William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

key protrude how Flakes thought develops from his verse carcass The bear and The tiger together- l guard no fix I am except deuce old age old. What sh totally I call thee? l happy am, feel is my name. Sweet rapture befall thee The obedient character as wholesome as the bad abstractions such(prenominal)(prenominal) as integritys and vices is enclose up in tokens to elaborate t successor referiveness and implications. Flakes cosmogeny is as rise as large and complex to be given in brief. His symbols help to extinguish his visions which whitethorn be obscure to a common reader.Blake says Allegory is ad defineed to the understanding powers, while it is altogether hidden from the somatic. fellow feeling is my definition of the Most Sublime Poetry. From this it is cloudless that in his view rime is back on with something else than the phenomenal homokind and that the hardly meaner of expres breakg it is by what he calls allegory. For Blake allegory is a carcass of symbols which dumbfounds takingss in a spectral instauration. The mild Rose puts forth a thorn, The graceful Sheep a thr run d professening horn duster the Lily white shall in issue delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat berth her steady expert. Blake imagined himself under spiritual influences. He saw various trends and collar he illustrations of angels, fairies, kings of the past(a) and even matinee idol the past and future were before him and he heard in thought process, even the awful articulatio which called on Adam amongst the trees of the garden. In this grade of dreaming abstraction, he lived much of his brio all his s works be stamped with it.Though this visionary aspect explains much of the mysticism and obscurity of his work, it is correspondingwise the fixings that forges his numberss comical in dearliness and beauty. It is amazing that he could thus, month after(prenominal) month and division after year, lay down his engraver aft er it had earned him his lily w dates, and retire from s the battle, to his imagination w present he could obtain scenes of more than- footingly wideness and creatures pure as unfasten dew. a worry Sweeteners, Blake narrates things unheard and un perk upn more strictly a mystic than Sweeteners, he does non condescend to dialectics and scholastic god.Those who fancy that a dozen stony syllogisms seal up the perennial inauguration of our secretest questions, will subscribe that Flakes belief was an illusion, constant and self-consistent and harmonized with the cosmea through issue the safe and sound of a military personnelhoods conduct, stand non differ from much reality. However, it is similarly authoritative to n star hat he was irrelevant common atheists. Selfish Father of humannesspower Cruel, Jealous, selfish Fear discharge delight, enchained in night, The virgins of youth and morning bear? In the c lecture of creeds, it is al sorts a puff of air to remembe r that sects with their sectaries, orthodox or other(a)wise, could not intersect all, if they were not in the same plane. My spiritual intelligence is for certain becoming confuse by your actors line of conflicting conclusions, on that pointfore ascending ace of them please reveal definitely that by which I may obtain the superior benefit. We find in Flakes poetry more of the elements characterizing Romantic poetry. The land of imagination is the world of Eternity, says Blake.In his championship of liberty, his mysticism, naturalism, idealization of pip-squeakhood, and simplicity Blake could be called a harbinger of Romantic poetry in nineteenth century England. right away enjoy. Dip him in the river who loves urine.. The busy bee has no time for melancholy.. The some sublime act is to stigmatise another before you The cistern contains the fountain overflow. In explaining these lines we waver in interpreting the drops of tears that water the enlightenment as the out gravel intercourse of the rage of the frustrated rebelling angels or as tears of Eric.If this angriness is star of the two aspects of idol, the tigers barbarianty and craze is only footlingly terrible. It cigargont otherwise be cons lawfuld as a portentous rage. But after, all choler and mercifulness unite at the same even whither the ultimate reality of god is felt. in that respect argon two meaner for the achievement of the goal, the scratch line cosmos through the iniquitylessness of the bear and other macrocosm through the run across of the tiger. The close of the poetry gives us the clue the daring of the power whether immortal or man is the cleanup position wrath of the tiger. Blake is graduation and foremost a poet of visions and mysticism.But of, his visions be not confined to a narrow streamline of thought most futurity al iodine they take the present into consideration and unfold those aspects of contemporary hostel detri kind to discharge sur deliverth of the mental powers of man. He ridicules the artificial ethos of worship that professes a complete negation of mans sensual emotional state and vehemently argues for a more complete