Key to flowers for “Garden of Love” remediation

Absinthe = absence

Acanthus = unbreakable bonds

Anemone = abandonment

Asphodel= my regrets will follow you to the grave

Bugloss = falsehood

Catch-fly = Snare

Cypress = Death or grief

Cherry Laurel = Perfidy

Madder = Calumny

Calendula = pain

Nettle – cruelty

Rhododendron = danger

White rose = innocence, silence

Sunflower = pride

Thistle = criticism

Weeping willow = bitter sorrow

There are multiple layers of meaning able to be drawn from Blake’s poem, which is an indictment not only of religion, but of the culture that allowed the chains to be drawn tight around them, and which preferred to ponder ghastly graves than flowers, lightness, and love. The use of a floral language, even if not directly referenced, is implicit in his use of the contrast between sweet flowers, and briars. In the presentation image, the flowers used to convey the sentiments of the poem are weedy, unbeautiful, or ephemeral: that is, not a flower you could pluck and add to a bouquet without it dying very quickly.

Blake himself, in the poem, uses language in a way meant to sway his audience toward him. Who could resist the idea of the idyllic child’s play on the green, romping in the sunshine? Then, from sweet flowers to tombstones, again, the natural draw is to life, joy, and the desires he so vividly describes as bound with briars. No child having grown up in the countryside playing outdoors and picking berries would be able to resist the memory of sweet juices hard-won with a little blood and tears from scratches. Blake, a master of this appeal, makes his audience recoil from a cultural constant, the weekly trip to a church, and perhaps, consider what they went to the church for, and why.