Brainless Children Or Heartless Adults?

The Songs of Innocence poems first appeared in Blake’s 1784 novel, An Island in the Moon. In 1788, Blake began to compile in earnest, the collection of Songs of Innocence. And by 1789, this original volume of plates was complete. These poems are the products of the human mind in a state of innocence, imagination, and joy; natural euphoric feelings uninhibited or tainted by the outside world. Following the completion of the Songs of Innocence plates, Blake wrote The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and it is through this dilemma of good and evil and the suffering that he witnesses on the streets of London, that he begins composing Songs of Experience. This second volume serves as a response to Songs of

William Blake was deeply aware of the great political and social issues during his time focusing his writing on the injustices going on in the world around him. He juxtaposed the state of human existence through his works Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), showing differentiating sides of humanity. The contrast between Songs of

Blake wanted to show that there are two sides to every situation by writing companion pieces for most of his works. “The Chimney Sweeper”, for example, has the same title in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, as well as “Holy Thursday” that appears in both. “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are also paired poems contrasting the concept of good and evil that Blake focused on through out his poems.

William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” in his Songs of Innocence is a literary masterpiece that is still relevant and impactful in the modern world. In lovely form and description, Blake explains the atrocities and hardships of the Industrial Age in a poem suitable for school-age children and with the beautiful simplicity that only a writer like Blake could produce. The Songs of Innocence is a look into the purity and wonderful outlook on life that children usually have. While in its counterpart, the Songs of Experience, Blake uses adults as protagonist. The Songs of Experience is a look at the effects that hardships and failures have on adults, therefore having a pessimistic outlook toward life. In his these two works, Blake produces a parallel universe between childhood and adulthood where the optimism of dreams of childhood and the bitterness and stagnation of adulthood never seem to know one another.

Compare and Contrast the ways in which Heaney and Blake write about innocence and experience in their poetry

Children nowadays mature faster than children twenty years ago. Whether this extends from commercials promising young girls that by using said company’s beauty products they, too, will look just like their favorite actress or because of the profanity written on school bathrooms, kids constantly learn new things that prove too complex for their young minds. In his book, The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger writes to exhibit the notion that society encourages children to grow up too quickly.

During the midst of the French Revolution, many people began writing and several became famous. Some of these authors wrote about experiences, and others just formed an imagination with the help of their surroundings. William Blake was influenced by both of the strategies and excelled in the art of poetry. He was also influenced by many of the other poetry authors of the day. Among his greatest works was his collection of poems known as Songs of Innocence and Experience. Although this is not all of his poems in a collection, it is one of the most famous collections of poems in history. Blake uses a great amount of complicated symbols in his poetry which are difficult to decipher, and he also

The speaker also almost never speaks about himself he spends most of the time talking about his buddy Tom Dacre. He is also very wise he tells Tom Dacre to not care about his haircut to look on the bright side of things, he will not be all covered in soot. In addition he uses similar poetic techniques for both of the poems, his dictation also helps to figure out the tone of poems. In songs of experience he uses words like weep and woe, while in songs of innocence he uses words like angel, free and so many others. He also talks about god in the songs of innocence, how if they would rise upon the clouds. These kids would not live up to very long after like a year of working they would die. These kids would usually work for a master so either their parents would sell them to somebody or they would get them from orphanages. Furthermore they would not live a good life, even though they would not live a normal life of a child they still were kids. They had that purity in them and their only hope of being free and having a normal childhood was to die eventually. These poems are basically about the struggles in these kids

The foil poems The Chimney Sweeper Songs of Innocence and The Chimney Sweeper Songs of Experience by William Blake show a clear juxtaposition in ideas. Songs of Innocence, shows an idyllic view of religion, with a faithful boy entrusting his future to a higher power. In contrast, the second poem, Songs of Experience, shows a cynical view of religion with no hope for a better future. As a result of these ideas, the author conveys a sense of hopelessness for the future of these children, regardless of their ideals. Through tone and imagery, William Blake shows the hypocrisy of religion in relation to child labor during the eighteenth century.

Blake was considered a romantic poet because of his use of symbolism, emotions, and imagination. Throughout the entire poem, Blake uses many symbols to show innocence. Blake also portrayed his emotions and thoughts about how he feels about innocence, or the lack of innocence, in his society. A way that he used his imagination was by Tom’s

In his 1794 publication Songs of Experience, romantic poet William Blake describes the life of a child chimney-sweeper during the Industrial Revolution. Unlike his counterparts, in addition to discussing the distance from nature due to industrialization and mechanization, Blake spoke heavily against child labor; protesting the government, religion, and the dissimilation of family.

Rossetti Manuscripts and Innocence and the Songs of Experience Innocence and the Songs of Experience, and the poems from the Rossetti manuscripts, are the poems of a man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them." (Grant, Pg 507) These two famous books of poetry written by William Blake, not only show men's emotions and feelings, but explain within themselves, the child's innocence, and man's experience. A little over two centuries ago, William Blake introduced to the English literary world his two most famous books of poetry: the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience. In his own day, he was widely believed to be "quite mad," though those who knew him best thought otherwise.

“Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing,” according to Lucille Clifton, a famous American writer and educator. The best example of this wondering is shown in the poem “The Chimney Sweeper”. “The Chimney Sweeper”, written by William Blake in 1789, is a poem that reflects a shameful eighteenth century social problems. It shows the exploitations to the little children—the chimney sweepers. Those sweepers are even too young to have their own complete thoughts, but they are still on their own effort to seek comfort in this suffering situation. Therefore, the poems is trying to lead readers to experience a miserable and desperate situation and then to seek a way out along with

In the poem “Holy Thursday”- songs of experience and in the poem “The Chimney Sweeper”, William Blake makes use of various literary techniques to portray the theme of cruelty towards children. The poem ‘Holy Thursday’ refers to the wretched condition of children in charity schools. The poem ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ refers to the poor children who were used as slaves in England. My aim for this essay is to explore how William Blake made use of various literary techniques to portray the theme of cruelty towards children in the two poems.

Some of William Blake’s poetry is categorized into collections called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake explores almost opposite opinions about creation in his poems “The Lamb” and “The Tiger.” While the overarching concept is the same in both, he uses different subjects to portray different sides of creation; however, in the Innocence and Experience versions of “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake uses some of the same words, rhyme schemes, and characters to talk about a single subject in opposite tones.