Response to William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience

INNOCENCE v EXPERIENCE 109 UWA 2012 William Blakes Songs of honour and of stupefy was combined in 1794. Having compiled Songs of Innocence in 1789, Blake intended that he was writing happy rhymes that all children may enjoy (Norton Anthology pg 118 footnote 1). non all the verse forms reflect a happy stance, many incorporate injustice, sinfulness and suffering. Blake represents these aspects of the public through the eyes of innocence. In contrary Blakes Songs of Experience were written as ugly and terrifying versions of the same humanity.These poems were utilize to reflect a ghastly representation of the humanness as iodine of poverty, disease and war. The Songs of Innocence were penned around the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the French Revolution, although Blake would have worked on them for years prior. The Songs of Experience were etched during the snapper and toward the end of the revolution and reflect how the poets collect of the world had b een bear on and changed by the horrific events. Blakes work is a compilation of a number of songs.Although each can stand as an independent poem many from Songs of Innocence have a pair in Songs of Experience such as Infant Joy Infant Sorrow, The birth The Tyger and The Ecchoing Green The Earths Answer. Taking Infant Joy, from Songs of Innocence, it is told from the perspective of a baby but two days old. The baby is perceived as happy and joyous through lines such as joy is my work/Sweet joy befall thee and plays on the common ideology that infants are happy and loveable.Yet, its counterpart Infant Sorrow, from Songs of Experience, still told from the perspective of the new born, presents the acidulated reality of child birth My mother groand My father wept. /Into the dangerous world I leapt. The organisation of the work in this way presents two tell apart views of the world from the same perspective. I believe that the main problem that motivates Blake appears to be t he comparison between childhood innocence and what we really experience in the world. The modern idea of wearing rose tinted glasses springs to mind, in the comprehend that as a child we view the world as this magnificent, resplendent nd happy place but as we grow and require more about ourselves and the world our experiences begin to taint that innocent view and the world becomes ugly, harsh and cruel. The primary focus of Blakes work is to frame contrast between the fanciful, innocent view of the unjust, evil and suffering world and the harsh reality that suffering, war, poverty and disease really bring. These songs would have been accept to children and it can be presumed that it was Blakes attempt to teach them something about the world in which they were living through engaging their imaginations with his use of poetry.