blake and More were against the political and social structure of slavery, but the way in which they choose to address the issue through their poetry is quite different. Differences in tonality, sexual activity of main characters, implications for the future of these characters, and the audiences these pieces were addressed to make for a good contrast to the similarities they inevitably share in being both anti-slavery.Blakes poem, The Little Black Boy seems to be more than hopeful then Mores, The Sorrows of Yamba, which is in accordance with comments made about Blakes general attitude in Songs of Innocence. This hopefulness appears to come from a combination of conviction and hope on the part of the author mixed with a type of ignorance on the characters part. The boy does not know any better therefore, he rouse envision a heaven where he is an equal to the white Engl ish boy in heaven with him. Mores poem does not seem as hopeful, it is more laden with grotesque imagery, something we might expect to see in a counterpart to Little Black Boy in Songs of Experience. Mores descriptions are corporeal, and the despair and offend seem to be shouting out of these carcasses with mangled flesh. Part of this difference in tonality may be due to the gender of the narrators and similarly the authors. As a man, Blake has always maintained the position a more privileged position in society compared to More simply because she is a woman. Although Blake may not represent with slavery, he is not writing from the perspective of a person who has been marginalized because of a biological difference within him, whereas More is. Perhaps because of this she has more knowledge and concord of the internal strife, and more of a right to speak, of a person of color being stripped of all they have - even the desire to live.However, beyond the little reading of the autho rs gender, though beneficial, there are lots of similarities and differences within the texts themselves. First, the genders of the narrators match up with the genders of the authors. One is a child, a boy, and one is an adult-the mother. I thought Blakes poem seemed to fit within the end of Mores poem through the mothers sentiment, in the sense that the little boy was accepting Christian teachings of heaven?