d love within the natural environment(pre-Church). Blake uses negative images to represent the Church, which in turn conveys the effects that negativity and pessimism can have on positive things. Negativity can often overpower positivity. In The Garden of Love negative images invade a positive environment and change it to suit its needs. The Church tears apart the natural environment in order to create a church, shuts the gates to keep out evil and poor people, and replacing the Garden of Love with a garden of death by substituting tombstones for flowers. Blake uses words that imply darkness and negativity, such as new building, gates, graves, black gowns, and briars. The positive images that are present in the first stanza of the poem eventually disappear and the poem is overflowing with negatives. And I saw it was filled with graves,/And tomb-stones where flowers should be:/And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,/And binding with briars, my joys & desires(9-12). The images of innocence and life that introduced the persona finds her place of refuge overgrown with darkness and infected with limitations. As Jean Hagstrum said, It is always the institutional Urizen who perverts natural life. In the garden of love in Experience stands an altar, and priests read commands from a book on a lectern (531). What used to be a place lush with life and hope is being confined by negativity. Blakes use of conflicting imagery shows how negativity is infectious and limits love. Blake also uses the persona to show the effects of negativity on positivity. The persona changes throughout the poem as the influence of the organized Church on the environment increases. In the beginning, the voice is innocent, pure, open, and exploring, saying, I went to the Garden of Love,/and saw what I never had seen/Where I used to play on the green (1-4). The voice was individualistic and not influenced by any powers other than her own. How...
