A Poison Tree (Edexcel GCSE English Literature)

A Poison Tree

Your Edexcel GCSE English Literature Poetry Anthology contains 15 poems, and in your exam you will be given one poem – printed in full – and asked to compare it to another one from the anthology. As this is a “closed book” exam, you will not have access to the second poem, so you will need to know it from memory. Fifteen poems is a lot to revise. However, if you understand these four essential things about each poem, you will be able to produce a top-grade response:

• The meaning of the poem

• The ideas and messages the poet wanted to convey

• How the poet uses poetic methods to convey these ideas and messages

• How the ideas and themes in each poem compare and contrast with the ideas and themes of the other poems in the anthology

Here is a guide to William Blake’s 'A Poison Tree', from the Conflict Anthology. It includes the following sections:

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

• Writer’s methods: an analysis of the poet’s techniques and methods

• Context: an exploration of the poem’s context in relation to its themes

• What to compare it to: suggestions about which poems to compare it to in the exam

The poem is from Edexcel’s Poetry Anthology.

Overview

To answer an essay question on any poem, you must understand what it is about. This section includes:

• The poem in a nutshell

• An explanation of the poem, section-by-section

• An outline of Blake’s intention and message in each of these sections

'A Poison Tree' in a nutshell

'A Poison Tree' depicts a conflict between the speaker and his enemy. It focuses on the dangers and consequences of suppressing feelings of anger. When the speaker is angry with his friend, he finds it easy to tell his friend about his feelings, but he is unable to do the same thing with his enemy. His anger towards his enemy grows stronger, until he becomes obsessed by it. Blake uses the extended metaphor of a tree growing in the speaker’s garden to describe the growth of his anger; the fruit from the tree eventually poisons his enemy. Although the speaker shows no regret about his enemy’s death, the poem carries a powerful message about the importance of expressing our emotions, even difficult ones.    

'A Poison Tree' breakdown

Lines 1–4

“I was angry with my friend: 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. 

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

Explanation

• The speaker is angry with his friend

• He tells his friend about his anger (“wrath”):

  • By talking to his friend about his anger, he is able to overcome the feelings of wrath

• The speaker is then angry with his enemy (“foe”)

• He doesn’t tell his enemy about his feelings, and therefore his anger increases

Blake’s intention

• By sharing his feelings of anger with his friend, the speaker is able to resolve them and stop feeling angry

• However, he is not able to do the same thing when he feels angry with his enemy:

  • This means he cannot move forward and deal with his feelings, so they increase

• By juxtaposing the two situations, Blake is demonstrating that uncomfortable feelings, like anger, can be overcome if they are discussed

• However, if difficult feelings are not discussed, they are not resolved and instead become stronger, leading to greater conflict

Lines 5–8

“And I water’d it in fears, 

Night and morning with my tears; 

And I sunned it with smiles, 

And with soft deceitful wiles.”

Explanation

• The speaker describes how he nurtures his growing anger:

  • His anger becomes like a thing that is growing external to him

• He nurtures his anger by focusing his fears on it (“water’d” is an archaic way of writing “watered”), in the same way as he would nurture a growing tree

• Every day, at night and in the morning, his tears make his anger grow stronger

• He provides the “sun” for its growth by smiling and deceiving others about his true feelings; his “wiles” are his devious actions

Blake’s intention

• These lines show how the speaker’s anger increases when he keeps it to himself

• Blake’s extended metaphor depicts how the speaker’s anger is so powerful that it has become like an external thing, with a life of its own

• By using the metaphor of a tree for the speaker’s anger, Blake is showing how repressed negative feelings can corrupt nature itself

• However, the things that nurture the tree are the speaker’s fear and sadness – “fears” and “tears” show just how unhealthy his obsession is

• The obsessive nature of the speaker’s anger is shown by him focusing on it constantly, “night and morning”

• Hiding his feelings from other people by smiling and pretending nothing is wrong only strengthens the speaker’s anger and sense of inner conflict

Lines 9–12

“And it grew both day and night, 

Till it bore an apple bright; 

And my foe beheld it shine, 

And he knew that it was mine,”

Explanation

• The tree that represents the speaker’s anger grows constantly

• Eventually, it produces a fruit – a shining apple

• The speaker’s enemy sees the apple and knows that it is the product of the speaker’s anger

Blake’s intention

• These lines show that suppressed anger can grow uncontrollably and result in consequences

• The speaker’s tree bears fruit; in this extended metaphor, Blake is showing how suppressed anger can produce a negative outcome 

• By ending the lines describing the apple with the adjectives “bright” and “shine”, Blake emphasises its perfection and attractiveness

• But, because the apple has grown out of the speaker’s anger, its appearance is deceptive, so it becomes a symbol of both wrath and deceit

• The speaker’s enemy recognises the apple as a result of the speaker’s anger and their conflict; even suppressed anger finally reveals itself

Lines 13–16

“And into my garden stole

When the night had veil’d the pole:

In the morning glad I see 

My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.”