flavor which combines the intellects and the spirit. He probes beneath the sur await of things and exposes the root of mixer vices, the hidden sores and scars of a tradition-bound society. stop a mother sit and hear An infant groan, and infant fear? No, no Ever can it be Never, neer can it be Flakes maxim that the gaye soul is do of contrary elements can be applied here likewise. veiled and imagination or the beastly and noble nature of man is necessary for a fuller biography of the soul and for its progress. It is a grievous mistake to sanctify the deliver and stoop an shopping center of defiance towards the tiger. Blake opposes such a view and gives equal extrusion to sense and soul, the wild and balmy aspects of military personnel beings. Does spring hide its Joy W hen buds and blossoms grow? What holds our attention is not however the brutes beauty scarce the mystery and repose cornerstone its excogitation.In The Lamb the poet visualizes the holiness of the love and nestling and unifies them with the Naz bene saviour. It is obvious that the link that connects these figures is artlessness. The benignantness of the birth and the purity of the knocker of a child argon nothing only when the manifestation of oculus nor does he act premeditatedly. The air of naturalness is clearly visible on the face of all the tether of them. How sweetly is the Shepherds sweet lot From the morn to the evening he strays He shall follow his sheep all the day, And his lingua shall be filled with praise. More than this element of purity in that location is another recital of connection between the accommodate and christ. Christ refers to himself as the Lamb of God The deliver of God that take away the sin of the world. In the book of a ccount Christ is referred to some(prenominal)(prenominal) as a birth and as a shepherd. In this aspect the lamb has a religious significance too. (The whole universe is a symbol, and God is the fondness after part. ? Swami Vegetarian ?) The tiger displays the poets excellence in craftsmanship and descriptive skill. In the forest of follow out Blake finds the bright- eye tiger which appears to involve all the cosmic forces.The tiger has made its appearances in the apocalyptic books of Blake. The poets reliance in the cosmic and marvellous forces is increasingly exemplified and asserted when he describes the establishment and the ecclesiastic of the tiger. The originator is a supernatural being and not necessarily the Christian God. The intro, according to another elucidation takes nates in an extraordinary cosmic commotion. When the constellations turn round in their course thither is a move from light to darkness. The name and method of admiting questions here ar quite different from those employed in The Lamb.In The tiger the questions are put in a terrified and bewilderment-inspired tone. It is too held that The Tiger deals with the colossal enigma of curse, but in Blake evil does not exist as an abstract quality. Instead, the evil is embodied in the wrath of God. Christ, like all other Gods, has a dual duty. He punishes the sinners and offenders and loves the followers. Thus Christ or God becomes the God of both love and unkindness. The implode is a popular symbol of wrath. Milton and Spencer have depict wrath as brush off, but we are not to misapprehend Flakes use of wrath as one of the deadly sins by the miracle and morality plays.Blake finds virtue in wrath and what he describes in the righteous indignation or the wrath of a pious soul. In growth to this, if we in any case construe the emblematical center of the forest, then we can substantiate the nub of the lines. Tiger Tiger give noticeing bright In the forests of th e night. The poet is struck with surprise and awe to behold the wild animals majestic elegance and grandeur. Its unity is direful and the glow of its look is unearthly. When the process of creation is over, a spartan beauty is born(p). The potentiality of the animal and its moves/ are its peculiar features.The tiger beyond its superficial tatty is a prototype of God whose harsher aspect is present n the vehemence of the creature. It is a subscriber line and counterpart to the white of the lamb. The poet wonders Did he who made the Lamb make thee? In the poesy The Tiger a rendering of the process of creation is given, but no clarification is given about who the churchman is. In the first stanza the creator is described as having wings by which he may have reached the skies to bring the fire for the luster of the wild beast.The creation of the tiger is conveyed in terminology and invents which, though important in their totality, do not take any transparent elucid ation of the creator. We sense the strong shoulders thrusting forward in the process of forging the body of the carnivore. The adroitness of the strokes is further conveyed in the dread soak up which is fit with unprecedented craftsmanship. If the dread feet and dread hand are applied to those of the busily eng hoary creator we can elicit the fact that those limbs are busy in working diligently.At the message of achieving the perfection of his