Songs of Innocence and Experience

I think that the term innocence changes from generation to generation. This morning I have been working on a paper about William Blake. I am sure he sounds very familiar, I find him interesting on many different levels. I think one of the main reasons is because he sketched drawings that are important to look at while reading his pieces of poetry. Blake also made up his own religion in a way, strayed away from Christianity for many different reasons. The Songs of Innocence include many different topics: The Shepard, Infant Joy, The Echoing Green, Laughing Song, Nurse's Song, Holy Thursday, The Lamb, The Chimney Sweeper, and The Divine Image. While on the other hand, he also wrote Songs of Experience which include: Earth's Answer, My Pretty Rose Tree, The Clod and the Pebble, The Garden of Love, A Poison Tree, Infant Sorrow, London, Nurse's Song, The Tyger, The Human Abstract, The Sick Rose, The Chimney Sweeper, Holy Thursday, The Fly, and Ah! Sun-Flower. Some of these are repetative... Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience show how the world of an innocent child transforms into an adult world that is full of corruption and repression. Blake dramatizes the naïve hopes and fears that inform the lives of childhood and trance the transformation as the child grows into the adult world. Throughout, the portraits of emotional power of rudimentary Christian values and capacity are shows for promoting injustice and cruelty, which reflect upon Blake’s radical thinking about humanity and Judeo-Christianity. Songs of Experience work via parallel and contrast to Songs of Innocence by showing the harsh experience of adult life destroy what is good and innocent in life. These poems show that religion is less concerned with the individual but more instilled upon the concern with the institution of the Church specifically toward the politics and effects upon society.

The Chimney Sweeper
A little black thing among the snow
Crying 'weep, weep,' in notes of woe!
'Where are thy father and mother, say?'
'They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy, and dance, and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,
Who make up a Heaven and of our misery!'

Part of Blake’s Song of Experience includes The Chimney Sweeper which is dark and pessimistic. In this poem, it is an image of an anguished child who is in the state of corruption. The first stanza and even within the first line, “A little black thing among the snow,” gives the poem the voice and tone to the entire poem. The color black is extremely important to understand since it is representing sin against innocence (white). At the end the child is asking where the parents are since they are not there; end up being responsible for the state which the child is in.

The second stanza begins with the child happier, “And smiled among the winter’s snow,” however it quickly dissipates to a sad state of the child. The rest of the stanza explains that the parents put the child into a state of sadness, “And taught me to sing the notes of woe.” The child could be wishing and wanting something from the parents which the speaker is not getting.
Last, the third stanza is criticizing the Church, “… gone to praise God and his priest and king/ Who make up a Heaven of our misery!” During this time, children were dying from being worked to death or malnutrition. England as the state church did not do anything to help the situation, thus Blake wanted to make a statement. The two lines above question if the parents are worshipping God, the source of good doings, then why they ignore their own child. The parents turn heads in the other direction, sacrificing the well being of their child to find love at church.

These are just a couple examples of Blake’s anger and thoughts about England during this time, politically, emotionally, religiously. He has a distinct style which at the time was not appreciated within all classes; however, he did sacrifice money to speak the truth of what he thought. Blake wanted to make a statement to the government and Church, which he did through his writing.

Okay, I am done with teaching a lesson about literature for today! Maybe the next post will be something more fun than Blake... :)