Songs of Innocence and Experience - Essay Example

and Number of the Teacher’s SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE BY WILLIAM BLAKE Introduction The artist, engraver and poet, William Blake (1757-1827) believed that poetry and design were inextricably linked and were two different forms of the same art. One of the finest craftsman, he possessed the originality and talent needed for the practise of both. Blake’s earlier poems like Poetical Sketches were in written form or in ordinary print. Inspired by mystical vision, from 1788 he embellished his poetry in design and color, so that each poem picture formed an artistic whole, with the written words of the poem forming a part of the picture. For producing the twenty seven plates of his poems Songs of Innocence and Experience dated 1789, the artist-poet developed the laborious method of etching both poem and design in relief on a copper plate. This initiated his now famous series of Illuminated Books (Blake: 11). William Blake’s volume of poetry titled Songs of Innocence and Experience reflects his belief that innocence and experience were two diverging states of the human soul, and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Some of the Songs of Innocence which mostly pertain to children, have an equivalent in the contrasting Songs of Experience (IntArch, 2008). Thesis statement: The purpose of this paper is to examine in depth, the Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake. Discussion The poems with illustrations are a unique feature of Blake’s works from 1788, including the Songs of Innocence and Experience. The illustrations help readers to understand the poems, while exhibiting the works in their original forms. The designs intensify and raise the meaning of the written word to greater heights. The poet felt impelled to produce his poems in this form partly because of his “cast of mind, whereby the life of the imagination was more real to him than the material world” (Blake: 11). His lyrical poems were valuable on their own, but he did not wish that they should be read in plain written form. For words and symbols to re-inforce each other, Blake identified ideas which could be translated into visual images. Context to The Songs of Innocence and Experience: The poet Blake used his work to express his principles regarding various aspects of human life, speaking out from within his mind and heart. Rising above the ordinary world of common experience, the poems formed an embodiment of the imaginative vision of the poet. His poems reflect the fact that he was an independent and rebellious thinker, who intensely disliked pretension and falsity in others (Blake: 11). The Songs of Innocence were products of a mind in a state of chaste goodness, the poems showed an imagination that was unspoiled by worldliness. William Blake’s increasing awareness of the social injustices of his time urged him towards composing the sequence of lyrical poems known as the Songs of Experience. When he composed the Songs of Innocence he had not conceptualized the contrasting poems embodying Experience. Due to Blake’s emotional conditions related to public events, Innocence changed to Experience, depicting his involvement with the problem of Good and Evil. Along with this, the poet’s feelings of indignation and pity for the sufferings of mankind on the streets of London resulted in his composing the Songs of Experience (Blake: 12). The songs of innocence and experience consist of some of Blake’s best loved poems, portraying his poetic and artistic aspirations. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (created from 1789 to 1794) align the innocent world of rural childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression; for example poems such as “The Lamb” represent a meek virtue, while poems such as “The Tyger” portray contrasting darker forces. Thus, the collection as a whole examines two different perspectives of the world. Several of the poems are in pairs, one of the pairs being in the Innocence category, and the other being in the Experience category, such as “The School Boy”, “The Chimney Sweeper”, “Holy Thursday”. Thus, the same situation is examined through the viewpoint of innocence first and then through that of experience. Blake does not identity himself with either perspective, most of the poems being voiced by a speaker other than the poet himself who maintains a distant position, in order to recognize and correct any false notions on either side. An essential insight into Blake’s perspective in the Experience poems is that he believes that the separate modes of control exercised by despotic authority, restrictive morality, sexual repression and institutionalized religion converge and work together to deplete human beings of their innate holiness. Thus, “Blake disapproved of Enlightenment, rationalism, institutionalized religion, and of traditional marriage” (Alvarez: 45). Whissell (p.459) compared the words contained in the Songs of Innocence with the Songs of Experience, by using the Dictionary of Affect, a tool listing the pleasantness, activation and imagery of several thousand words. The researcher found that the Innocence poems were both more pleasant and more active than the Experience poems. Both sets of poems contained rich imagery, were pleasant in tone, and were more emotionally written than both normative English and the work of William Blake’s contemporaries who wrote in the Romantic genre. It is important to understand the social context in which the poems