TITLE:
“This Is My Body; Given for You”: Reflections on William Blake’s Nonverbal Communication in the Songs of Innocence and Experience
AUTHORS:
George Ewane Ngide
KEYWORDS:
William Blake, Songs, Kinesics, Experience, Innocence, Body, Nonverbal, Communication
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.12 No.6,
June
27,
2024
ABSTRACT: This article sets out to probe into the nonverbal communication (kinesics and other body language) of Blake’s characters in his poetry. We ascertain that more than the poetic narratology, the body language of the characters in Blake’s poems and the visual images therein inform more and give greater meaning to his poetic discourse. In other words, Blake offers the bodies of his characters (This is my body) to the readers for a better understanding of his poetic semantics (Given for you). The bodies given up to the reader are, put differently, external manifestations of the characters’ internal dynamics. They express joy, sadness, states of mind and other emotions depending on the circumstances in which they find themselves.