Essay on Blake's The Songs of Innocence

of the Female and the conventional views of women in the society of which he was

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

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

as her own because she doesn't want to let go of them and wishes that

William Blake, now one of the most famous Romantic poets of the era, was given nearly no recognition for his influential works during his lifetime. He strove to break free from the pattern of thoughts that defined common experience, and this was ever present in his works of literature. Perhaps his most renowned pieces were his two collections of poems titled Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, which illustrated the progression of man from childhood to adulthood, and demonstrated how the unpleasantries of life brings about the maturation from childhood to adulthood, and greatly affect how people view the world. In Songs of Innocence, the series that Blake wrote when he was young, he suggests that by recapturing the wonderment of childhood,

Furthermore, Blake juxtaposes this to Tom’s dreams, where “down a green plain leaping, laughing they run” (14), where the connotations of the colour “green” conveys a sense of happiness and joy that is stereotypically associated with the connotations of childhood. However, the children eventually “rose in the dark” (21), where the noun “dark” indicates their gloomy reality. Therefore, Blake presents irony in that fact the magic of childhood as been destroyed and corrupted, ultimately highlighting the injustice that these children did not get to lead the lives that children should. In a like manner, Owen similarly employs juxtaposition to convey iron through the title of his poem itself, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. There is a contrast between

William Blake was an 18th century poet, who lived in London during the industrial revolution. His views on human nature was profoundly influenced by his environment, on the macroscale the industrial revolution provided great leaps of progress for mankind. However on the microscale, people suffered harsh working conditions for low wages, and the cities were polluted where the streets were covered with a black layer of pollutants. Blake’s poetry was separated into two books, the “Songs of Innocence” focused on the purity and benevolence of mankind, while the “Songs of Experience” focused on the harsh reality and cruelty of the world. “The CLOD & the PEBBLE” is categorized into the “Songs of Experience” and unlike many of of the other poems, doesn’t have a corresponding poem in the “Songs

Thesis: Due to the presences of cruelty left in the world towards people, Blake uses poetry to express his imagination and visions of mythical beings to raise the awareness of painful reality of the world by being rebellious, angry and frustrated. " Biography William Blake. " Biography Online. N.p., n.d. Web.

This must have been gathered from the way Blake uses simplistic verses involving allusions to the lamb of the bible or, “Jesus Christ” as children are often taught. However, what this view fails to acknowledge despite the poem’s effortlessness is the level of vocabulary such as words like “mead”, “vales”, and “meek”. These words may at first not appear very difficult, but when seen from the eyes of perhaps an eight year old, they may not completely grasp the full picture.

Blake's poems of innocence and experience are a reflection of Heaven and Hell. The innocence in Blake's earlier poems represents the people who will get into Heaven. They do not feel the emotions of anger and

William Blake resorts to an unusual rhyme scheme in “The Divine Image” where the first, third, and fifth stanzas have an ABCB pattern, while the second and fourth stanzas have an ABAB pattern. This pattern of rhyming gives this poem a more song-like feel, which is fitting due to the fact that it was published in Songs of Innocence (Gradesaver, Songs of Innocence and Experience Summary and Analysis). This atypical rhyme scheme is

William Blake, a Romantic poet of the late 1700s and early 1800s, often wrote poems inspired by nature and his unique religious perspective. Blake’s book Songs of Innocence, containing the poem “The Lamb,” and his book Songs of Experience, incorporating the poem “The Tyger,” are no exception. In “The Lamb,” one reads of a speaker with a trusting and childlike perspective examining the surrounding creation. The evolved speaker of “The Tyger,” however, views nature with a disenchanted perspective. When looking at “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” side by side, one sees different perspectives about the creation of nature through the usage of diction, rhetorical questions, characterization, imagery, allusions, and syntax in the poems.

In the Songs of Innocence version, Blake writes a narrative from the point of view of a child laborer. The tone is full of youthful innocence, which harshly contrasts the somber truth of the speaker's situation. The speaker is a young child, as implied in clever onomatopoeia in line 4, “Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! ‘weep!” In these lines, the speaker means both literally a weep, as well as the word sweep, which, if said by a young child, may sound like “weep.” With this clever word choice, Blake invites readers to profoundly pity the poor child, as he is so young that he cannot even speak properly, yet sent to his death anyway. The child’s innocence continues to be of presence, shaping the poem. In later

William Blake, a transitional figure in British literature, was the first romantic poet to focus on content instead of form. Blake is one of the great mystics of the world, like Henry More and Wordsworth; he lived in a world of glory, of spirit and of vision, which, for him, was the only real world. His devotion to God expresses through his lyrical poetry collection Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. This collection contains 51 poems where the poems of Innocence are counter part of the poems of Experience. ‘The Lamb’, ‘The Divine Image’ and are poems from Songs of Innocence and ‘The Tyger’, ‘The Sick Rose’ and ‘The Human Abstract’ are poems from Songs of Experience. Blake’s poetry can easily be interpreted by the theory of New Criticism that attempts to treat each work as its own distinct piece, free from its environment, era, and even author. Poetry is one of the most useful expressions of a mystic’s inner experiences. By nature Blake, a mystic is able to access a state of consciousness that is beyond the usual awareness of humanity. This paper will give a glimpse to its readers about Blake’s poetic vision on world, its connection with God along with a clear concept that unconsciously his lyrics maintain the theory of new critics who give more importance to close analysis of form, literary devices, and technique of a text.

Marked by progress in manufacturing and dismal working conditions for the lower class; the 18th century European Industrial Revolution was a paradoxical time. Unfortunately, history has proven that the weak and innocent are forsaken to promote the greater good. This aspect of the industrial revolution is evident in the existence of the chimney sweeps; a group of young boys who were sold into servitude by their parents. The children endured long work hours surrounded by the black ash and soot that would eventually take their young lives. Despite the existence of such an atrocity, the bitter lives of the chimney sweeps waged on. However, renowned poet, William Blake, uses his artistic gifts to not only acknowledge the pain and suffering of the chimney sweeps, but also express his shrewd disapproval of the conditions bestowed upon them. Blake’s use of irony In Songs of Innocence, Blake uses natural imagery to simultaneously convey childhood innocence, create biblical allusions, and criticize social institutions, which reveal the plight and exploitation of the speaker in the poem.