Group Blake

The Bard and The Piper: A Contrast of Innocence and Experience

maroons45 — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:49:07 +0000

The two introductions to songs of innocence and songs of experience definitely display Blake’s views on innocence and experience. The first difference that you would probably notice from the two songs is who is narrating each song. In the Introduction to Innocence, the person narrating the song is a pleasantly piping piper, while the in the Introduction to Experience the person telling the song is a Bard who can see into the present, the past, and the future. The two introductions are totally different as the introduction to innocence seems to have qualities such as happiness and inexperience. The first half of the introduction was basically the piper singing pleasant songs to a young child who is just full of joy. The second half the piper just talked about how he would write his happy songs so that “every child may joy to hear.” It is interesting how even though the piper is much more experienced than the young child, he almost seems just as innocent with his jovial manner. I think Blake did this to show that he believes that there are much more important factors when considering innocence and experience than just age.

The introduction to experience was not like the introduction to innocence at all. At first, Blake introduces us to the Bard, who seems to be able to see and hear everything. I believe he made this emphasis on the Bard knowing everything so that the introduction emphasized the value of knowledge (experience). The setting that Blake makes is very mysterious as the Bard seems to be in space somewhere (as can be seen from inferring from the text, or by his illustration of the introduction) until he calls for the earth to return so that he can tell his songs of experience. I feel that Blake wants us to feel as if the Bard called for the earth so that he could share his knowledge with us.

Innocence and Experience within the Chimney Sweeper

maroons45 — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:16:40 +0000

After looking through some of the songs, I made the observation that The Chimney Sweeper is an excellent song that displays innocence very well for the innocent version of the song, and also displays experience very well in the experienced version of the song. I thought that these two songs were great to compare and contrast as they both have a a great deal in contextualizing the time period from which these poems were written. Chimney Sweepers were all merely young children that were being put to work. These young children were nearly doomed as the soot that they were forced to breath in was very fatal.

The innocence version of the Chimney Sweeper was a bit dark in the beginning as the first thing we learn about the child is that his mother died when the child was at a very young age, so his father decided to sell him “while yet my tongue”, which which can be interpreted to mean before he could speak. The child then explains how he now sweeps chimneys, weeps, and sleeps in soot. Although the experience songs are usually the dark ones, this dark song stays as an innocence song because the only thing that this child has experienced is this life of chimney sweeping, he knows nothing else. Innocence can really be seen when the young child’s friend, Tom, has a dream where an angel told Tom that that if “he’d be a good boy, he’d have God for his father and never want joy.” Then it is stated that even though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm. This hope that Tom has represents his innocence, maybe in naivete, as a more experienced person would probably feel as if they were doomed even though they had this dream.

The experience version is the true contextualization of the time period from which Blake really wrote. Blake basically states that religion during that time period was very corrupted, as the person telling the song is aware of this corruption as he sees a young chimney sweeper tinted black from soot in the snow and asks him where his father and mother are. The child responds that they are both up at the church praying. Blake truly criticizes the church in the following quote “And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King who make up a heaven of our misery.” It is interesting to note that Blake made the young child in the snow black from soot. I feel like the reason he did this was to makes us see that the contrast of the white snow and the little black child which represented what the corrupted church was doing to the youth of that time period.

Dependence between Innocence and Experience

maroons45 — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:46:01 +0000

This article that I found online is an excellent source that attempts to explain how Blake wants to illustrate innocence and experience. Lauren Stranahan explains that the common definition of innocence nowadays is the retention of virtue, and being distant from evil. Blake’s definition of innocence was much different. He believed that innocence could be described as a lack of experience. So when an individual leaves innocence and encounters a more experienced life what would happen? Blake did not believe that the individual would be more controlled by sinning and guilt, but that innocence and experience are mutually dependent on each other as each cannot exist without the other.

Stranahan then goes on to show how Blake used his illustrations to strongly portray innocence and experience. She talks about the Songs of Innocence frontpiece and how it displays a child and an adult. In the Songs of Innocence, the frontispiece image suggests that the child is protected not only by the adult, but by the trees also. In the Songs of Experience, the child is set upon the adult’s head and has a more serious look upon his young face. It looks as if Blake meant for this to portray the child soaking up experience from the older adult. Blake also displays less protection for the child as all of the trees that were providing protection are all gone, except for one.

In my last blog I had found a connection between innocence and experience with religion, and not to my surprise it seems as if innocence and experience are not only tied with religion, but to his visual art also.

Stranahan, Lauren. “UniversalJournal/AYJW – Articles, Papers, Essays – Association of Young Journalists and Writers.” The Association of Young Journalists, AYJW – News Media, Travel, Games, and More – College and Media Directory. 26 May 2009 .