sublime creation the poetry grows tense, the questions are broken in middle(prenominal) and the speakers hindered gasps let out incomplete devil of exclamation. The star floor. The watery shore. Is given thee savings bank the break of day. In the world of honour even the meanest creature such as a lamb (which is low only in the eyes of military mans beings) is treated as having unbound divinity. Here is an scoop unification of the three characters- Christ, child and the Lamb who constitute the Christian concept of leash in t he world of innocence. Flakes concept of God is closely aligned to his mysticism.He conceives of God as the real epitome of propertys which man is capable of developing. If he nurtures these qualities, an can assume godliness-it merely depends on what set of qualities a man develops. A child asks a lamb if it knows its merciful creator, its feeder or the sponsor of its delightful and coos clothes of purloin. He also asks the lamb whether it knows who gave it its attender voice that fills the valleys with benignant Joy and music. Quite wide, the lines Little lamb who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? are repeated, presumable with wonder in the eyes of the child. The speaker does not check for any answer.He tells the lamb that its creator is one who is called after the name of the lamb itself. He is one who calls Himself a lamb. He is modest and mild and came on earth as a little child. The poem comes to have a meaningful pause at this juncture. The questions are as ked, answers done and the child (or the poet) turns to bring to an end the lines in a wise hymnary vein or spiritual implication. He says l a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name Blake intends to suggest that the great purpose of wrath is to read error, to annihilate those stubborn beliefs which cannot be upstage by the tame horses of instruction. It is typical of Blake to ask questions when he is overpowered by wonder ND amazement and it is effective oddly in the vitrine of this poem, where it outcomes in an intense extemporization. The phrase fearful residual- whatever is assertable in symbolic suggestions- is clearly the initial puzzle the symmetry implies an ordering hand or intelligence, the fearful throws doubt about the sympathy of the creator. The forest of the night is the darkness out of which the tiger looms brilliant by contrast They also embody the doubt or amazement that surrounds the origins of the tiger.In the case of the lamb the creator is m eek and he is mildHe became a little hill. In the case of the tiger creator is again like what he creates. The fig that must be supplied Him is now that of the Promethean Smith working violently at the forge. The tiger is an image of the motive its dreaded terror must be His. In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thin eyes? On what wings dare he aim? What the hand dare seize the fire? There is scarcely any poem in Songs of white and of bonk which does not have a symbolic or allegorical or allusive implication.Though these poems are rendered in the artlessst possible poems is somewhat scriptural- simple and rebound at the same time. The biblical allusions add prodigious significance to his poems when adversary example, we read the The Shepherd it commemorates Christ as the wakeless Shepherd and reminds us that the parables are clothe in pastoral elements. Without reference to the Bible the poem, The Shepherd is meaningless and insignificant. Furthermore, Blake makes use of Biblical phrases too, as we go over in the poem The Lamb. Gave thee life, and swordplay thee feed, By the stream and oer the mead Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? In Songs of Innocence and of down, Flakes symbols are not as obscure or abstruse as we find them in his other poems. In his later poems (Prophetic Books) they are rather incomprehensible. The wiz symbols used by Blake have been classified advertisement by critics as innocence symbols. more of these, of course, overlap, and among themselves weave richness into Flakes poetry. Then come home, my children, the sun is foregone down, And the dews of night bone In the first, the word dews evokes an image of harmlessness but in the snatch context it evokes a feeling of chill and damp. In the first there is a feeling that the viii will get through, but in the second poem the word dew assumes further ramifications of meaning. It implies materialism, the ism of experience, the indifference to spiritual truth. Knowledge of these symbolic meanings enriches our understanding of the poem. Blake gives his own interpretation to traditional symbols.The rose traditionally associated with love and coldness assumes the aura of sicknesses and disease in Blake for he considered love to be still and fairish and open in order to be good. The lilys purity assumes added depth in Flakes poetry, not because it is chaste but because it feels honestly. The sun flowers nominal head with the sun has deep meaning on the one hand it represents a front for spirituality on the other, it expresses regret for being attached to the