were written. The Romantic Period from 1785 to 1830 was a time in which the agricultural society of England experienced tension regarding matters of power and wealth. The French and American revolutions brought about changes due to inflation and depression. The working classes were suffering due to adverse economic and social conditions. Both literature and poetry reflected a mood for self expression, with emphasis on one’s principles and critical perspectives. For Blake, the reader held an important role in providing a response to the poet’s ideas (Alvarez: 58). The songs of Innocence narrate the hopes and fears that children experience, and trace their changes while the child grows into adulthood. Some of the poems are written through children’s voices, while others are about children viewed from an adult’s perspective. Several poems focus on the nature of children before distortion creeps in through the corrupting influences of adulthood. Some poems critically analyse innocent purity, as seen in the emotional power of basic Christian values described emotionally by Blake, while at the same time he exposes Christianity’s capacity for promoting injustice and cruelty (Alvarez: 45). The Songs of Experience draw equivalents and contrasts to rue the fact that the harsh experiences of adult life destroy what is good in innocence, while at the same time emphasizing the weaknesses of the innocent viewpoint. For example, “The Tyger” attempts to account for negative forces in the universe which innocence is unaware of. The latter poems of Experience treat sexual morality in terms of the repressive effects of jealousy, shame, and secrecy, all of which corrupt the ingenousness of innocent love. Experience is concerned with the institution of the Church, its value to society and individuals. Experience adds a shadow to Innocence, darkening its positive approach to the future, while compensating for some of its unawareness. The basic style of the Songs of Innocence and Experience is straightforward and simple, but the language and rhythms are developed laboriously to be intricately presented. The concepts are deceptively complex. Many of the poems like the “The Sick Rose” and “The Divine Image” present their perspectives through symbolism or abstract ideas. The poet’s favorite narrative techniques are personification and the presentation of Biblical symbolism and language. Blake often uses the familiar meters of ballads, nursery rhymes and hymns, adapting them to his own unorthodox style. His continued use of reframing human thought and social behavior is built on combining the traditional with the unfamiliar (Alvarez: 46). Blake frequently employed biblical imagery, Greek myths, pseudo-Celtic history, and deep insights into his perspectives on eternal truth. His poems reveal a mastery of words and poetic form supported by a distinctive visual language to communicate the poet’s vision of the world, time and eternity. Further, his work portays the identity of the English nation in poetic and symbolic terms using a unique blend of biblical, druidic and invented imagery. As a multifaceted artist and poet, Blake’s work shows his vision of heaven and hell, innocence and experience, and revolutionary sentiments of the late eighteenth century. His work appears to fit better into the contemporary scene, rather than with the painters and illustrators of his time. Blake included characters who could never suffer nor decline; and frequently the poet reveals his unique talent of catching in visual and verbal terms the substance perceived by the mind’s eye beyond suffering and decay (Greer: 254). Similar Themes of the Poems Both the collections, on Innocence and on Experience share poems with the same titles and themes, but the treatment differs between them. An example is The Chimney Sweep which appears in both sets, but there is a contrast between the unknowing small boy from Songs of Innocence and the more worldly wise person in Songs of Experience. The word Songs creates images of musicality, from the pastoral shepherd’s pipe of the Introduction of the Songs of Innocence to the bardic harp of The Voice of the Ancient Bard, which concludes the Songs of Experience. Each collection shows comparative images of children, babies, religion and the general world in which we live, and how a child sees things when first in a state of innocence, and differently later on reaching maturity. These poems often depict the pastoral ideals of Innocence as converging with the religious and social themes of Experience, thus emphasizing that the opposing concepts of the two collections are not mutually exclusive (Poole, 1999). Some of Blakes’s poems of the same name are present in both the Songs of Innocence and Experience. In ‘Holy Thursday’ from Songs of Innocence, the poetry is descriptive and rich, and is a depiction of events that allows all readers to easily comprehend the feelings behind the words. The second from Songs of Experience, is easy to understand only when read alongside the first poem. Then, the contrasts and similarities become evident. For example, in the Innocence poem of ‘Holy Thursday’, the line 9 states “Now like a mighty wind (the children) raise to heaven the voice of a song”. This explains lines 5 and 6 of the second ‘Holy Thursday’ of the Experience collection, which state that “Is that trembling cry a song?/ Can it be a song of joy?”