Summary Of The Songs Of Innocence

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Recommended: In what four ways are blake’s ‘songs of experience’ different from the earlier ‘songs of innocence’

The Annihilation of Innocence: An Understanding of William Blake’s Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence Childhood is a time in one’s life where innocence and experience are seemingly two separate worlds. Only when one becomes an adult, and has been thoroughly marked by experience, one realizes that innocence and experience resides in the same world. Innocence and experience are equivalent to the flipsides of a single coin. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience demonstrate that religious doctrine and experience are responsible for destroying and understanding innocence in childhood. In Blake’s poem “The Lamb” from Songs of Innocence, Blake proves that in order to keep innocence alive, a child must not question. It is in a child’s nature to trust all that has been told. Therefore the lamb represents childhood as well as innocence. The lamb is personified as being a gentle creature without sin, and the poem itself is characterized by pleasant light imagery. This imagery is an indicator that innocence is a desired state of being. In the first stanza of the poem, the narrator asks questions regarding …show more content…

Adults with authority and experience are responsible for destroying innocence of childhood. Blake’s narrator is presumably from the world of experience, and has the ability to communicate the injustice taking place. “They think they have done me no injury/ And are gone to praise God and his priest and king/ Who make up a heaven of our misery” (10-12). Blake proves that those with power are committing hypocrisy. Religious doctrine does not save children from misery. Rather, religion is used to imprison and trap children into obedience. Once experience beings to awaken within, the child will realize that he has been wronged. Nevertheless, he will do nothing because of the rigorous conditioning carried out by hypocritical

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