Stephen Behrendt’s Reading of Blake

maroons45 — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:12:14 +0000

A great book that goes in-depth about innocence and experience is Reading William Blake by Stephen C. Behrendt. Behrendt discusses the relationship between innocence and experience and how these two states can exist with each other. Behrendt associates experience with “fallenness, guilt and the Wilderness” and he associates innocence with “un-fallenness, guiltlessness and Eden.” He also displays a relationship between guilt and experience. Behrendt explains how guilt results from the consciousness that one has acted incorrectly according to the judgment of another, and how that seems to be exclusive only to experience as it would be impossible to feel guilt if you were purely innocent and did not understand how people would judge you on your actions. Behrendt’s complex statements about innocence are through provoking: “If Innocence and Experience are part of a strictly dualistic arrangement, would it follow therefrom, then, that there is no choosing (and hence no free will) in innocence? Or only that there is no consciousness there of having made an unacceptable choice?” I believe that both are true as you cannot choose if you are innocent, and that if you really are innocent there is no consciousness that you are making what others view as an unacceptable choice. This can be seen when Behrendt associates innocence with Eden and unconsciousness, and associates experience with the Fall and consciousness. It is very interesting that the more research I do on innocence and experience, the more connections that I can find between innocence and experience and other things such as religion and how they are intertwined.

Behrendt, Stephen C. Reading William Blake. New York: St. Martins P, 1992.

Church Restriction in Garden of Love Poems

hogiebear52 — Tue, 26 May 2009 05:21:52 +0000

I found an interesting article on the Internet comparing the two gardens of love poems from “Songs of Experience” and “Songs of Innocence.” The author goes into the comparison of the two. The author notices how when the first time the narrator comes to the garden, it is a green pasture. Then, when the author comes to the garden the second time, there is a chapel in the middle of the garden and it is no longer the green pasture it was. The author of this article then goes into the religious aspect of the chapel and its symbolism, such as how the closed doors relate to how some evangelical leaders who would not allow their followers to view biblical passages. The author then states the fact of how in the new garden not everyone is allowed to love like in the old garden. The new garden is filled with thorns and thistles. There is also a lack of love in the new garden. The author points out that the old garden was once filled with beautiful flowers, which symbolize love to the author. And now, the new garden is filled with tombstones and graves. To the author, these represent the people who have been excommunicated. The author believes that this represents the people who would not conform to the religious beliefs that are now being imposed by the chapel in the garden. The author also thinks that the chapel is there telling people what they should believe. To the author, the main point of the poem is that the chapel represents the church that is restricting people to love.

Poetry Connection. 25 May 2009. .

T.S. Eliot on the Circumstances of Blake’s Works

jlongtin — Tue, 26 May 2009 05:00:19 +0000

William Blake’s poetry has been long known for its stance as a social criticism and commentary of the social situations of 18th and 19th century society. In T.S. Eliot’s critical analysis titled “Blake,” he writes “The question about Blake the man is the question of the circumstances that concurred to permit this honesty in his work, and what circumstances define its limitations” (25). In stating this, Eliot is helping to contextualize the motives and possibly some of the inspiration that led Blake to depict these scenes of reality with such grim feeling. Blake, being a critic of his time period, would have responded to these ‘circumstances’ such as poverty, child labor, and capitalism in such a way that he was completely and brutally honest with his audience. This also helps to bring forth his passion for his criticism of society. His intense desire to bring about social reform with his poems is easily seen throughout various works such as London and Holy Thursday. His use of gritty realism and the harsh depiction of reality are warranted by the circumstances from which they arise, according to Eliot. ‘

Again, Eliot writes of Blake, “They (Songs of Innocence and Experience) are the poems of a man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them. The emotions are presented in an extremely simplified, abstract form. This form is on illustration of the eternal struggle of art against education” (26). He is stating here that Blake took a strong interest in the people and the situations that he wrote about. Understanding the circumstances and the motivations for Blake make it much easier to analyze his writings as a whole. Seeing his works as a social criticism is a key to the analysis of his poetry.

The Sacred Wood, Methuen, London, 1920, pp. 147-43

“On Another’s Sorrow” and “Infant Sorrow” in Comparison

maroons45 — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:58:46 +0000

I found this article concerning the notions of innocence and experience within Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The article compares and contrasts “On Another’s Sorrow,” and “Infant Sorrow.” These two poems discuss sorrow from two different perspectives. The first being from the perspective of innocence, and the second being from the perspective of experience. “Infant Sorrow” seems to be much easier to understand as it fundamentally portrays the thoughts of an infant as it is entering the new, unknown world that it will be living in. Although one would think that a story dealing with an infant would be from the perspective of innocence, it is rather from a perspective of experience, since the infant is actually the one who is experiencing the sorrow. “On Another’s Sorrow” seems as if it were a young, innocent adult’s perspective of sorrow. The person in the song seems very innocent, as you can see when he states “Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too.” It’s as if he can feel other people’s sorrows simply through the observation of their sorrows. The person also speaks of God and where he stands on human’s sorrows, which is interesting as God may play the role of a source of hope for the innocent human.

