The Garden Of Love

Well, I have tried to analyze this poem, although I'm not very good at it most of the time. Here is what I think about it:

I think with the first two lines,
"I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:"
he is showing that he has just matured and realized something very important.
I also think that Love may have different meanings.. maybe it could stand for "Eden" or even "Sex"?

"A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green." - Here, I think that Chapel stands for a newfound religion, with the first two lines supporting that.

"And the gates of this chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;" - At this part of the poem, I think that the narrator has come to see all the restrictions that this newfound religion has put on his life.

"So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore," - Maybe not wanting to be restricted from his old ways, he tried to turn away from the religion?

"And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:" - but, when he tried to turn from the religion, he understands that to turn from the religion ignorantly would mean death instead of everlasting life?...

"And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires." - and for these two lines, I would have to say that the priests are mixing or comparing his joys & desires with a poisonous plant, showing that he must repent from many of his joys and desires because they will lead him to death instead of life.

So, overall, I think that this poem is about his constant struggle with conflicts involving his religion, joys, and desires.

But, I have no idea, I just thought I'd take a stab at it.

This comment is more criticism of Justin's interpretation. His take on the symbolism is far fetched to say the least. It just doesn't make sense that one intrusion into the Garden is benign (church=finding religion) while another intrusion (the graves) represents something bad. Furthermore, the fact that both the church and the graves are images taken from the realm of Christianity suggest (in accordance with rudimentary rules of poetic analysis) that they both symbolize the same general opinion, in this case the restrictions of the Church on the lives of people.
Obviousliy Justin is a Christian who just want the poem to agree with his personal belives. I think Justin should start taking poems for what they are, not what he want them to be. And on that accusing note I end my post.

i think this poem is basically an attack on organised religion. blake was opposed to the way the church enforced their own rules on people and restricted them from the pleasures of life. i think the doors of the chapel being shut is symbolising that the church was separated from the people and acted as a what blake called a 'net to god'.. basically preventing them building a personal relationship with god..

'thou shalt not writ over the door' is not an attack on the ten commandments as such, but more on the fact that the church tried to dictate peoples lives with rules.

the bit at the end basically bluntly states what the poem is about.. 'binding with briars my joys and desires'... it seems to remind me of christs crown of thorns so perhaps it is also saying that even christ was restricted in his relationship with god.

the name, ' the garden of love' also reminds me of the garden of eden where adam and eve loose thier innocence... and come experienced (this being a poem from the songs of experinece)..i think this connects with the church taking away the personas ‘Garden of Love’and taking away the fun of love by social institutions such as marriage.. which Blake actually disagreed with as he felt it placed restraints on natural impulses!

I agree with most of the views from Scarlett, but I think it's important to compare this poem to "The Echoing Green" in Blake’s Songs on Innocence. The comparison is pretty simple, "The Echoing green" suggests an ideal life that could be lived if the opportunities were there and "The garden of Love" symbolises adulthood. This person comes back to his childhood place, which was full of joy, nature and sport to find that there is now a closed chapel. It literally cries out the corruption of religious institutions. Religion and the church in general is suppose to be a place of hope, belief and goodness, but during Blake's years it was pretty much the opposite. Everyone was living a terrible life in poverty and the chucrh, which has always been the richest establishment, was trying to impose rules on society.
Overall I think the poem is full of dark imagery with deep meanings.

Oh boy. Let me try to make a stand for the U.S. here. The following is a short critical response on the last stanza, which I had to write as part of a British Literature exam.

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In this passage from Blake’s “The Garden of Love,” the speaker describes in a dark and foreboding tone how the garden he once enjoyed as a playground has become a dismal and depressive graveyard. The last two lines of the stanza are particularly important in their use of two key terms – “priest” and “binding.” These two words together suggest the limitations organized religion places on pleasurable experiences and the development of a deeply personal relationship with God. The word “binding” can also refer to Blake’s belief in the limitations of the senses. Blake believed that perception based only on empirical observations made by the senses was restrictive. Consequently, exercising imagination to see beyond the empirical was profoundly emancipatory. The anaphora contributes to the feeling of anxiety within the poem. The repetition of the word “And” allows the reader to hear the speaker spouting out the multiple ways in which his enjoyment is being restricted, seeming as though he will begin ranting at any moment.

***

I think it's also important to remember that literary analysis is an acquired skill. Ridicule is what often turns people away from attempting any sort of deeper involvement with the text, which, as literature lovers know, can be quite fascinating!

