"The Divine Image" is a poem by the English poetWilliam Blake from his bookSongs of Innocence (plate 18, 1789), not to be confused with "A Divine Image" fromSongs of Experience (1794). It is a companion to "The Human Abstract" from theSongs of Experience,[1] one of the three plates by Blake that were most successful (along with "The Blossom" and "Infant Joy").[2]
Aside from the basic observation that the poem reflects thebiblical idea of men created by God in his own image (cf.Genesis 1:26–27[3]),[4] multiple interpretations are possible[5] (E. P. Thompson appears to oppose the complexity: "It is a pity to argue about so transparent a poem"[6]).
The poem expresses straightforwarddidacticism, similar to the one inThe Lamb, like a child repeating in a "singsong voice" the information they have just learned at theSunday school without questioning who are theAll mentioned in the second line. This is in a stark contrast with "The Human Abstract" that challenges the broad signifiers. A "less cynical" interpretation byStephen C. Behrendt is that the speaker is using the abstractions to connect God, an entirely unknown entity to a familiar one, the Man. Yet another approach is to consider the poem to be a "bridge" into the "Songs of Experience" that deals with the death in the real world.[7]
Stanley Gardner points to the idea of reconciliation through Christian compassion in "The Divine Image" stemming from its "cryptic expression" in "The Blossom".[8]
As in many other Blake's poems, the voices here belong not to the individuals, but to the Blake's idea of "states" , the representatives of good and evil mixed within each man.[5]
The plate, like "The Blossom" and "Infant Joy", includes floweringflames. Their restrained appearance signify the consolation and faith turning into a triumph.[2] The visual appearance of "The Divine Image" and "The Blossom" is especially close, relating these texts in a unique fashion.[9]
At the bottom of the plate, Christ, dressed in green, offers a helping hand to the naked and suffering mankind. At the top, kneeling children "pray in [...] distress", and an angel helps them by leading a woman, also in green gown, towards them.[10]
The poem is generally consideredSwedenborgian, "the signature of theNew Jerusalem Church" with its doctrine ofdivine humanity ("Christ is God").[11][4] Unlike bothUnitarianism andTrinitarianism, the doctrine declared that God infused His own life into Christ via the "divine influx", so theTrinity exists, but within one person.[12] Thompson, however, argues that the poem is, actually, anti-Swedenborgian, as the very first verse apparently refutes Swedenborg's statement that "[w]ith Respect to God it is not possible that he can love and be reciprocally loved".[6]
The poem has been set to music several times by different composers:
