The Violation of William Blake's Songs of Innocence Essay

As a forerunner to the free-love movement, late eighteenth century poet, engraver, and artist, William Blake (1757-1827), has clear sexual overtones in many of his poems, and he layers his work with sexual double entendres and symbolism. Within the discussion of sexuality in his work Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake seems to take a complicated view of women. His speakers use constructs of contraries, specifically innocence/ experience and male/female. Of the latter sex, he experiments with the passive (dependent, docile, virtuous) and active (independent, evil, a threat to the masculine) female subjects. Blake’s use of personification specifically of nature and botany suggest the use of nature to discuss human society. In Songs

In this essay I am going to be looking at two poems from the Songs of innocence and experience works. These poems are The Lamb and The Tyger written by William Blake. Both these poems have many underlying meanings and are cryptic in ways and both poems are very different to each other. In this essay I will be analysing the two poems, showing my opinions of the underlying themes and backing them up with quotes from the poems. I will compare the poems looking at the similarities and differences between them and also look at each one individually focusing on the imagery, structure and the poetic devices William Blake has used. Firstly I will look at the Tyger a poem about experience.

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.

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

The style of Songs of Innocence and Experience is simply direct, but the rhythms and language are often deeply complex. Many of the poems are narratives, but some like, “The Sick Rose” use symbolism and abstract concepts to deliver a message. Blake often uses Biblical symbolism and language in his writing. He seems to enjoy applying simple, nursery rhyme meter to his unorthodox conceptions. This combination of familiarity with the unfamiliar is what keeps Blake’s work perpetually interesting (Erdman, David V. Complete Poetry and Prose. New York, 1982.

The human mind itself has not changed, and thus themes from hundreds of years ago retain their relevancy in more modern times, and likely beyond. Although many years have gone by, William Blake’s poetry is universal and can be altered by each of its readers allowing it to transcend time, a trait it may

Romantic Poetry: Blake’s Biblical References William Blake’s illustrated collection of poems, “Songs of Innocence and Experience”, were written to contrast the different elements of the human soul. Throughout the collection, Blake redefines both innocence and experience, and closely contrasts them through two parallel poems, “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”. Both poems incorperate biblical references, amd present a clearer view of the relationship between innocence and experience. Blake was a pious man, and as a young child, he had visions of God, angels, and believed to have recieved messages from his deceased brother.

Perhaps William Blake’s most famous poem, “The Tyger” was published in 1794 in the collection Songs of Experience. Although the poem differs from the Romantic Era poem in terms of its formatting, “The Tyger” otherwise remains consistent with common Romantic themes such as nature and symbolism. Aside from the Romantic commonalities, the poem also contains a smorgasbord of poetic devices, including allusions, synecdoche, and dichotomies which greatly aid in the effectiveness of Blake’s poem.

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience dichotomy is perhaps the most notable illustration of this progression. Songs of Innocence is a collection of poems dedicated to the whimsical nature of children, contrasting Songs of Experience, an anthology demonstrating the contempt and negativity that is derived from maturity. Both collections include poems titled, “The Chimney Sweeper.” The chimney sweep of innocence tells the story of Tom Dacre, a young boy who has yet to learn the misery that accompanies a sweeper’s lifestyle. He tells of a dream in which an angel releases them from their “coffins of black”

William Blake focused on biblical images in the majority of his poetry and prose. Much of his well-known work comes from the two compilations Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poems in these compilations reflect Blake's metamorphosis in thought as he grew from innocent to experienced. An example of this metamorphosis is the two poems The Divine Image and A Divine Image. The former preceded the latter by one year.

William Blake is one of England’s most famous literary figures. He is remembered and admired for his skill as a painter, engraver, and poet. He was born on Nov. 28, 1757 to a poor Hosier’s family living in or around London. Being of a poor family, Blake received little in the way of comfort or education while growing up. Amazingly, he did not attend school for very long and dropped out shortly after learning to read and write so that he could work in his father’s shop. The life of a hosier however was not the right path for Blake as he exhibited early on a skill for reading and drawing. Blake’s skill for reading can be seen in his understanding for and use of works such as the Bible and Greek classic literature.

Is human innocent in nature? Engraved on a press, came from William’s Blake handwritten well-known song-like poems—Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing The two Contrary States of the Human Soul—where he envisions a harmonious world where human aptitudes giving away sentimental perception, for a state of delight in which God, man, and nature are integrated so comprehensively that surpass non-human conceptual ability. The word innocence, as defined, is “freedom from sin or moral wrong” (“Innocence”). Blake composed the poems with a unique design, called illuminating writing; according to Encyclopedia Britannica, it’s his “unique technique of publishing both text and hand-colored illustration together.” In addition, Song of Innocence was published in 1789 and were intended to write for the children at that time. Human must free from the insidious constraint of the earthy, material world, to being spiritual symphonized with our creator, God, in the finest—then we will appreciate and benefit from that form of virtuousness. In this essay, I will identify and elaborate on the various points of view of how the speakers in The Little Black Boy, Holy Thursday, and The Divine Image get in touch with God by virtue of their pristine behavior appends to God’s will.

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.