Songs of Innocence and Experie
T.S. Eliot once said of Blake's writings, "The Songs of 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. Today, few of us take Blake's madness seriously, either because we don't believe in it or because it no longer matters. Blake's fundamental concepts speak mainly about the human condition and emotion; and within the realms of this paper, I would like to persuade my readers that William Blake uses simple language and metaphors to show the two contrary states of the human soul - innocence and experience. The world of innocence is a child's world, and it is preserved in the minds of full-grown children by pr
ojecting the memory or desire for parental protection on to a higher realm. The lambs with their "innocent calls", the orphans and children with their "innocent faces", are simple and pure in that they have done no harm; but they are also innocent in that nothing challenges their faith. They are naive and vulnerable to the conspiracy of the experienced world, and yet superior to it in their blessed simplicity. The world of experience is a different world then the one of innocence. Northrop Frye once said of the experience world; "The world of experience is the world that adults live in while they are awake. It is a very big world, and a lot of it seems to be dead, but still it makes its own kind of sense... the changes that occur in the world of experience are, on the whole. orderly and predictable changes." (Grant, Pg 510) However, the adults were also once children, and in childhood, happiness differs from those of the full-grown. As a child, happiness is based not on law and reason, but on love, protection, and peace. As an adult, however, one must follow the rules of law and order. Frye also said this of the experienced world; "As adults, the law and order is the basis both of reason and society, without it there is no happiness." (Grant, Pg 510) "The Songs of Innocence does not seem to be songs only about innocence, but by innocence." (Ferber, Pg 2) This can be seen clearly within the "Introduction" section to the Songs of Innocence. The songs are 'of' innocence in the way the Piper's songs are 'songs of pleasant glee' and 'happy chear'. They are of the world of innocence too, because their internal audience consists of innocents. For instance, when the child makes demands, the Piper casually and innocently responds - four demands followed by four responses: Pipe a song about a Lamb; So I piped with merry chear. The child, then, innocently, requested to hear the song again, but this time he 'wept to hear.' With the example above, one may suspect that the Songs of Innocence is 'really' aimed at sophisticated adults, but the reader may be 'really' a child anyway; therefore, it is safe to say that, as simple as it may seem, one should take seriously the Piper's story that the Book of Innocence owes its existence to the demands of a child, even if he is an imaginary one. It is also say to say then, that in order to fully understand and appreciate all the songs that follow, one must comprehend the meanings hidden within the "Introduction". The "Introduction" points the readers towards the pastoral world and the pastoral idea to follow in the next couple of songs. The reader can tell this by looking at Blake's usage of props and themes of the classical pastoral tradition; such as the pipe and the hollow reed, the sweet lot of the shepherd and the pleasant sounds of nature. Blake uses a fairly clever conceit in the last stanza to have the Piper manufacture a 'rural pen' out of a hollow reed, rather then to pluck one from a bird, for it is a routine pastoral fact that pipes are made of hollow reeds; the pen, then, is thus a transformed pipe. And I made a rural pen, And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs, Every child may joy to hear. 'Clear' suggests 'innocent' and to stain clear water is symbolically to corrupt innocence, water being as clear and fluid as the air or cloud which are home to the child. Yet 'stain'd' in one context may have moral connotations, while in another it may not. For instance, in church, one is not troubled by the thought of stained-glass windows? This is one example of Blake's ambiguities. "Blake is filled with secondary and tertiary counter-meanings that lurk like quicksand or trapdoors underfoot, and an innocent reader of Blake must learn from experience to tread tiptoe through the primary level (which turns out not to be
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Approximate Word count = 2556
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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