Songs of Innocence and Song of Experience Analysis

William Blake lived from 1757 1827 in London. He was primarily an engraver accordingly painter until later writing his famous poems. In his childhood he was educated at hearth although he later attended a drawing school, Henry Pars and was an autodidact. Blake withal claimed to work visions, most notably a vision when he saw and conversed with the Virgin Mary and the Angel Gabriel. In 1779, Blake became a disciple at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House. His studies required no payment nevertheless he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six years he would stay.He wed in 1783 to Catherine Boucher, based solely on love and to this day is defined as a ro servicemanticist poet. He was Associated with the Romantics because he had similar ideas that the imagination was real important. Byron, Shelly and Coleridge believed that the imagination was important much more then rational thought. They were all against industrialisation of the countryside. The Roman tics were an artistic movement which started in the 1770s through the Industrialisation of Europe move into the early Victorian period. They were classed here because of certain shargond beliefs.The Romantics dis wish welld the effects of the Industrial revolution. They lived during the civil contend of America and the French revolution, due to the sudden questioning in the role of Monarchy and Church. William Blake produced poems, most notably the twain beau poems of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. One of his beliefs was that honor is something good and generally saw insure as a bad thing. Evidence limns from his poems that he detested the expansion of industrialisation and very much liked the countryside as well as his deep religious attitude.Also you can read Analysis July at the multipleSongs of Innocence and Experience was written in 1790. The main theme Blake stressed was that a child system barren in his or her youth. The songs of Innocence atomic numbe r 18 written in a childs usher of view. They even so strive strong even though in that location is evil around them. Blake felt as you grew fourth-year you lost that purity as you gained more experience. The songs of Experience are written in an experienced power point of view, which had realised the true evil around him or her and hated it. The first ii examples are the beloved from Songs of innocence and the Tyger from songs of experience.Firstly, the deliver consists of two stanzas with five rhyming couplets. The dearest is about innocence and Blake utilises the symbolism of a child to emphasize the theme. He is meek & he is mild. A lamb is a small, mousey and weak animal and can portray innocence and peacefulness, properties we can associate with a child. It may also take on deeper meaning, such(prenominal) as the Lamb of God. It was Jesus who became know as the Lamb of God because as the Jewish faith believes, sacrificing a lamb would take away your sins.The Christ ians saw Jesus as acting like a lamb so he could take away everyones sins after becoming crucified, an moving- vulnerability show which shows self-sacrifice and innocence. Blake, who has a passion for religion gives praise to God for creation of a creature like the Lamb. The alliteration of Little Lamb gives the effect of softening the tone and adding to the imagination of innocence and possibly Blake time-tested to make the Lamb searchm like a Nursery Rhyme, which portrays the poem being narrated by a child, on that pointfore cogitateing back to the theme of innocence.In the Tyger, the poem consists of six stanzas, with two rhyming couplets in from distributively one stanza. The Tyger is about experience and Blake utilises this using industrial and contort imagery like in the fourth stanza such as what the hammer or in the first stanza forests of the night. The Tyger call for experience to survive, as it needs to kill to live. Blake is questioning God What immortal hand or eye, / could frame thy aweful balance to why God would want to make animals like tigers, such as mankind. This is one of Blakes rhetorical questions throughout the poem. take aim alsoCase 302 July in MultiplexThe immortal hand refers to the power of God to create. The fearful symmetry refers to the complexness in the tyger by the divine artistry, almost being so perfect as to be fearful to understand. Blake saw the Tyger as a very intricate animal, asking how God created it, In what furnace was thy sense / What the anvil,. The comparisons between the two is that the Lamb has pastoral imagery, such as language, Vale, mead, stream, This helps the reader picture a pastoral scene. This was the i throne purport of William Blake, evidence for his want for the time before the industrial revolution.The Tyger has industrial imagery, furnace, hammer, anvil, to show how the Tyger is do as if it were in a factory. This imagery shows a pessimistic view of the Tyger. Blake does this becau se of his hate of industrialisation and saw it as an impurity to the countryside. In the penultimate stanza of the Tyger, Blake quotes Genesis, Did he grinning his work to see. Blake is talking about the sixth day of creation when God had finally halt and looked at his work, and saw it was good and rested on the s resolutionh day. only if then Blake adds Did he who made the Lamb make thee Blake gives this rhetorical question to state whether the said(prenominal) God made the little lamb also made the Tyger. Here Blake questions the omniscience of God. If God is kind and all knowing shouldnt he have known evil and suffering would exist due to the creation of creatures like the Tyger. In general, Blake examines two separate animals, the Lamb and the Tyger which express his feelings on ideas about creation and the creator.Blake appreciates an innocent creature like the Lamb and is awe-struck by the complexity of the Tyger but is asking why God would make a Tyger with properties li ke having to kill in ensnare to survive. Blake sees innocence as something good because as age your experience in the world increases. People see the sinister side of the world therefore Blake would have seen ignorance as bliss. The adjoining poems I willing be analysing are The Chimney scall