I have had to read 'The Garden of Love' for my yr 11 GCSE C19th Love poem essay, I have to say from first reading it I was so confused about its meaning - after reading it again more closely I thought I understood what the poem was symbolising. From reading all your ideas I felt slightly naive, I recognised the chapel representing the church etc and that the whole poem was very anti love but I didn’t read the poem as Blake voicing how the church prevents a deeper relationship with God.
From reading the poem I thought that it was expressing a man and a woman's love- a romance story in the Garden with the 'sweet flowers' and where Love ruled. In the start of the poem the Garden is described beautifully – showing how the man felt for the woman. The Chapel represented marriage and the progress of his relationship with his partner. The fact that the Chapel gates were shut could show the limitations of marriage and the woman’s doubts in proceeding with the ceremony as she shared the views of Blake.
"Thou shalt not," which was written over the door symbolised the woman turning him down in marriage - then the Garden turns into a place of hatred and death, "tombstones" "black gowns" – showing the mans rejection.
I feel that the Garden represents the man's emotions so when he was in love it was in full bloom, once he felt rejection the Garden changed, with the main focus as the church, showing how when marriage goes wrong people blame the bond that legally held them together thus loosing faith which leads to loosing love.
So basically I thought the poem was about a man being rejected by the love of his life in his proposal of marriage – but I doubt this is even close, as I am only 16 – I am not as broad minded as I would like, if you could comment on my idea so that I can gain some more knowledge on the poem before I write a load of rubbish in my essay thanks for listening!

Tt the end of the day samantha a poem is whatever you interpret it as, however you should be able to contradict your view with a different one such as scarletts view, which is one i happen to agree with. In a lot of Blake's poem trying to understand the deeper meaning can often confuse you more, take a look at it for a word for word basis and then a deeper meaning and see which one makes more sense. At first i despised this poem but its definitely one of my faviourites now. To me the poem is faily simple however you do have to compare it with the echoing green which is its contrary poem.

In the echoing green its simply children playing while an eldery man looks back on his life and remembers how he used to be like that etc etc

In the garden of love you can eaither see it as the the old man visiting the place he used to play where there is now a church, or you could read it as a child from the echoing green looking at where he used to 'play on the green'.

To be honest the poem in my opinion has nothing to do with love, blake was being ironic as its the place the narrator used to love when he/she was a child and when he was innocent.

try looking at the poem in terms of themes such as restraint, religion, loss of innocence and so on.

Fantastic comments!
This is a disturbing poem on many levels. First, why a garden of love? Why not just a garden? Perhaps Blake wants the reader to understand that a garden, or a public green space, is many things to many people.
The person speaking had to have been gone in order for a chapel (or church) to be fully built at the site. So, I take it that this person was revisiting the area in which his memory is being assulted first by a building where once was an open space (Like Central Park or Mount Royale) that people and families enjoyed with abandon. As he adjusts to the first change, he notices yet more,disturbing changes. The assult to his senses overwhelm him: the locked gate, the negative posting, graves and tombstones, and priests doing their rounds!
This poem does not hold back! The changes are too blatant. Priests doing rounds behind locked gates--with tombstones as their companions! The living are locked out during the ritual. My. One could say the priests were guilty of "dead practices".
Historically, churches such as this one also locked out their poorer congregants by charging fees for seating.
So, not only was the Green space invaded, but further insult was heaped onto the working and lower class people. The church was busy locking out the people, putting on a show "walking their rounds" and enforcing rigid rules.
I like to think that "The Little Vagabond" should be read with this poem. Just the first line from this poem goes so well: "Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold".
If reading this poem with "The Ecchoing Green", note that there is no sound of the church bells, no happy sounds from nature...no sound at all.

I believe this poem is being misinterpreted-primarily because the poem listed is missing the first half. The entirity of this poem includes two stanzas unlisted here. They read as follows:

I laid me down upon a bank,
Where Love lay sleeping;
I heard among the rushes dank
Weeping, weeping.

Then I went to the heath and the wild,
To the thistles and thorns of the waste;
And they told me how they were beguiled,
Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.

The sole basis of this poem contrasts the original garden of love with the garden of love the narrator finds later.
The original garden of love was free-anything was possible. Meaning, anybody could love anybody, and any body could love anything. The garden was open to all, without discrimination or biguilding.
The garden of love that the narrator finds later is altered in more than once way. First, the garden is no longer a green pasture open for wandering. It now contains a chapel. The chapel doors are shut, implying that nobody can actually see whats in side. Parallelling this, many evangelical leaders do not allow their followers to view texts of biblical literature, rather they are told by their leader what to believe and what biblical texts supposedly say. Neither can look inside to see for themselves. Second, the fact that thistles and thorns of the waste were biguilded and driven out to the chaste implies that with the implimintation of both the chapel and the pastor and briar that people were expelled from the garden of love. NOT EVERYONE IS ALLOWED TO LOVE in the new garden occupied by the church. Third, the garden once filled with blossoming flowers, love, is now filled with graves and tombstones representing the excommunication of those individuals biguilded and compelled to the chaste. CHASTE is key here-it is defined as refraining from sexual intercourse that is regarded as contrary to morality or religion. Therefore, the graves represent what the garden of love used to be-open. It now can only be used by people who coincide with religious beliefs of the imposed chapel. Fourth, the pastor and briar are binding the narrator's joys and desires. The church is telling people what they can desire.
Analysis of Interpretation-the basis of this poem boils down to church declaring restrictions on love. This poem is an advocate for lesbian gay and bisexual love. The garden of love was created, love IS FOR, EVERYONE. Once religion steps in, however, only certain individuals have the right to love. William Blake was a revolutionary man, and a revolutionary activist.