The article also addresses Blake’s view on how “experience is not necessarily something that comes with age or complexity of thinking.” When I was thinking about innocence and experience, I came to my own conclusion: innocence and experience are two things that go hand in hand. I believe that when you gain experience you lose innocence and that if you have a lot of innocence it is because you have not been exposed to the circumstances which would have allowed you to gain experience.

Tullis, Jessica. “Defining blake’s innocence and experience.” Essortment. 2002. 25 May 2009 .

Mark Van Doren on “The Little Black Boy”

hogiebear52 — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:31:00 +0000

Van Doren, Mark. “On “The Little Black Boy”.” Discussions of William Blake (1961): 83-85. Print.

This article goes into an analysis of William Blake’s poem “The Little Black Boy.” Van Doren makes the statement that “The Little Black Boy” is a childish poem but yet is very complicated and profound. He initially analyzes the language and structure of the poem relating back to its simplicity. Then, he goes into the complexity of the issues the poem brings up. Later in his analysis, Van Doren brings up the question of where is God in the poem. Van Doren argues that God is the sun in the poem. The light and heat given off from the sun is the love God is giving to the children. He also goes into the fact that God gives the people a cloud in order for them to be shaded from the rays because his love is too strong for them. Next in the analysis, Van Doren explains how God will accept the white and black children. Van Doren explains how the boys, although appear to be different, are equal in the eyes of God. The color of the boys does not matter to God. To God, the boys’ souls are the same. The reasoning is that even though the black boy’s skin is black, his soul is still white. Once the boys’ bodies die, their souls go on and are equal to God. Van Doren closes his argument by stating that when the two boys leave their flesh, they will become twin lambs and rejoice with God.

S. Foster Damon’s interpretation of Blake’s Plates in Experience

karinarodriguez26 — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:42:20 +0000

Damon, S. Foster. William Blake His Philosophy and Symbols. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924. Print.

In “William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols,” the author S. Foster Damon gives his interpretation over the designs and images that Blake had decided to make for both Songs of Innocence and Experience, as well as other works made by William Blake. However Damon goes through a much deeper analysis over the plates in Blake’s Experience because of how different Blake decided to make it than Innocence. It was Blake’s intention to show the progression from Innocence to Experience in order to illustrate the severe difference between them.

He first comments on the General Title page and he believes that the decoration in that plate is referring only to Experience and is trying to differentiate itself from that of Innocence. He then depicts the fallen Adam and Eve. The Blast of flames that surround them is the “furnace of affliction”, the lettering in this plate also suggest it to be on fire as well. He then explains that the bird is symbolic for the loss of Joy after its attempt to escape the blaze. The frontispiece depicts a young man holding a child above his head with their backs against the light. This is meant to show how the young man is leaving his innocence and is unsuspectingly walking towards trouble. In the Title page, the picture depicts two children crying while near the death bed of their parents. Damon describes the hard straight lines of the scene and the title itself, which is being complimented by the architecture that is behind them, and the very pale and frightening coloring gives it a contrast to almost transparent curves of all the decorations in the title page of Songs of Innocence.

Damon explored the Symbols and images that Blake used in his works that include Jerusalem, The Four Zoas, and many others. He analyzed and discussed many aspects of Blake’s life and personal philosophy and how it had transcended into his works. He analyzes all the images and illustrations that Blake had made in his previous works and gave his own conclusion of his actions and motifs.

Blake Reveals Harshness of the Christian Church

hogiebear52 — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:08:35 +0000

Blake expresses many views towards the Christian Church in his poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. One of these views is the harshness of the Church. Blake expresses his view of the Church taking things too far in his poem “A Little Boy Lost.” Blake criticizes the church leaders in this poem for being extremely harsh. In this case, Blake is critical of the priest.

In the poem “A Little Boy Lost,” the first two stanzas tell of a boy having a conversation with the priest on how a person loves God. The priest says, “Nought loves another as itself / Nor venerates another so, / Nor is it possible to Thought / A greater than itself to know,” and the boy responds, “And Father, how can I love you, / Or any of my brothers more? / I love you like the little bird / That picks up crumbs around the door” (Pl. 50). After the priest hears the boy say this, he immediately grabs him by the hair. The priest then takes the boy to the altar in front of the congregation, strips him down, chains him, and burns him.

Blake is very critical of the actions taken by the priest after overhearing the boy. In the third stanza, as the priest is taking the boy to the altar, Blake writes, “He led him by his little coat: / And all admir’d the Priestly care” (Pl. 50). The way in which Blake writes how everyone admires the “care” in which the priest handles the child is taken in a sarcastic sense. To Blake, the priest overreacts tremendously to something as small as the boy trying to explain his love for God, which, according to Blake, is “our most holy Mystery” (Pl. 50). Blake criticises the actions moreover in the last line with, “Are such things done on Albion’s shore” (Pl. 50). In this statement, he questions the possibility of this cruelty taking place elsewhere. This poem expresses Blake’s view of the harshness of the Christian Church.

Griffiths, Nick. “Poetry analysis: Willam Blake and religion.” Web.25 May 2009. .