ground. The simple vocabulary and driving of Flakes verse should not lull us into a feeling that the thought too is childish.Indeed there is a complex wreathe of syllogism in his poetry that gives multiple layers of meaning to his words. Sometimes this syllogism even lends obscurity to hi s poems because it evolves out of Flakes own system of symbols. The manner in a particular mood is a remarkable illustrated in the Nurses Songs in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience occur in both poems yet the feelings evoked because of the accompanying words are in sharp contrast. To this day they dwell In a lonesome(a) dell. Nor fear the wolfish howl Nor the lions growl. The world of Experience welcomes a child of sorrow, who rather than being a fiend himself is also born into a monstrous world of totems and taboos. oddish to notice, it is not actually upon the growing son that the shadows of prison house close on the other hand, the shadows spread on the infant at the moment of birth itself. predictably enough, there is no scope of a heaven lying about its infancy. Its struggle pops from the rattling moment of its birth, it is choked from the very emerge of its life and it finds its only rest on its mothers breast.As a contrast to Infant Joy here the child is not a Joy but a fiend and incomplete its mother nor the father, though it is not explicit from Flakes poem, accords a warm s welcome to him. The child hides behind the cloud. The speaker is manifestly the child himself who laments against life. But to go to naturalize in a summer morn, Oh It drives all Joy away Under a cruel eye outworn The little ones egest the day In sighing and dismay. Admittedly, the poem brings out Flakes ideas on love and hints at his well-known(a) belief that sex is not sinful.For Blake nakedness is a symbol of pure innocence and he lauds uninhabited love. The Golden get on with is that in which the people have love for their fellowmen and mingle with one another freely. In the Golden Age love is not a crime but a grace and beauty signaling unbridled innocence, but in the present age the most tender sentiments are polar by the trembling fear coming from the cruel eyes of experience. In all(prenominal) beef of every Man In every Infants cry of fear In ev ery voice, in every ban The mind-forged manacles I hear. Flakes vision of man in Songs of Experience, especially with reference to A Divine Image can be summed up as, The valet dress is forge agitate The human form is a fiery forge, The human face a furnace squiffy, The human heart its athirst(p) gorge. The poem A Divine Image is a contrast to The Divine Image in its very title. In The Divine Image, the definite obligate The shows the real, one and only Divine Image. In A Divine Image the indefinite hold back A points at a particular nobleman image which has a unique growth.The contrast is also visible in the two stanzas of these two poems. For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And bask the human form divine. Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace Can be seen as a pure(a) contrast to the lines of A Divine Image that run as Cruelty has a human heart And Jealousy a human face Terror the human form divine And Secrecy the human dress. This is rightfully terrifying. His soul (t he human form) is burning with frightfulness at heart the iron body of secrecy (the condition of deceit his face is a furnace sealed up wherein Jealousy rages his heart is recklessly cruel.The imagery is similar to that of The Tiger, but where the Tiger had broken all bounds as a symbol of regeneration, man is here imprisoned in a dress of an iron suit, of his own forging and all his energies burn within it, consuming him. For I dance, And strength and breadth, And the want Of thought is death Blake is not merely a revolutionary mind on mans physical or corporeal granting immunity he is also one who broods over the spiritual freedom or spiritual salvation of mankind.The former point, covering Blake as a humanitarian, cans be well understood from poems such as The Chimney-sweeper, set apart Thursday and A little female child Lost. In all these cases Flakes fury makes him lash out at the lying of man and the society that enslaves children to utter lifelessness. In holy place T hursday Flakes sympathetic and compassionate heart shares the agony of the children and his pent up feelings are let out through an incongruous comment Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor, Then foster pity, lest you drive an angel from your door. William Blake is considered a precursor of Romantic Movement in incline Literature. Romanticism laid considerable sift on the elements of imagination, tauter worship, humanitarianism, liberty, mysticism and symbolism. It differed from the outlook expounded by the preceding age of Neo classicism which promoted the notion of reason, balance and logic with reckon to prose and poetry. The Romantic creed of poetry rests on recording the simple emotions of humanity in a simple diction. Recollections of childhood (nostalgia) are also a common slip of Romanticism. When the voice of children are heard on the green And whisperings are in the dale, The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. B ut of, the submerge of feelings gains more fury in the poem of the same title in Songs of Experience Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and blue-fruited land. Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and hideous hand? With vehemence Blake argues for the freedom of human energy too. He deplores any religion that denies sexual and emotional life of man. virility and vigor are divine and its free play should never be hindered. He is called by thy name, For he calls Himself a Lamb. He is meek, and He is mild He became a little child. Many of Flakes poems celebrate the divinity and innocence of not merely the child UT also the least harmless of creatures on earth, namely the lamb. The child asks the lamb if it knows who has created out. The child does not wait but answers his questions himself. He does so, we feel, not because the lamb cannot communicate, but because the child is so enthusiastic and aegir to mention the creator and his virtues.He refers to the meekness of Christ, his historied infancy as well as his reference to himself as a lamb. He concludes with a reference to his own and the lambs relation to God and thus establishes their oneness. Qualities of simplicity, innocence and divinity are extended even to the world of animals and the innocent creatures like the lamb are raised from their level of lowness in the human eye. Both the child and Christ are unified with the lamb and the three forms the Trinity on earth. Tiger Tiger Burning bright In the forest of the night, What deathless hand or eye Dare configuration thy fearful symmetry? In The Shepherd the Shepherd is depicted as enjoying vast freedom, and his fortune is praised. He is so fortunate that he can throw about in carefree way wherever he chooses and sing in praise of God. Not only is he always near his lambs, listening to heir innocent cries, bleats and answering bleats ,but he is never exposed to the world of Experience where he may be startled by roars of rigourousness and f ierceness. This is a simple pastoral poem in which liberty and freedom are praised. We are again brought to realize the parity of lamb and innocence. Frowning, frowning night, Oer this cease bright Let the moon arise, fleck I close my eyes. The pastoral rule, which represents the occupations of shepherds in an idealized way, against an idealized country emphasise had to face severe criticism in the eighteenth century because of its unreality. It was held that men and women were neither so Joyful nor carefree, nor so innocent, as they were represented but according to Blake, brisk-fangled children do have these qualities, they live in a golden world of their own. This convention is used by Blake to give us an insight into childhood, and one state of human soul.In the poem, the poet tells us about the valley along which he goes piping and about his abrupt meeting with a child. The child bids him shriek a song about a lamb- another pastoral element. The pipe is a ceremonious pastoral musical organ on which the shepherds play melodiously as the sheep graze. It is also worth nothing that when the child appeals to him to import down the song, the poet says And I plucked a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs each child may Joy to hear. The phrase reed, rural pen and Water clear contributes much to the elements of pastorals or rustic innocence. In the so-called world of experience, callousness, tyranny and insincerity await the light-hearted new-comer and subject him to an entire transformation. The child -turned-youth experiences a curb on his spontaneous instincts, by the repelling codes of social moralities and etiquette. There is deceitfulness in full swing and there is cruelty. In this unsanitary forge, he is reshaped and bestowed with an modify outlook. He is no more the lark child.His fertile imagination yields to the aged gaunt intellect and mature reason. He is in fact fallen or lapse d- fallen from his primaeval abode of life. What the hammer? What the chain? The two diverse natures- Innocence and Experience are essential for the ultimate salvation of his soul. From experience man moves to a world of higher(prenominal) innocence. Blake seems to argue that Joy and peace, which man had experienced in his holding, can have fast foundations only if man has experienced and get the hang the impediments and unpleasant realities which day to-day life presents.That is to say, to attain a higher innocence man must be tested by suffering and misery, physical as well as emotional he must go through the actual experience of life. Through the state of childhood innocence is charming it is not prefect and cannot last long. For spiritual elevation, lessons from both experience and innocence are essential. And it bears the fruit of Deceit, Ruddy and sweet to eat And the raven his nest has made In its thickest shade. Flakes The Tiger blends child-like innocence with adult wis dom.The child-like innocence is revealed in the flare-up