Explanation

• The speaker’s enemy sneaks into speaker’s garden at night:

  • The reference to the “pole” could mean the apple tree itself, or it could refer to the pole star (Polaris, the North Star)

• If the reference is to the pole star, the fact that it is “veil’d” (covered over with clouds) could be a further metaphor for the way in which anger can obscure morality

• It is implied that the speaker’s enemy eats the apple:

  • The speaker is happy to see his enemy lying under the tree the next morning

• Although they are only described as “outstretch’d” (stretched out), the implication is that they have died

Blake’s intention

• These lines demonstrate the destructive result of suppressed anger and unresolved conflict

• Blake uses the homophone “stole” to imply the furtive nature of the enemy’s actions and their taking of the apple without permission:

  • This shows how the negative consequences of suppressed anger can spread to other people and affect their actions, creating a wider conflict

• The speaker is “glad” to see his enemy lying under the tree, showing that his anger has corrupted his morality and overwhelmed his personality

• The person who shared his anger with his friend at the beginning of the poem has become someone who delights in seeing the fatal result of his anger

Writer's methods

Although this section is organised into three separate sections – form, structure and language – it is important to take an integrated approach to AO2. That means you should only consider what the poet is presenting (their techniques, the overall form of the poem, and how it is structured) to help you understand why they have made those choices. Think about how Blake’s language, structure and form contribute to his themes, message and intentions. 

Focusing on the themes, rather than individual poetic techniques, will gain you far more marks. In the following sections, all analysis is arranged by theme, including the intentions behind Blake’s choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

Blake’s regular rhyming scheme of AABB makes 'A Poison Tree' straightforward and easy to read, and gives it the feeling of a nursery rhyme. However, the simple form of the poem conceals Blake’s very complex subject matter, the consequences of suppressed anger and deception, just as his verses conceal the violent conflict they portray.

Structure

Blake uses a regular structure for his four stanzas. The line endings and beginnings, in particular, draw attention to the speaker’s suppression of anger and the importance of communication.

Language

Most of Blake’s language is very straightforward, even when it is unfamiliar to modern readers. His use of repetition emphasises his moral message about dealing with anger. Other techniques reveal information about the deception practised by the speaker.  

Context

Context is important, but knowledge of it should only be used to support an answer about Blake’s ideas, themes and perspective. Examiners don’t want to see random chunks of information about Blake’s life or the times he lived in, because these things don’t tell them anything about your understanding of the poem. The ideas explored in 'A Poison Tree' revolve around the themes of anger and deception, so the contexts in which Blake formed his ideas about these things are the most relevant. Therefore, this section is divided into two themes:

• The suppression of anger

• The dangers of deception

The suppression of anger

• William Blake was a printer and illustrator. He published 'A Poison Tree' in 1794 in his poetry collection, “Songs of Innocence and Experience”

• All of Blake’s poems were accompanied by his own illustrations:

  • The illustration to 'A Poison Tree' shows a sickly-looking tree clinging to the words of the poem

  • This illustrates the way in which suppressed anger has an unhealthy hold over the speaker in the poem

• Blake did not believe that anger was wrong in itself:

  • He was often angry about the greed and injustice he saw in his society

• Like other poets of the Romantic era, such as Wordsworth, Blake believed that emotional expression was a good thing:

  • However, he saw emotional repression, such as the suppression of anger depicted in 'A Poison Tree', as unhealthy and damaging to an individual’s psyche, and to society more generally

The dangers of deception

• Blake had a very strong Christian faith, but he was angry about the beliefs and practices of the established Church in his time:

  • He saw the Anglican Church as hypocritical and deceptive:

    • The Church promised people everlasting life after death

    • However, it didn’t do much to make ordinary people’s lives better

• In particular, Blake rejected the Church’s insistence on the suppression of emotion, especially negative emotions like anger:

  • He saw this as dishonest and deceptive:

    • This is because he believed that anger is a natural emotional response

    • Therefore, suppressing anger leads to the kind of conflict he depicts in 'A Poison Tree' 

• Blake was heavily influenced by the Christian Bible, and by Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’:

  • In 'A Poison Tree', Blake links a biblical story, retold by Milton, with the speaker’s deception:

    • In the Bible, Satan disguises himself as a serpent to tempt Eve to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree; as a result, Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden

    • Blake links the serpent’s deception of Eve with the speaker’s deception – his “soft deceitful wiles”

What to compare it to

Your exam essay will be a comparison of the ideas and themes explored in two of your anthology poems. Therefore, it’s essential to revise poems together, in pairs, to understand how each poet presents ideas about conflict in relation to the other poets in the anthology. The main themes in 'A Poison Tree' are the suppression of anger and the dangers of deception, so the following comparisons are the most appropriate:

• 'A Poison Tree' and 'The Man He Killed'

• 'A Poison Tree' and 'Cousin Kate'

For each pair of poems, you will find:

• The comparison in a nutshell

• Similarities between the ideas presented in each poem

• Differences between the ideas presented in each poem

• Evidence and analysis of these similarities and differences

'A Poison Tree' and 'The Man He Killed'

Comparison in a nutshell:

Both Thomas Hardy’s 'The Man He Killed' and 'A Poison Tree' explore the destruction of an enemy. Blake’s poem depicts the conflict between the speaker and his foe, while Hardy presents the speaker’s foe as somebody he might have been friends with in a different context. Blake depicts the suppression of anger as the motivating force for his conflict, but Hardy focuses his suppressed anger on the external conflict that has led to him killing a fellow human being.

Similarities:

Differences:

'A Poison Tree' and 'Cousin Kate'

Both Christina Rossetti’s 'Cousin Kate' and Blake’s 'A Poison Tree' highlight the dangers of deception to an individual’s happiness and wellbeing. In Blake’s poem, the speaker deceives himself and those around him, while in Rossetti’s poem the speaker has been deceived by somebody else. In both poems, deception generates increased anger, hatred and bitterness. 

Similarities:

Differences: