William Blake

While learning about some of William Blake’s poetry, I was reminded of a quote I heard once from his work, The Everlasting Gospel.  Blake states, “Both read the Bible day and night, / But thou read’st black where I read white.”  After a little research (namely, Wikipedia), I realized that this work was published posthumously.  It was originally just various, disjointed lines written in margins.  Because it is not a complete work, I may be taking the quote out of context, but for me, it means that we can all gain completely different understandings from the work.  I have been able to read several different interpretations of the same poems in this course, and invariably I find most interesting the postings that vary from the norm, especially the ones that differ from my own opinions.

So far, I have been really impressed with this online course.  It is interesting to see everyone’s reactions to the readings and for real dialogue to occur in this online platform.  As we move forward in the course, I think it will be very important to remember Blake’s words and respect each other’s opinions.