Themes and Styles in Songs of Experience
With reference to at least four poems, show how they are
representative of themes and styles in Songs of Experience.
In the Songs of Experience “Innocence” has progressed towards
“Experience”, but it is important to remember that Blake's vision is
essentially dialectical: “Innocence” and “Experience” are co-related
as the road to “experience” begins from “innocence”. The poems in
Songs of Experience are darker in tone and outlook, affirming a
bleaker (or more realistic) view of creation than their “Innocent”
counterparts. Blake manifests the themes of cynicism, corruption,
oppression, disillusionment and cruelty through the use of stylistic
devices such as mirroring, juxtapositions, archetypes and imagery.
In “The clod and the pebble”, the poem provides two contrasting
attitudes, one of selfless love for others, and the second, of Love as
self-absorption and possessiveness. The first stanza seems to belong
to the Songs of Innocence sequence, and the final stanza to Songs of
Experience, and perhaps it is left to the reader to adjudicate between
the two attitudes. However, as a poem in the Songs of Experience
sequence, it is important that the final words are given to the
selfish Pebble rather than to the down-trodden Clod, perhaps
suggesting that it is the former's attitude which is seen to be the
most insightful. Blake uses imagery such as the clod of clay to
represent something insignificant, like mud, downtrodden. Blake also
uses alliteration on the phrase “clod of clay” to emphasize its
worthlessness. This imagery also creates an impression that the clay
is malleable and unformed, implying youth, ignorance, naiveté and
innocence. However, this spineless cl...
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...n on the private lives of Englanders; an almost comically
melodramatic scene of tombstones and Death-figure priests. It is thus
perhaps too easy to dismiss this poem at once as nothing more than
that. However, this simplicity allows the poem to become a didactic
poem, with new levels of resonance rising from it with each reading.
The level that first presents itself is explained above; the Church
taking on itself the legislation and administration of morality. This
Songs of Experience lyric deals with the repression of joys, desires
and instincts by the church and by prohibitive morality. Given that
the poem deals with a vision of a journey into the "garden", we could
perhaps also view the poem as a commentary on the ways that conscience
and guilt are imposed on the imagination and on what is natural and
instinctual, the 'mind-forged manacles' of London.
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
The fact that they feel they can sit about the knee of their mother, in this stereotypical image of a happy family doesn’t suggest that the children in this poem are oppressed... ... middle of paper ... ... y has a negative view of the childish desire for play which clearly has an effect on the children. The fact that they the are whispering shows that they are afraid of the nurse, and that they cannot express their true thoughts and desires freely, which is why they whisper, and therefore shows that Blake feels that children are oppressed. I feel that the two poems from innocence which are ‘The Echoing Green,’ and ‘The Nurses Song,’ display Blake’s ideological view of country life which I referred to in my introduction, and show his desire for childhood to be enjoyed.
In every epic story, the center of attention will be on the epic hero. Usually all the epic heroes have some kind of special power, which keep them different from other characters. Later on, their epic journey these powers, help them to win the glory, which make them epic heroes. In Beowulf, Beowulf is truly an epic hero, because of his wisdom, strength and bravery.
In Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789 and 1794), William Blake arouses readers' minds and leads them into a path of finding their own answers and conclusions to his poems. He sets up his poems in the first book, Songs of Innocence, with a few questions as if they were asked from a child's perspective since children are considered the closest representation of innocence in life. However, in the second book, Songs of Experience, Blake's continues to write his poems about thought-provoking concepts except the concepts happen to be a little bit more complex and relevant to experience and time than Songs of Innocence.
Most things have their beginnings in something small: a word, a breath, or idea; but not music. Music begins with a single vibration. It explodes and carries on, morphing worlds of unrelated personas. It lives rampantly in the mouths of millions of unruly and free-spirited teenagers, like a fever. The rock 'n roll trend that defiantly rose against the conformist ideology of the mid-twentieth century left remnants that commenced the start of a progressing society: a culture that redefined the rules of society and pushed social and moral limits while addressing social concerns.
