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Term Paper on:

Compare and contrast of themes in William Blakes Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Course Code: Eng-315 Course Title: Seventeenth and Eighteenth century poetry Section: 1

Submitted To: MIJ, Lecturer, Department of English, East West University

Submitted By: Name: ID:

Date of Submission: 18th April, 2011

"Songs of Innocence and Experience" was written by Blake in the 1790s. The main theme of the poems in this work came from Blake's belief that children lost their innocence as they grew older

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and were influenced by the ways of the world. Blake believed that children were born innocent. They grew to become experienced as they were influenced by the beliefs and opinions of adults. William Blakes Songs of Innocence and of Experience Compare and contrasts the poems indicating briefly how far you consider each an appropriate introduction to the poems that follow it. Introductions in Blake's Introductions to each Song he gives a brief overview of the poems to follow them. In each overview Blake manages to engender feelings that directly relate to the collections of poems that follow them. The Introductions play integral roles in helping the reader to best understand Blake's poems.

Themes of songs of Innocence: The nature of the artist: Blake is asserting that the artist does not speak with his or her own voice but is under the influence of a guiding spirit, the imagination. He says it is this which provides the true vision of reality. The nature of innocence: Innocence here is presented as a state of happiness and obedience. The piper is happy to do whatever he is told. He has no fear or suspicion regarding the voice he hears and no reluctance to do its bidding. He is one child responding to another.

Themes of songs of Experience: Fall and Redemption: The light and dark symbolism, as well as that of falling and rising, indicates Blakes belief that the rebellious, un-whole fallen human nature could be rescued and restored. Currently, it inhabits a world of darkness, occupying an abject position in a constrained environment.

Blake could mean the lapsed human soul which has within itself the ability to change its destiny, if only it realized that power Alternatively, he could be pointing to God who is in charge of the universe and has the power to reverse humankinds descent into darkness by bringing about a new dawn.

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The nature of God: The God depicted here can be interpreted in different ways:

The Word is one who actively seeks a relationship with his children and weeps over their current fallen state, a far cry from what hed created. He can be read as a God who is down in the dew and darkness, alongside the creation, and who has provided a safe floor and secure boundaries for it until the light comes.

Alternatively, the poems fierce prophetic tone could convey a stern God who weeps at the sins humanity has committed, commands them to return and whose light will expose and judge them.

Themes and significant Ideas: Blake argues that we are always in a contrary state: innocence or experience, and neither one can understand the other. Songs of Innocence reads to us as nonsensical rhyming, because we are in a state of experience. How the human mind sees the nature of the world and its creator: According to Blake, contraries are facts about the world and about the nature of the creative force behind it. For example, ferocious power and energy exist alongside what is fragile and tender. Humans falsify their understanding of the creator and of the human beings made in his image when one of these dimensions is excluded from the picture. God in mans image: Blake disagreed with the creation of the image of an external God-figure, as simply being a projection of human needs and attitudes. Blake felt that merely human understanding created a limiting vision of the creator, simply as a projection of its own human qualities:

Those who see only gentleness and tenderness in nature and in themselves, produce an image of a creator who is mild and gentle but lacks energy and power. An innocent child can imagine only a tender, gentle creator because this is all he himself knows.

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The child motif: Blake saw children as symbols of the imagination and artistic creativity because of their playfulness and freshness. He also used them as an image of innocence and gentleness. The child motif emphasizes the suggestions of simplicity and lack of sophistication. Like the lamb, the child represents gentleness and innocence, together with vulnerability and openness to exploitation. The perception of children: Blake saw the natural child as an image of the creative imagination which is the human beings spiritual core. He was concerned about the way in which social institutions such as the school system and parental authority crushed the capacity for imaginative vision. The nature and vulnerability of innocence: Innocence is frequently presented as freedom from constraint and self-consciousness. The innocent are full of trust in their world both natural and human. For Blake, innocence was insufficient if it was also ignorant of the realities of the fallen world. Parental care and authority: In Blakes work, parents and others in a position of care are often perceived as inhibiting and repressing their children. According to Blake, parents misuse care to repress children and bind them to themselves, rather than setting the children free by rejoicing in and safeguarding their capacity for play and imagination. Attitudes to the body and the life of the senses: Blake believed that humans are essentially spiritual beings and that the body should be an expression of a persons spiritual nature. Yet he felt that people did not believe this. The effects of the fall: Human relationships are affected by the fall of humankind. According to Blake, fallen, divided selfhood sees itself at the centre of its world, as something to be protected and defended. Its pleasures must be jealously defended and denied to others. Snares & confinement: Images of confinement abound in Blakes Songs. Blake the revolutionary opposed the coercive strictures of the Establishment such as the state, organized religion etc. which sought to quantify and rule all aspects of human behavior. He also opposed conventional morality when it confined the natural instincts of humanity.

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References: http://www.crossref-it.info/textguide/Songs-of-Innocence-and-Experience/13/1645 http://www.d.umn.edu/~cbock/songsofinnocenceandexperieceascompanionpoems.htm http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/britlit/97-98/blake/poems.htm