of questions and exclamations about the fearful symmetry of the tigers body and the reactions of the stars and God to the tigers creation. wish the innocent child the poet wonders to know who frame the tigers body, fearful but well-proportioned What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? The following volley of questions bears the stamp of child-like innocence Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy. Like a child not contaminated by the evils of experience the poet is curious to know what instruments were used to frame the tigers fearful symmetry. With the innocence of the child the poet thinks that the angels were so amazed to see the fearful tiger created that they threw down their spears and wept. He also wonders if God smiled with satisfaction to see his new creation (I. E. The tiger) the wondering that becomes a child. supply spring and your day are unavailing in play, And your winter and night in disguise. With this child-like innocence is blended adult wisdom. The Tiger expresses the sadism (I. . Experience) that comes of age that becomes a man who has gone through his life. The wisdom sought to be conveyed is as follows. Man passes from innocence to experience. And for experience man has to pay a cutting price not merely in such unimportant things as comfort and peace of mind, but in the highest spiritual values. Experience de invertebrate foots and perverts noble desire. It destroys the state of childlike innocence and puts destructive forces in its place. It breaks the free life of imagination and substitutes a dark, cold, imprisoning fear, and the result is a deadly low to joyful human spirit.The fear and denial of life which come with experience breed hypocrisy which is as grave a sin as cruelty. To destroy these forces of experiences the benign creator assumes the role of a malignant creator. In the scheme of things the tiger is as much a neces sity as the lamb. So the God who created the lamb also created tiger. In other words, is not only a God of mercy, but also a God of wrath, the creator of Satan and social and political cataclysms. Flakes conception of God here betrays a striking similarity with the Hondo hydrological avatar theory. Round the laps of their mothers Many sisters and brothers, Like birds in their nest, Are ready for rest And tout no more seen On the darken Green. It is indispensable that the boy who enjoyed full freedom and liberty in innocence ought to pass into experience. This is because the design of human life gives intumescency to the contrariety of human nature without which there is no progression. A complete life on earth meaner the life of innocence and experience. Without experience or innocence the life cycle is incomplete and imperfect.The memos of Songs of Innocence and of Experience are based on this point of view of contrariety. Why of the sheep do you not exact peace Because I do nt want you to trim my fleece. The Tiger is typically representative of the most characteristic features of experience which in the poetic context of Blake involves deep meaning. From this powerful symbol we construe that Blake was a devotee of energy which, for him, was an aspect of true divinity. In this poem the poets irrepressible specialty at the extraordinarily exquisite creation of God finds its vent in small broken questions.After wondering at the symmetry of its body and stripes, the luster of its eyes, the strong muscles, elegant paws and its powerful strides, the poet turns to the reaction of the creator when he beholds his own creation. The poet says that God may have smiled at the surrender of the rebelling angels at his own master craftsmanship in the creation of the tiger. The stars are the rebellious angels under Satan. When they failed to vanquish God and were beaten they threw down their spears as in surrender and moaned for their trouncing. It is after this e vent that God started creating inhabitants for the earth.So, at the time of the defeat of the rebelling angels, God might have besides finished the creation of the awesome tiger and smiled on his hidden purpose behind all his acts. Because I was happy upon the heath, And smiled among the winters snow, They apparel me in the clothed of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe. The Lamb is the most significant poem in the parting of Innocence not merely because it propounds the idea of innocence in the simplest way, but also because here we notice the poet extending the world of innocence even to the animals that re insignificant and base in the human eye.In this poem we see a child patting a lamb and asking if it knows who the giver of its life and fasten is. He asks it whether it knows who has given it the silken fleece immaculate white and thin voice of its bleat. The child himself answers his questions. He defines the Almighty God as who is known after the name of his la mb who is meek and gentle. Since God descended to the earth as infant Jesus he is also called a child. The child, lamb and God are all brought to unite to form a single divine entity. The fondness of the poem lies in these