Comparison of Tintern Abbey and Songs of Innocence and Experience - Coursework Example

Tintern Abbey and Songs of Innocence and Experience Besides sharing their first s, the two poets, William Blake and William Wordsworth also sharethe same era in literary history: the Romantic period. In fact, both poets have been regarded as the initiators of the Romanticism movement along with their fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Thomas C. Call (2005) also notes that the two poets were of like minds in their philosophical ideas consistent with the period and contributed towards the Enlightenment scientific development. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience and Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey both exhibit similarities as they relate to the context of children and the idea of evolution with time with which occurs a transformation from innocence to maturity through experience. Joseph Duemer (1992, 102), in his chapter, identifies that both Blake and Wordsworth’s writings were inspired by a sense of Neo-Platonism as they endeavor to lift children to mythical characters through rather epistemic implications in response to Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience was intended for an audience of children as well as adults although it is focused more towards the inherent innocence present within children. The Songs presents poems with contrasting theme of “outrage”, “complaint”, and “gladness” (Glen 1983, 165). Similar to the development of a child through time, Wordsworth captures the development youth’s emotions and adulthood’s esoteric thoughtfulness (Furr, 1997). In the poem, Wordsworth reminisces about his visit to the Tintern Abbey next to River Wye about five years ago. But what is significant is not the experience but the development through the course of time. Both Blake and Wordsworth present a development of the human being through time although the two poetries also having contrasting differences such as form and versification. This paper will attempt to highlight the visible and the underlying similarities and differences in the two poems, Tintern Abbey and Songs of Innocence and Experience. Various poems including The Lamb (6), The Little Black Boy (7), The Chimney Sweeper (10), and others in Blake’s Songs of Innocence talk about birth, childhood, and early years’ experiences (2008). Yet as Blake speaks about childhood with a certain symbolism, his poems reflect a criticism of modern concepts of morality as children characterize innocence and understanding of divinity in its purest form. Blake’s emphasis on children is due to his perception of how they view the world in its purest form to comprehend the natural world through a visionary attitude. The collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, manifests the personal philosophical, theological, and spiritual development of Blake winding up in a rationale that is visibly apparent in his works. Timothy Vines explains the usage of bird as a symbol by Blake to represent creative liberty and innocence (2005, 116). Thus, innocence is demonstrated through the employment of symbolism and reading between the lines, it is apparent that Blake is suggesting a unity with God. On the other hand, experience is illustrated through imagery of darkness and dense forestry where man is but alone. Hence, experience is what led to Man’s desolation from imagination as a result of flourishing rationality which detached human beings from abstract and fantastical awareness allowing only reason to dominate one’s thoughts. So, in his explanation of innocence and the subsequent development of man to a state of experience, Blake refers to natural phenomena and symbols so as to explain his articulation through Romanticism. Therefore, Blake’s writing exhibited a Romantic aspect as it relied on symbolism to explain human nature and development. Thacker and Webb (2002, 13) identify childhood fantasies to be one of the most central attribute of Romantic writings. Romanticism lends itself to the development of children’s literature and books as it inherently possessed a sense of innocence aimed at children and also adults. Like Blake, Wordsworth has shown a similar appreciation for childhood through effective symbolism that demonstrates innocence and divinity in its purest form. In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth draws great inspiration from nature as he explains the beautiful landscape of the site (23). Wordsworth recollects his experiences from five years when he visited the place. The retained memories of the scenic forms of Tintern Abbey are actually the remembrances that assist him in remaining coherent in his thinking. Thus, romanticism in terms of nature is present in the poem as was in Blake’s collection of Romantic poetries in Songs of Innocence and Experience (Walker 2009, 12). Now that five years have passed since the experience, Wordsworth reminisces that the memories have become even more pleasurable as he understands nature in a better manner and “with far deeper zeal” (154). Although Blake and Wordsworth follow a Romantic style of writing about nature and other themes, childhood is a more dominant feature in Blake’s works than in Wordsworth’s poem. Thacker and Webb (2002) point out how childhood memories are amongst the most prominent features of Romantic writings and how this has contributed towards the emergence and development of children’s literature having adult authors and a young