The Clod and the Pebble by William Blake Analysis

1137 Words5 Pages
How does Blake vividly portray the contrary nature of the clod and the pebble? The poem, ‘The Clod and the Pebble’ by William Blake talks about love, and presents two contradictory perspectives about the idea. The ‘the’ before ‘clod’ and ‘pebble’ in the title suggests that the Clod and the Pebble are the two entities in the poem. Both these aspects of nature have been personified. Softness and malleability are two characteristics of a clod, or a lump of clay, which in this poem represents the voice of innocence. For the clod, love is about sacrifice. The pebble, hardened over time, believes in a love seeking pleasure in another’s loss of comfort. The contrast in the outlook of these entities has been portrayed through the structure, tone, diction and the use of literary devices such as imagery. The poem consists of three quatrains. Of the three stanzas, the quotation marks indicate that the first and the third are the speeches of the Clod and the Pebble respectively. Both the stanzas share the same structure and style of expression. They have the same number of words and rhyme scheme of ABAB. Love is personified in both. They also share many words and phrases, making the last stanza the inverse repetition of the first. This highlights the completely opposite views of the two entities on the same aspects of love. The first line of the first stanza, ‘Love seeketh not itself to please’, implies that in love, one does not seek pleasure for himself. The first line of the third stanza, ‘Love seeketh only self to please’, implies that in love one only seeks pleasure for himself. The second lines of the stanzas show how the Clod believes in a self-effacing and altruistic love as he says ‘Nor for itself hath any care.’ The line ‘To bind another to its delight’ suggests that the Pebble, with its cynical attitude, thinks of love to be restraining and selfish. The third

More about The Clod and the Pebble by William Blake Analysis

Open Document