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'.
I was practicing the routine for my opening act, for the Broadway musical "The Sound of music." I am an actress playing the lead role of the main character Maria. My director Jane Marshall says," Barbara, you only have twenty minutes until your performance." My only chance to start a satisfying reputation for myself and please the audience. As I listened to those words come out of my directors mouth, that's when it dawned on me. I will only have one chance to do it right. I wouldn't want to cause any disarrays.
Keynes, Sir Geoffrey. Introduction to William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Ed. Geoffrey Keynes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
His spiritual beliefs reached outside the boundaries of religious elites loyal to the monarchy. “He was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War” (E. P. Thompson). Concern with war and the blighting effects of the industrial revolution were displayed in much of his work. One of Blake’s most famous works is The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience. In this collection, Blake illuminates the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and follow them into adulthood.... ...
The consistent pattern of metrical stresses in this stanza, along with the orderly rhyme scheme, and standard verse structure, reflect the mood of serenity, of humankind in harmony with Nature. It is a fine, hot day, `clear as fire', when the speaker comes to drink at the creek. Birdsong punctuates the still air, like the tinkling of broken glass. However, the term `frail' also suggests vulnerability in the presence of danger, and there are other intimations in this stanza of the drama that is about to unfold. Slithery sibilants, as in the words `glass', `grass' and `moss', hint at the existence of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden. As in a Greek tragedy, the intensity of expression in the poem invokes a proleptic tenseness, as yet unexplained.
There are often two sides to everything: chocolate and vanilla, water and fire, woman and man, innocence and experience. The presence of two opposing items allows for harmony and balance in the world. Without water, fire cannot be put out and without woman there can be no man. William Blake’s poetry collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience draws parallels between poems of “innocence” and poems of “experience”. His poem The Lamb is mirrored by his poem The Tyger.
"Prose and Verse Criticism of Poetry." Representative Poetry On-line: Version 3.0. Ed. D. F. Theall. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. .
The poem itself is made up of the ten commandments, each followed by a hasty amendment ironically excusing Victorian behaviour. However, while this may be their apparent function, their true function is to expose the Victorians for the hypocrites they are by revealing the discrepancy between their supposed morals (for example “Bear not false witness;” (l. 17)) and their actions (“let the lie | Have time on its own wings to fly:” (l. 17-18)) which, relative to these morals, could well be described as debauchery.
One piece of the poem hints towards imagery involving slavery, this occurs when the speaker talks about the “charter’d street….charter’d Thames” and later on mentioning “The mind-forg’d manacles”. The street and Thames being described as charter’d shows the power of the government having the control of parts of the city such as a river and the streets. The use of “the mind-forg’d manacles” is symbolic by showing that their brains or minds are being controlled and limited by the government and is a symbol of enslavement. The poem seems to express a lot of imagery about death and sadness, terms such as cry, curse, plagues and hearse are used. The use of such words tells the reader that the soldiers are being forced by the government to kill. Therefore, causing the soldiers despair. Another portion of the poem uses phrases such as “in very infants cry of fear” and “how the chimney sweepers cry” to show an image of child labor. The term “appalls” is used to describe the “blackning Church” to allow the audience to realize that the church is horrified of the child labor. The chimney sweepers are a specific example of child labor. And the use of the word “blackning” suggests that a sin such as child labor is occurring. Lastly, imagery is used in the last stanza to show the horrifying cycle of living in London, England. “How the youthful Harlots curse, blasts the new-born Infants tear” describes how prostitutes are
In the William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the vision of children and adults are placed in opposition of 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 happy am,/ Joy is my name.’” (Line 4-5) The speaker in this poem is portrayed as being immediately joyful, which represents Blake’s larger view of childhood as a state of joy that is untouched by humanity, and is untarnished by the experience of the real world. In contrast, Blake’s portrayal of adulthood is one of negativity and pessimism. Blake’s child saw the most cheerful aspects of the natural wo...