readership. Blake’s emphasis on childhood focuses on individual experiences in a period of growth and development that involves great changes. However, in the midst of all this change, Blake addresses children by using appropriate rhetoric that appeal to imagination. References to children in his poems are complemented by ideas of happiness and cheerfulness as characteristic of merry children, in their innocence. Coupled with such themes are concepts of natural phenomenon such as birth and the divine being God as the first line of his poem The Lamb goes “Little lamb, who made thee?” (Blake 2008, 6). Such references to children is absent from Wordsworth’s poem, Tintern Abbey although he makes plenty of references about natural beauty in flowing water, landscapes, greenery, and earth. Thus, Blake uses greater symbolism as he articulates childhood experiences and that of adulthood whereas Wordsworth considers the whole pattern of change which occurs throughout life. Time is a significant theme of Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey. The poem itself is about the author reminiscing about a visit which took place five years ago depicting a sense of time. With five years having passed away, Wordsworth tries to say how time has flown and the whole poem displays a visual and temporal transformation from past to present and impressions of how the future is likely to be. The recollections allow him to reconsider how the feelings he experiences on his visit five years ago relate to him in the present. And perhaps how the present moment will be captured and remembered in the distant future. What will remain constant in philosophical terms is change which occurs ceaselessly. Thus, time will continue to move on and an individual will continue to gather experiences as he gets old. Change will keep on happening with time as natural phenomena of growth and development. Towards the end, Wordsworth speaks of how he will think about the “past existence” once it has passed on (150). Apart from differences in their content, Tintern Abbey and Songs of Innocence and Experience also display differences in their form. Songs of Innocence and Experience is two collections of poetries classified into those of Innocence and those of Experience. The versification is clearly different in both the works where poems vary in their number of lines and stanzas. Also, the poems are relatively shorter and greater in number. Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey, however, is a larger poem in length and is divided into far longer stanzas as compared to the poems by Blake. Also, a notable feature of Wordsworth’s poem is the absence of conventional rhymes which is apparent in Blake’s poems. Blake’s poems present alternate rhymes in the verses. So, the rhyme scheme is visibly different in both works and so is versification resulting in marked differences in form and the distribution and arrangement of themes throughout the poem. In conclusion, both works by Blake and Wordsworth encompass Romantic notions about nature and development. Blake writes about childhood quite extensively using different aspects of childhood life and the diverse experiences that are experienced during the course of growth. Starting from innocence in childhood, Blake demonstrates the transformation from an inherently pure individual to one who is overtaken by rationality over imagination. Imagery and symbolism is very visible in Blake’s works as they portray the imagination and fantasies of childhood to the developed faculty of reasoning in adults which change the experiences of all phases of life. Wordsworth, on other hand, has captured the essence of change as it occurs constantly with time as though our presence and existence is mediated temporally. The whole poem Tintern Abbey revolves around the experience of a visit which was made five years ago and how time flies. Hence, change is part of the natural process were present becomes past very soon. Wordsworth reminisces how present experiences capture images that will be viewed in different ways as time passes and the human develops from a child to an adult. Thus, both works are categorized as works of Romanticism but they differ in their form and arrangement. Bibliography Blake, W. (2008). Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. London: R. Brimley Johnson. Call, T. (2005). Science and the Spirit of the Age: Blake, Wordsworth, and the Romantic Scientific Paradigm. Doctor of Philosophy. University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Duemer, J. (1992). Coleridge, Hartley. In: L. Dabundo, ed., Encyclopedia of Romanticism (Routledge Revivals):, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. Furr, D. (1997). Memory: William Wordsworth and “Tintern Abbey”. In: M. Napierkowski and M. Ruby, ed.,Poetry for Students, 1st ed. The Gale Group. Glen, H. (1983). Vision and disenchantment. 1st ed. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press. Thacker, D. and Webb, J. (2002). Introducing childrens literature. 1st ed. London: Routledge. Vines, T. (2005). An Analysis Of William Blake’s Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience As A Response To The Collapse Of Values. Cross-section, 1, pp.115-122. Walker, E. (2009). Marriage, writing, and romanticism. 1st ed. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Wordsworth, W. (1888). Tintern Abbey. [online] Bartleby. Available at: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww138.html [Accessed 14 Aug. 2014]. Read More