As I’m sure you’ve all read William Blake’s “Visions of the Daughters of Albion,” I know I cant be the only one who had difficulty in understanding the language used in the poem. I can’t say I was able to fully grasp what was going on 100% of the time, I was still able to establish one central idea—the degradation of women.
“The Argument” found in the beginning of the poem introduces a kind of sexual vibe that I picked up on in the third line. Oothoon, the main character of the poem declares that she is a virgin in love with Theotormon; however her virgin status wasn’t very long lasting. “But the terrible thunders tore,” depicts the pain she felt when losing her virginity, which we only later find out is not the doings of her love, but of a rapist—Bromion. As a woman during this time, Oothoon didn’t have control of many aspects of her life but sexual encounters should have been one of them. Bromion took that away from her and stripped her of her virgin status without her consent. In “Visions,” we discover more details of the rape: “Bromion rent her with his thunders; on his stormy bed – Lay the faint maid.”
Oothoon and the Daughters of Albion look to a land, America, and view it as a place of paradise and freedom away from the awful treatment these women receive in their homeland. When the Daughters of Albion hear the cries of Oothoon, they respond and say, “And they enclos’d my infinite brain into a narrow circle.” I interpreted this line as the women declaring what men had done to their mindset over time, they had patronized and belittled them to a point that their thoughts and brains were of no more use. There was so much these women could have been, so much they could have done; men took that away from them and denied them of their ability to actually utilize their brains for any substantial and real purpose.
The line “The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, and echo back her sighs,” is repeated various times throughout the poem. Because of her rape, Oothoon not only loses her virginity and dignity, but Theotormon because he is enraged and jealous her no longer possesses power of her. The line signifies the women’s understanding of her pain, because they too experience the degradation.
I kind of disagree with your central idea of the degradation of women. I am sure that women at the time when this poem was written must have experienced degradation. However, in my poor opinion, what William Blake was trying to point out was not the degradation of women, but quite the opposite. In the poem, Bromion, the rapist, represents a distorted social system. He mentions in line 100, “trees and fruits flourish upon the earth to gratify senses unknown” which I thought might mean that the grassroots at the time worked hard only to satisfy the upper class. Theotormon represents the cowardliness of the general people at the time. It was apparent that his loved one was raped by Bromion, but he does not do anything to punish him. Inferring from this, I thought that Theotormon represents the cowardliness of the general people at the time to fight against the distorted social system. Oothoon, the one who was raped (or victimized by the distorted social system) and as a result lost everything, strives hard to earn back what she yearns: Theotormon’s love. Therefore, I thought since Oothoon, a woman, fights back both to the symbols of a distorted social system and the cowardliness of the norms, William Black might have wanted to say that women at the time were actually better citizens than men.
P.S. Dear classmates, I had very, very difficult time reading this poem. I have read it several times, but I still do not understand the materials thoroughly. If my interpretation of the poem is totally off the track, please do understand and fix me. Thank you and have a good night.
Although I do understand where you are getting at with Blake’s symbolism of the various classes of people, I am unsure of what you mean when you say Oothoon fights back. From what I understood from the reading, there wasn’t anything she could do because Theotormon was so blinded by the mere fact Oothoon was no longer a virgin.
Oh, since she tells her lover about her purity and tries to earn love back, compared to Theotormon who merely does nothing, I used the word fight. But I guess I used the wrong word.
I think Blake wanted to present the idea of woman’s being in the world as a men’s object of desire. I see the parallel as if one conquer enters on the territory, occupy it and achieves his goal, then for another conquer there is nothing to do…allegorically speaking…In the “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” we see the same situation, as woman was defeated by one man she became indifferent to another. The situation is when two hunters were fighting for the same bag (woman). One is the winner and another is a looser. The fact is fact the superior achieve the goal. And the woman’s role is not a big piece here, because here body is just a “meat” to tease up the selfishness of the man. The virginity is just an allegory to present the whole sense of women’s role of that time, that there is no else important for woman to be proud of nor education neither beauty or childbirth function. The other woman’s roles are useless…As for me I don’t see any other concentration of Blake’s inspiration in the reading about daughters of Albion.