Response to William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience

INNOCENCE v EXPERIENCE 109 UWA 2012 William Blakes Songs of naturalness and of Experience was combined in 1794. Having compiled Songs of Innocence in 1789, Blake intended that he was writing happy rhymes that every last(predicate) children whitethorn en feel (Norton Anthology pg 118 footnote 1). Not all the poems resound a happy stance, many an(prenominal) incorporate injustice, evil and paroxysm. Blake represents these aspects of the earth by dint of the eyes of purity. In unconnected Blakes Songs of Experience were written as ugly and terrifying versions of the same world.These poems were utilise to reflect a ghastly example of the world as one of poorness, infirmity and war. The Songs of Innocence were penned around the end of the American Revolution and the start of the French Revolution, although Blake would gain controled on them for years prior. The Songs of Experience were sculpted during the middle and toward the end of the revolution and reflect how the poet s view of the world had been change and changed by the horrific events. Blakes work is a compilation of a subdue of songs.Although each can stand as an independent poem many from Songs of Innocence have a pair in Songs of Experience such as frustrate Joy Infant Sorrow, The honey The Tyger and The Ecchoing Green The Earths Answer. winning Infant Joy, from Songs of Innocence, it is told from the perspective of a shaver but cardinal days old. The baby is perceived as happy and sprightly through lines such as joy is my name/Sweet joy pass off thee and plays on the common ideology that infants be happy and loveable.Yet, its counterpart Infant Sorrow, from Songs of Experience, hitherto told from the perspective of the new born, presents the harsh humanity of child birth My mother groand My don wept. /Into the dangerous world I leapt. The judicature of the work in this way presents two contrasting views of the world from the same perspective. I believe that the main pr oblem that motivates Blake appears to be the comparison amid childhood innocence and what we really experience in the world. The youthful idea of wearing rose tinted spectacles springs to mind, in the sense that as a child we view the world as this magnificent, beautiful nd happy roam but as we grow and regard 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 create 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 register to children and it can be presumed that it was Blakes examine to teach them something about the world in which they were living through engaging their imaginations with his theatrical role of poetry.