Ah Sunflower Analysis

Ah Sunflower, weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the sun;

Seeking after that sweet golden clime

Where the traveller's journey is done;



Where the Youth pined away with desire,

And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,

Arise from their graves, and aspire

Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

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Blake uses the natural image of the sunflower to represent mankind's yearning for the eternal and enthusiasm for the future. The virgin winter, the seeds bursting from their graves towards the sun. The enthusiasm of spring and the weariness when all sunflowers fall short of the glory of the sun. But there is hope as we watch each season new sunflowers bloom doomed and blessed by their desires.

| Posted on 2007-07-25 | by a guest

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Ah! Sunflower is a powerful poem, showing the way mankind tries to aspire. The head of the sunflower "Seeking after that sweet golden clime" is showing how man follows and wants but cannot obtain.

The second stanza shows the poet, or narrator, admiring the sunflower's determination to aspire. marvels at it. And maybe the poet is aspiring to aspire how the sunflower does.

| Posted on 2007-03-28 | by a guest

.: analysis of Ah! Sunflower :.

The sunflower is used a a potent symbol of desire. Greek legend tells us the sunflower was created when a woman "pined away with desire" after the Sun God and so turned in to a sunflower, following the movements of the sun throughout the day.

This poem discusses unfulfilled desires. Just as the sunflower is unable to fulfill its desire to be with the sun so to the virginal youth is unable to act on her desires because of an oppressive society. The Virgin is "pale" and "shrouded" suggesting tones of death. Her desires have been buried for her and her life will only be half lived.

| Posted on 2007-03-18 | by a guest

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THe sunflower represents a homosexuals urges to have sex with another man.
the word pansy means gay, and that is why the extended metaphor of a flower is used.

The homosexual feels trapped in a straight world where all the other flowers are making fun of it.

It wants to climb to heaven .. which means literally that it wants to climax with a man.
it wants to go to heaven so that it can pick and choose from all the other pansys and sunflowers in heaven.

The line, "when the travelers journey is done" refers to the sperms movement throw the flowers erection.

whent the journey is done then the flower has climaxed.

the line " shrouded in snow" means that the flower is having a dream about a sexual relationship and it is ejacluating in its sleep on to the other flower.
this is also known as a wet dream.

the flower wants to find true love with another flower and it.

the line "where my sunflower wishes to go" suggests that the writer is gay as well and that he wants to give anal to the flower.


Marisa Heatherway.
PHD from Burkely.

| Posted on 2007-01-26 | by a guest

.: anyalsis :.

The sunflower is tired of following the sun everyday and so wants to be the sun or go to heaven "Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done" and the Youth and the virgin reresent innocence going to heaven but the sunflower cant go to heaven becasue its stuck on earth and i think Bl;ake is saying he wants to go to heaven and is tired of earth but he is sinful and i think he is refering to himself when saying "where my sunflower wishes to go"

| Posted on 2005-12-04 | by Approved Guest

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sun flower is trying to transcend time n space i;e it is trying to attain eternity. "weary of time" and desiring to go to a place where the "jorney is dne" both represent the life after death. sun flower is that innocence which is trying to reach its completion away in "golden clime" where love is free. where youth fulfils its desire n virgin is no more under the clutches of societal coyness.
in a nut shell this sun flower represents blake's idea of innocence which is lokking forward for its completion beyond the bounds of time and space.

| Posted on 2005-11-24 | by Approved Guest

.: analysis :.

This poem is an extended metaphor in which Blake compares the sunflower to a person seeking to reach heaven. The sunflower looks toward the sun, toward the heavens "steps of the sun" (line 2) and is "weary of time" (line 1) meaning near death. Blake further elaborates on the death/afterlife metaphor in that the sunflower seeks where "the traveller's journey is done" (line 4), meaning the end of a journey or the completion of life.
The second stanza recalls the desire of men to go to heaven. The speaker describes the Virgin and a Youth who "arise from their graves" (line 7), or ascend from death, to go "where my sunflower wishes to go" (line 8) which is toward the sun or heaven.

| Posted on 2005-05-10 | by Approved Guest

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In this poem the Sunflower, which traditionally looks like the sun and always turns its face to the sun, yearns to escape, partly from the sun and from what the sun represents, Time. Where the sunflower seeks to go is not clear, except that it is to a region out of or beyond time, a place either of rest and completion, or of exhausted desire, or of cold virginity (associated here with death and unacted desire). The actual destination aimed for is perhaps less important than the fact that the sunflower, rather than joyously rejoicing in life (the spirit of the Songs of Innocence), is here tired and weary of life.

| Posted on 2004-10-17 | by Approved Guest