William Blake’ poem ‘The School Boy’ discusses the issue of formal education. Formal education was a fairly new idea at the time when Blake wrote this poem in 1789. ** were expected to attend school in a schoolhouse as opposed to learning at home. Blake uses different literary devices including rhyme, metaphor and the image of both a bird and a plant to get his message across in his poem about how formal education hinders the overall development of young ***.
In the first stanza, we get the picture of a happy boy. The boy loves nature. He enjoys the skylark’ company and likes to hear birds sing. The boy gets entertained by the company of the hunter who blows his *** from a distant field and the sweet lullabies of skylarks.
But, in the very next stanza, the boy expresses his disappointment at being forced to go to school. Interrupting his unusual delightful experience is the time for school. “It drives all joy away!” The little boy shows little or no interest in going to school because the teachers are cruel and the environment is unfriendly, while they spend the whole day in “sighing and dismay”. He feels the classroom is not a place where he belongs, unlike the natural environment that has made him happier earlier on. School **** spend so many “anxious hours” in the class, ending up drooping.
Why does the boy say so? It is only because of the oppressive watchful eye of the teacher. Most teachers believe that they are meant to discipline the behaviour of ****. They tend to forget that at that stage **** need to enjoy the freedom to move about and see the natural world in its real colours. Teachers believe that they ought to force the **** to learn from their books. It is this authoritarian attitude of the teacher that makes the **** resist. That is why **** equate a school with the cage of a bird. It is this idea that the schoolboy expresses In the poem. Therefore, teachers while teaching this poem must remember that the poem is a stern reminder to their own authoritarian teaching style in class.