. Since Blake does not return to the idea or explain the questions, only a knowledge of the content of the first poem helps in comprehending the second poem (Mead, 2008). Another reason why reading the first “Holy Thursday” is important is that, the second does not mention the title word ‘Thursday’, and the word ‘holy’ has been used only once. But together, by drawing parallels, the reader is able to follow the poet. The second poem does not speak of the tradition of poor children begging from the rich, but is clear when both poems are read concurrently. For example, from the first poem, “The children walking two & two, in red & blue & green. Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor” (lines 2 and 11) and from the second poem, “In a rich and fruitful land,/ Babes reduced to misery,/ Fed with cold and usurous hand?” (lines 2 to 4), help to explain what Blake is writing about. The poems contrast each other, while at the same time they are mutually enhancing for each other, adding depth of meaning. They probe human emotions to think about the innocence of Holy Thursday, and the value of experiencing it (Mead, 2008). The Songs of Innocence poem “The Chimney Sweeper” also has a counterpart in the Songs of Experience collection. In the first poem, inspite of the child chimney sweeper’s poor life conditions and difficult work, he cheers up at the Angel’s words that “if hed be a good boy/ Hed have God for his father, & never want joy” (lines 19-20). He prepares to go for work one cold morning with a happy heart. This is conveyed by the lines “Tho the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm/ So if all do their duty they need not fear harm” (lines 23-24). Contrastingly, in the second poem, in the Songs of Experience, the young chimney sweep cries out in misery about his plight. He feels saddened by the fact that he has been made to sweep chimneys, a dirty and laborious task, which is especially difficult for children to carry out. He states that his parents do not realize the injury they have caused him because of his cheerful demeanor, and that “They clothed me in the clothes of death/ And taught me to sing the notes of woe” (lines 7-8), further, about their being away at Church: “And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King/ Who make up a heaven of our misery” (lines 11-12). By these lines, the poet has expressed his views about the selfishness and cruelty of the upper class, including the Church and State. The poem conveys his lack of faith in these institutions which enslave young children in order to meet their own requirements. Here the attitude of the chimney sweep is different, since he is aware of the cruelty that he is subjected to (Mead, 2008). Another example is the differences between the two poems of “The Lamb” and ”The Tyger”, in the Innocence and Experience collections respectively. These two poems clearly indicate the “two contrary states of a human soul” (IntArch, 2008). “The Lamb” is written in simple language but with a deeper meaning, and represents a sense of innocence and naivete such as that related to children. The repetition of lines in sequence form adds to the childlike quality of the poem. For example, the repetition of “Little Lamb, who made thee?” twice and “Little Lamb, God bless thee” also twice, reinforces the feeling of childishness. Further, Blake’s belief and trust in God is evident from this Innocence poem. Contrastingly, in the poem “The Tyger”though the central idea remains the same as in the corresponding one, the whole perspective is transformed. The Tyger represents the darker side to creation where very little joy is available. In this poem, Blake depicts the horrors of this world, to contrast it almost completely from “The Lamb”. The purity and simplicity that was displayed in the Lamb is not shown in the Tyger. Fierce and relentless effects are produced by the use of strong action words such as “burnt”, “sieze”, “beat”, and vivid imagery with words such as “fire”, “hammer”, “furnace” an “chain”. “Did he who made the lamb make thee”? is a telling question asked by the poet, after describing the fearful power of the tiger (Mead, 2008). Further, some words and themes that are common to both collections are: child, children, church, song, songs, joy, sorrow, and love (Poole, 2008). For example, the word ‘child’ occurs in the Introduction to Songs of Innocence as “On a cloud I saw a child/ And he laughing said to me”, and again at the end of the poem as “Every child may joy to hear”. Similarly in the poem The Lamb, the word child is used in “I a child & thou a lamb”. In the Innocence collection other poems that have the word ‘child’ are: The Little Black Boy, The Little Black Boy Lost, The Little Black Boy Found, A Cradle Song, The Divine Image, and On Another’s Sorrow. The word ‘child’ is used in the Experience collection of poems also: in Little Girl Lost: “Lost in desart wild/ Is your little child”, in Little Girl Found: “And dream they see their child/ Starv’d in desart wild” and in “Saw their sleeping child/ Among the tygers wild”. Similarly, in A Little Boy Lost: “The Priest sat by and heard the child” and “The weeping child could not be heard”; and in other poems of Experience such as The School Boy (Concordance, 2008). In the same way, several other words and themes are used in both the types of poems. Religion and the Church play an important part in the poems whether in relation to holy days or divine imagery. The picture of divinity changes when one shifts from the innocence poems to the experience poems. In the former, in the poem The Divine Image, there is a reference to “And love, the human form divine”, with peace as the human