A Poison Tree

Quiz — A Poison Tree by William Blake

1. Recall – Form & Publication: In which collection was A Poison Tree published, and in what year? What was the poem's original working title, and what does that title suggest about Blake's target?

1. Recall – Speaker & Structure: How many stanzas does A Poison Tree contain, and how would you describe the poem's rhyme scheme and line length? What effect does this neat, simple form create when set against the poem's subject matter?

1. Recall – Key Contrast: What happens to the speaker's anger when it is expressed openly to a friend, versus what happens when it is concealed from an enemy? How does this contrast establish the poem's central argument?

1. Comprehension – The Tree Metaphor: Explain the extended metaphor at the heart of the poem. What does the tree represent, and what acts as its "water" and "sunlight"? What does it mean that the speaker actively tends this tree?

1. Comprehension – The Apple: What literary or biblical allusion does the apple in the poem invoke, and what does it represent in the context of the speaker's relationship with the enemy? Why might the apple appear appealing rather than obviously dangerous?

1. Comprehension – Night and the North Star: What is the significance of the enemy entering the garden at night, and what does the reference to the pole (the North Star) being obscured add to the scene? How does this darkness connect to the speaker's own moral state?

1. Analysis – Tone and Moral Horror: Blake's tone in A Poison Tree has been described as calm and almost childlike. How does this contrast with the poem's conclusion, and what effect does this gap between tone and content have on the reader?

1. Analysis – Symbols: Choose two of the poem's key symbols — the garden, tears, or smiles — and explain what each reveals about the speaker's psychology and the nature of suppressed anger.

1. Analysis – Historical & Biographical Context: How does A Poison Tree reflect Blake's broader critique of institutions — religious, political, or social — that encourage the suppression of natural human emotions? Why is the poem's place in Songs of Experience (rather than Songs of Innocence) significant?

1. Evaluation – Theme: A Poison Tree has been linked to the themes of anger, betrayal, fear, and death. Choose the theme you find most central to the poem and argue, with reference to at least two specific elements of the poem (symbol, tone, metaphor, or context), why that theme is dominant.

Answer Key

1. It was published in Songs of Experience in 1794. The original title was "Christian Forbearance," suggesting Blake critiqued the religious and moral instruction that tells people to suppress rather than honestly express their anger.

1. The poem has four quatrains (four stanzas of four lines each) with a consistent AABB rhyme scheme and short lines. This tidy, nursery-rhyme-like simplicity creates an unsettling contrast with the poem's dark content — the pleasant form lulls the reader into agreement until a death is revealed.

1. When expressed to a friend, the anger disappears — communication acts as a remedy. When concealed from an enemy, the anger grows and eventually leads to the enemy's death. This establishes the poem's argument that suppression is far more dangerous than honest expression.

1. The tree is the speaker's hidden, nurtured anger. Tears (born of fear and self-pity) act as water, while deceitful smiles and manipulative behaviour act as sunlight. The speaker is the tree's deliberate gardener, showing that the harm caused is not accidental but the result of sustained, conscious cultivation of resentment.

1. The apple evokes the forbidden fruit of Eden and the biblical story of the Fall. It represents the outward attractiveness of the speaker's disguised hostility — the false smiles and cunning wiles that make the poisoned enmity seem appealing. The enemy is drawn to it precisely because it does not look dangerous.

1. The enemy entering at night under cover of darkness emphasises stealth and secrecy. The North Star being obscured signals the deepest possible darkness, making the scene one of total moral concealment. This mirrors the speaker's own hidden, morally obscured inner world — darkness connects the enemy's act to the speaker's sustained deception.

1. The childlike, cheerful rhythm and simple vocabulary make the poem feel innocent and easy to follow — until the final stanza, where the reader realises they have been nodding along to a narrative that ends in death and the speaker's satisfaction. This contrast creates moral horror: the form has seduced the reader just as the speaker's smiles seduced the enemy.

1. The garden represents the speaker's private inner world; calling it a garden reveals that the speaker is an intentional cultivator of evil, not merely a passive victim of anger. Tears symbolise the fear and self-pity that sustain resentment, showing that personal pain, rather than dissolving anger, can paradoxically feed it. Smiles represent the false façade shown to the enemy, illustrating how outward pleasantness can mask profound, growing hostility.

1. Blake was suspicious of any institution — church, state, or social convention — that repressed natural human emotion. The poem's original title, "Christian Forbearance," directly implicates religious moral codes. Songs of Experience contrasts with Songs of Innocence by showing what happens when the trusting, open world of innocence collides with a world of moral constraint: natural feelings like anger get driven underground and become destructive rather than being honestly expressed and resolved.

1. Model answer (anger as dominant theme): Anger is the poem's driving force from first line to last. The tree metaphor gives suppressed anger a physical, growing form, showing it as a living danger rather than a fleeting feeling. The childlike tone underscores Blake's point that suppression, encouraged by social and religious norms, produces something far worse than the original outburst would have — ultimately, a death. Context strengthens this: Blake's critique of "Christian Forbearance" frames the poem as a warning that moralising away anger does not eliminate it but weaponises it.