Love In William Blake's 'The Sick Rose'

I have interpreted “The Sick Rose” to be about a pure and innocent love that can quickly become tainted from secrecy and deceit. The woman’s love is pure and innocent but it becomes quickly tainted by deceit and secrecy. The man’s cruel intentions steals her joy, and therefore she endures a slow death. The first line in this poem reads, “O Rose, thou art sick” (Blake 591). Blake begins this first line in his poem, using a capital letter O. The letter O is a poetic apostrophe, used to address an imaginary character or object (Literarydevices.net). The imaginary object he seems to be addressing in this line, is the rose. He also uses the word “thou” in place of the pronoun you. Thou according to the dictionary, is defined as “the denotation of the person or thing that is being addressed” (Dictionary.com). He is addressing the rose, as if he is referring to a person when he writes, “O Rose, thou art sick” (Blake 591). The feminine name Rose was most popular during a period of time ranging from 1896 to 1921 (Nameberry.com). Despite this spike in popularity, it was still a common name choice for females, in earlier centuries (Nameberry.com). …show more content…
The color crimson is considered an alternate name for the color red in the floral world. It is also a warm and very powerful color. Depending on the Rosa species, the color can range from a traditional red, to a very dark and deepened red. The color red is a very emotional and meaningful color. Some of these emotional meanings are, love, lust, longing, sexuality, desire, embarrassment, anger, and shame (Bourncreative.com). Human beings experience at least some of these emotions on a daily basis. At times, humans can literally turn the color red. For example, a person can blush when they are caught in the act of misconduct or have become