I've been looking for an explanation as to why there are two versions of this poem floating around, the short and the long. But seeing the confused-seeming comments here, I thought I would add my own. I put this poem to music back in high school, so I'm very familiar with it.

It's generally accepted that the Garden of Love is primarily about Blake's dislike for the church's practices, as has already been stated by other commenters. The two extra stanzas of the long version (two people have added them in the comments already) add a great deal to the poem, making the metaphor a more complex story.

In the first two lines, "I laid me down upon a bank / Where Love lay sleeping," Love is personified. The usual personification of love within a Christian context is Jesus or God (i.e. "He is love"), but whoever Love is, the Garden of Love obviously belongs to him. So what is Love doing exiled from His own garden? Why is He sleeping on a riverbank with weeping coming from the rushes nearby? Remember that baby Moses was found in the rushes, but Love has not been taken in like Moses was. He has been abandoned.

That Blake recognized Love and has now lain with Love on the riverbank indicates that he knows Him in an intimate way. This being from "Songs of Experience," we can see this as a clear reference to his experience of sex. He has now discovered that love can be expressed sexually.

Next, Blake goes "to the heath and the wild, / To the thistles and thorns of the waste." In other words, this is land untamed by humans; a natural part of the original Creation, but not seen by most as a good part of it, or it wouldn't be called a "waste." And the plants in this land tell him that they have been "beguiled, / Driven out, and compelled to the chaste." These plants are commonly considered to be weeds, meaning that they are generally undesirable to the sorts of people who cultivate gardens.

So, these weeds were driven out, but from where? I see two answers to this. Answer 1: Thistles and thorns are what you weed out of your garden, so they have been exiled from the Garden of Love as well. But they are newly exiled. Obviously, Love allowed them there, but now whoever exiled Love has exiled these unwanted things as well. They are told to be chaste, to never love.

Answer 2: Thistles and thorns come from the wasteland, so to be "driven out," they must be driven out of the waste itself. In this scenario, they were driven out into the Garden and then compelled to be chaste, or no longer wild, while there. This answer is supported by the priests' use of tame thorns -- briars -- later in the poem to bind up joys and desires: these briars have been beguiled into the service of chastity.

Now we get to the Garden of Love itself. The first stanza clearly indicates that Blake was extremely familiar with the Garden of Love from his youth. "Where I used to play on the green" is a clear reference to "The Echoing Green" from Blake's "Songs of Innocence," which is about how children playing together on the green is a universal childhood experience tying generations together. In other words, the love that Blake is familiar with is familial love rather than sexual. But now that he has reached adulthood, he finds that love's natural expressions are no longer free and universal, but rather bound by the restrictions of the church. What would be natural and true to the nature of Love and His Garden has been hidden (the gates are shut), forbidden ("Thou shalt not"), and outright destroyed (flowers replaced by graves).

The priests have turned this from a bright, happy garden full of play and beauty into a garden of punishment and death. If the weeds before were undesirable people, the flowers would naturally represent desirable people. However, even they have lost their loveliness and happiness in life, being given only briars and graves in return. This represents how the church forbids people to do pleasurable things in life, telling them to wait instead for the pleasures of death and the rewards of heaven. Perhaps another way to view this is to think of the expression of love as being the center of people's lives, and to deny it to them is to kill off the center of their lives and replace the expression of love with a hope for death. They are living life as if they are already dead.

And what of the personification of Love, exiled from the Garden? Jesus was given a crown of thorns, and Blake's joys and desires were bound up by thorns. This illustrates that the church has betrayed Love, betrayed the very God they were supposed to be serving, by forbidding people an expression of love that God obviously created for them. The priests have cast out the adult expressions of love and beguiled everyone into thinking it was done in the name of Love. But in reality, in casting out part of Love, they have cast out all of Him. Love can no longer be found in this garden. You must go searching for Him where He lies sleeping by the river, abandoned and exiled, hidden by the rushes. He is found in nature and in the free expression of human spirits, not in the hands of Man.