dress. In the poem A Divine Image of the Experience collection, “Terror, the human form divine” the word ‘divine’ is used as a sarcasm or mockery, to portray that the human form is devoid of divinity in the context of “Cruelty has a human heart/ And jealousy a human face” (Concordance, 2008). Blake believed that children should not be protected from gaining perceptions and becoming experienced. This is seen in these poems which reflect a child’s viewpoint in contrast to the adult’s perspective. The concept of ‘joy’ occurs in both Innocence and Experience. In the former category, the word is used in several of the poems: Introduction, The Little Black Boy, The Chimney Sweeper, Laughing Song, Night, Spring, Infant Joy, and On Another’s Sorrow. On the other hand, in the latter category, the theme of ‘joy’ is used only in Earth’s Answer, Holy Thursday, The Sick Rose and The School Boy. In the former usage, the word invokes the concept of happiness and delight such as “Sweet joy but two days old” in infant Joy, and “O! He gives to us his joy” in On Anothers Sorrow; while in the Experience poems, it is used interrogatively as “Can it be a song of joy?” in Holy Thursday, or in the statement “O! It drives all joy away” in The School Boy, both with negative connotations (Concordance, 2008). Surprisingly, the words ‘sorrow’ and ‘sorrows’ are used more in the Innocence poems than in the Experience poems. In the former, “Who is sorrow pale/ Through the lonely dale” in Little Boy Found, “And not be in sorrow too”, and “weep nor be with sorrow filled” in On Anothers Sorrow. In the latter category, the word occurs in “Her arm’d with sorrow sore” in The Little Girl Found and “By sorrow and cares dismay” in The Schoolboy. The theme of ‘sorrows’ is also used in the Innocence poem On Anothers Sorrow: “And not feel my sorrows share” and “Hear the wren with sorrows small”. But, here, ‘sorrows’ is used in a positive sense, asking whether a father can remain unaffected, without sharing in his child’s sorrows, and about the wren who too has to carry his share of sorrows, though they may be relatively small. This poem is on sharing the sorrows of others, and in that context the poet says that even small creatures and babies carry a small burden of sorrow, which the Maker wishes to share with them. The imagery praising God’s care is in the following lines: “O! he gives to us his joy/ That our grief he may destroy/ Till our grief is fled & gone/ He doth sit by us and moan” (Concordance, 2008). By Blake’s use of the theme of ‘love’ in both categories of poems, he portrays the human race in terms of both good and evil. Surprisingly, the word is used in only two of the Innocence poems: The Little Black Boy: “That we may learn to bear the beams of love”, and The Divine Image: “And Love: the human form divine” in the context of “Mercy has a human heart/ Pity a human face/ And Love: the human form divine/ And Peace, the human dress”. On the other hand, in the Experience poems, the theme occurs in Earth’s Answer, The Clod and the Pebble, The Sick Rose, The Lilly, The Garden of Love, The Little Boy Lost, The Little Girl Lost, and the Schoolboy (Concordance, 2008). Conclusion This paper has highlighted the Songs of Innocence and Experience written by William Blake. The first collection consists of poems that are childlike and filled with goodness and cheer. With the end of the Revolutions causing severe economic and socio-cultural decline, Blake’s loss of faith in the goodness of mankind explained much of the despair found in the Songs of Experience. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. However, the poet did not believe that children should be restricted from becoming experienced, but should become experienced through the process of growing up, which is reflected in a number of the Songs of Innocence and Experience (IntArch, 2008). Further, several poems from both collections have the same theme and concepts, with contrasting treatments which have been discussed above. Works Cited Alvarez, Jennifer G. Teaching William Blake’s the Songs of Innocence and of Experience to university ESL Students with reader response and Freirian pedagogy. Thesis, Master of Arts in English Education. University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. 2006. pp.1-144. Blake, William. Songs of innocence and experience: shewing the two contrary states of the human soul. New York: Oxford University Press. 1970. Concordance. Blake, songs of innocence and experience. Web Concordance. 2008. Retrieved on 12th December, 2008 from: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/wics/blake/c11.htm#CHILD Greer, Herb. Frozen fire: the visionary world of William Blake. World and I, 16.4 (2001): 254 271. IntArch. Songs of innocence and experience. Internet Archive. 2008. Retrieved on 11th December, 2008 from: http://www.archive.org/details/songs_innocence_experience_librivox Mead, Tina. Poetry explication: A comparison of William Blakes Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. 2008. Helium. Retrieved on 12th December, 2008 from: http://www.helium.com/items/843861-comparison-blakes-songs-of-innocence Poole, Catherine. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience.1999. Retrieved on 12th December, 2008 from: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/blake.htm Whissell, C. The emotionality of William Blakes poems: a quantitative comparison of Songs innocence with Songs of Experience. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 92.2 (2001): 459- 467. Read More