A Formalist Approach on William Blake's "The Sick Rose"

Formalistic Analysis

O rose thou art sick,

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy;

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

                The central character in the poem is the rose of whom the author is saying was sick. Literally we can picture out a withering flower with which the cause may be the worm (which depicts death or rot/decay). We can say, upon seeing the whole poem, that the rose was destroyed by the innate nature of the worm to feed on the living flower.

                However, using the connotative meaning, of which there can be many, we can see that the central character which is the rose can be seen assumed as a woman, a girl, damsel, and etc. The woman was on a dilemma because she is “sick” and something or someone has caused the sickness. The “invisible” worm can be viewed as an unexpected happening or circumstance or it can be a person. As mentioned, there many meaning to this poem which is focused on the dilemma of the woman being talked about, we can say that she is of her young age as the “crimson joy” expresses gaiety and burning passion of innocence and youth. This can be viewed as the young woman was taken by illness or that her purity was robbed by a wicked man because of his “dark secret love”, thus taking her innocence and ruined her life.