Analyzing William Blake’s Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794)
“An honesty against
which the whole world conspires because it is unpleasant.” -T. S. Eliot
William Blake was hardly known in his life
time though he was most original, strongly individualistic, and mostly a
solitary figure. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, through his edition of Blake’s poems,
brought him to public attention. In fact, Blake was a genius who distinguished
himself in poetry, engraving and painting. He lived in London unlike many other
poets who lived in the countryside. He had little formal education, but he
taught himself. He was teepee in the Bible, Elizabethan literature and Milton.
He knew many language including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and Italian.
Blake was a man of
vision who saw ultimate truth at moments of great illumination. Vision is for
him the great secret of life. His endive work poetry or panting is an attempt
to develop this faculty of vision so that man seems to understand and thereby forgive
and at righty.
William Blake’s Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience
(1794) are his best-known works of poetry and have had a lasting influence
on children’s literature. Blake’s Songs of Innocence (1789) Created through a new process called
illuminated painting are examples of originality. He equated his extreme sense
of freedom and happiness to the condition of childhood. In these poems, he says
that childhood is the original state of happiness, ultimate enjoyment and
unity. Some Songs, such as the “Introduction”
and “The Lamb,” explore the
innocence of children’s understanding of God and the natural world. In
his Songs of Experience (1794) he
expresses his deep indignation at the hypocrisy and cruelly in the world. In
the marriage of Heaven and Hell he affirms the re-integration of the human soul
divided by Innocence (Heaven) and Experience. For example, “The
Chimney Sweeper” and “The Garden of Love,” reveal the hardships both children and adults must confront
in the unsheltered world of “experience.”
Ref: 1. History of
English Literature- Albert
2. The Concise Cambridge History of
English Literature
3. Beacham's Guide
to Literature for Young Adults
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