The Violation of Blake's Songs of Innocence
Abstract: William Blake's Songs of Innocence contains a group of poetic works that the artist conceptualized as entering into a dialogue with each other and with the works in his companion work, Songs of Experience. He also saw each of the poems in Innocence as operating as part of an artistic whole creation that was encompassed by the poems and images on the plates he used to print these works. While Blake exercised a fanatical degree of control over his publications during his lifetime, after his death his poems became popular and were encountered without the contextual material that he intended to accompany them.
William Blake was probably more concerned than any other major Romantic author with the process of publication and its implications for the interpretation of his artistic creations. He paid a price for this degree of control over the process of printing, however: Blake lived in poverty and artistic obscurity throughout his entire life. Later, when his poems began to be distributed among a wider audience, they were frequently shorn of their original contexts. For William Blake, there has been a trade-off between the size of the audience he has reached and the degree of control he exerted over the publication process.
Blake was not satisfied merely to write poems and send them off to a publisher; instead, he designed illustrations to accompany his poems, engraved the poem-illustration works onto copper plates, printed the plates onto paper, and (when color was desired) colored the pages by hand, then bound the printed pages into volumes for sale. Blake was assisted in much of this work by his wife, Catherine, who had been illiterate when he ma...
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For example, as stated in source 5 there are vertical lift bridges and swing bridges. First, a vertical lift bridge “uses cables, pulleys, and motors and counterweights to rise a section of the bridge.” This process looks and acts much like an elevator. (Bridge Types) Next, Earl Dublin, P.E. Structural Engineer New York Division Federal Highway Administration, said the deck of the bridge is raised to allow for a vessel to pass under. Another type of movable bridge is the Swing Bridge. The Swing Bridge rotates on a pedestal allowing vessels to move past on either side (Bridge Types). So when the bridge is over a canal or river it is perpendicular to allow traffic over to the other side, but when a vessel comes the bridge would run parallel to the
William Blake’s “The Garden of Love” was first published in book two of Blake’s famous work, Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. The first book in this series, The Songs of Innocence, deals with simplistic themes and a benevolent God. In 1794’s The Songs of Experience, however, Blake portrays the other, darker side of the human soul and a tyrannous God of repression. Blake’s use of vivid imagery and contradiction in “The Garden of Love” is intriguing especially when considering the historical and biographical contexts in which the work was composed.
Blake was able to unite the central themes of the Romantic period: childhood and the impact
Bloom and Trilling 28-29. Print. The. Blake, William. The. “Songs of Innocence: Holy Thursday.”
A great poet’s poetry is said to be able to stand against the test of time and last far beyond the years of the poet’s lifetime. For centuries, poets have been mastering the use of language and literary devices within their poems, making poetry still one of the most popular forms of literature around the world. William Blake was an outstanding poet during The Romantic period, and still continues to amaze the people of today with his intriguing poems about the experiences humans face within their childhood, and later on in their adult life. One of Blake’s most popular poems, “The Tyger”, was published in 1794 as part of his Songs of Experience collection. Blake also wrote a collection entitled Songs of Innocence, which acts as a companion to
Even though he was no recognized during his lifetime blake is now known as “one of the most renowned peots in the history of ennglish literature” (yeats). Blake is a poetic writter during the Romatic era, he is bestknown as a romanticism writter for his colaboration in the French and american revolution and with all forms of anti-establishment radicialism. He would uses his poems to clearly state issues and eventsgoing on during his time for example the revolution in america and france inspired him to write peoms like The French Revolution, America: A Prphecy, Europe a Prophecy and The ook of Urizen. His work was seen as an “apocalyptic turnng point in the history of humanind, decaying order of opression and presaging the redemption of humanity” (Wolson). Blakes claimes all his visions came to him when he saw his released spirit ascend heavenwards, clapping itss hand for joy” (Wolfson).
Overall, it is apparent that Blake is extremely critical of the exploitation of children during his time period. Blake’s Songs of Innocence provides more implicit social commentary which forces the reader to think deeply about child exploitation. Songs of Experience presents a direct social commentary due to the mature nature of the child speaker. Although both texts provide similar social commentary, Songs of Experience expresses social commentary more directly due to the outspoken and mature nature of the child. Songs of Experience was likely written as a follow-up to Songs of Innocence at a later date in order to solidify the implicit ideas presented in Songs of Innocence.
In Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake differentiates between being experienced and being innocent. In the poem "Spring," the speaker focuses on the coming of spring and the excitement surrounding it which is emphasized by the trochaic meter of the poem. Everyone, including the animals and children, is joyful and getting ready for the new season, a season of rebirth and a new arrival of nature’s gifts.
The imagery of nature and humanity intermingling presents Blake's opinion on the inborn, innate harmony between nature and man. The persona of the poem goes on to express the `gentle streams beneath our feet' where `innocence and virtue meet'. This is where innocence dwells: synchronization with nature, not synchronization with industry where `babes are reduced to misery, fed with a cold usurous hand' as in the experienced version of `Holy Thursday'. The concept of the need for the individual's faithfulness to the laws of nature and what is natural is further reiterated in `the marriage of heaven and hell' in plate 10 where Blake states `where man is not, nature is barren'. The most elevated form of nature is human nature and when man resists and consciously negates nature, `nature' becomes `barren'. Blake goes on to say `sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires'. This harks back to `the Songs of Innocence' `A Cradle Song' where the `infants smiles are his own smiles'. The infant is free to act out its desires as it pleases. It is unbound, untainted. Blake's concern is for the pallid and repressed, subjugated future that awaits the children who must `nurse unacted desires' and emotions in this new world of industrialisation. Despairingly, this is restated again in `the mind-forg'd manacles' of `London'. The imagery of the lambs of the `Songs of Innocence' `Introduction' is developed in `the Chimney Sweeper' into the image of `Little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, that curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd'.
Although both Blake and Wordsworth show childhood as a state of greater innocence and spiritual vision, their view of its relationship with adulthood differs - Blake believes that childhood is crushed by adulthood, whereas Wordsworth sees childhood living on within the adult. In the William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the vision of children and adults is placed in opposition to one another. Blake portrays childhood as a time of optimism and positivity, of heightened connection with the natural world, and where joy is the overpowering emotion. This joyful nature is shown in Infant Joy, where the speaker, a newborn baby, states “’I am happy, Joy is my name.’” (Line 4-5).
William Blake Romantic poetry has been written since the late seventeen hundred up past the first reform bill passed in 1832. There were many romantic poets in the Romantic Era, many who have touched the hearts of many readers and still do to this day. William Blake was one of the first English Romantic poets to exist. This paper focuses on some of the history of William Blake’s life, William Blake as a Romantic Poet, and some songs from two of his famous books, "The Songs of Innocence" and "The Songs of Experience". Included in this paper are some of William Blake’s fabulous art creations, I also have a personal interpretation of some of his poems.
LaGuardia, Cheryl. "WILLIAM BLAKE: SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE." Library Journal 128.9 (2003): 140. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 13 July 2011.