outer from Songs of innocence and The Chimney sweeper from Songs of Experience. The Songs of innocence version was written in 1789.Blake saw around him the child cruelty and shows this through his poem. When my m opposite died I was very young, from the first stanza like a shot shows Blakes choice to make the poem in a childs perspective thus increasing the empathy, which he has tried to do repeatedly in dirty word I sleep to show the reader the bad emotional state of poor children. Yet they continue to strive as best they can and treat each other well compared to the adults. soot cannot spoil your white-hot hair, from the second stanza is about another child nerve-racking to comfort another child.In the penultimate line in the First stanza, Could scarcely bid weep weep weep is the childs attempt to say sweep , sweep , which was the common street cry of chimney sweepers. It shows the child is very young and cannot even talk properly, adding to his innocence. Also this poem shows that the children have a very optimistic attitude on life, they try to make the greatest of what they have and do not fear death. This can be shown through a religious theme. When the Angel t of age(p)(prenominal) Tom, if hed be a good boy, Hed have God for his father & never want joy.Here Blake is showing that the children will live happily for eternity if they followed Gods rules. Blake therefore believes the innocence of the children is what keeps them believing theyll have a better life after this scummy one because their innocent minds were easy to manipulate with the guarantee of an afterlife. The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of experience was written in 1794. The Chimney swee per show evidence of his former innocence and is the same chimney sweeper from songs of innocence but matured and grown to realise the real world around him.Now, the Chimney sweeper blames his parents for the life he was put in, the first stanza says, Where are thy father & mother. He is miserable in his do notes of woe and also blames God & his Priest & King. Blake purpose experty made this childs perspective different from the companion poem to show the chimney sweeper has been influenced by society and therefore has an experienced point of view. through with(predicate) the childs experience, Blake has portrayed the child detesting religion. In the first stanza the child speaks out for his parents, but he knows They are some(prenominal) gone up to the church to pray. The child is angry that the people who follow God are the same people who taught me to sing the notes of woe. The child is bitter towards his life and believes he has been done wrong by the adults and believes they make up ones mind joy in their misery Who make up a heaven of our misery. Blake has done this because of the controversy around the role of the church and monarchy and is an indication of someone who is experienced to question the role of church and monarchy. The Comparisons between the two is that they both contain metaphors prophesizing a most likely death.The Songs of innocence also has dark colour imagery inside the metaphor, Were all of them lockd up in coffins of black. The black being themselves covered in soot and lockd inside the chimneys, as was a lot of boys misfortunes. The Songs of experience shows the child knowing what his parents have done to him and is conscious(predicate) of a possible death. They clothed me in the clothes of death. The metaphor also shows that he was clothed from the real world during his younger years of innocence, meaning he felt he was living a lie.Further colour imagery is use in the songs of innocence such as, cannot spoil your white ha ir, white symbolising something pure as well as in the fourth stanza when the children naked and white, go and wash in a river, and shine in the sun. Here Blake uses pastoral imagery to make the countryside seem like a heaven and uses more themes of religion linking naked and white to offer and Eve, where they wash in a river, and shine in the sun, this being the Garden of Eden. Blake is using the innocence and naivety of Adam of Eve to link this with the Children.The colour imagery in the chimney sweeper from Songs of experience relates to darkness in a black thing among the snow. This meaning the soot covered child is an oddment among everyone else. Blake stresses that he is all alone among the world and tries to win the readers sympathy. Using the word snow, Blake has used the snows berth of being cold to portray societys ill attitude to life. In general, Blake has tried to expose the churches twists of their religion to utility themselves. Blake has used the chimney sweeper s as evidence of this.They were taught that if they do their duty they not fear harm. And as the innocent children they believed blindly until gradual experience revealed that is was the church that taught me to sing the notes of woe. Most children were brought into chimney sweeping when they reached 5 and go on that life until their size grew too big to fit inside. Many died from becoming trapped, getting tuberculosis, asthma and testicular cancer. William Blake lived in London his whole life and wrote the poem London for Songs of experience.London was written in 1794, in the aftermath of the French Revolution. This was a time of great political conflict in Britain. It exposes the distance in classes between those in power and the poor. In the second stanza, mind-forgd manacles, this metaphor contains a deeper meaning then at first glance. The mind-forged relates back to the tygers meaning of being created as if it were a machine. manacles are chains to the arms, which is being used to say London was a like a prison.The powerful minority had imposed their laws and removed license of the majority. We see this as how the powerful people were granted charters to control the streets of London and the river. Blake is obviously displeased that the streets are chartered but more obviously for the Chartered Thames, which shouldnt be controlled by laws. This is evidence for his views on the removal of freedom. Blake writes the weakness and the woe has appeared in every face to show the misery to try and make the audition feel sympathy for the poor.The repetition of marks and every reveals the extreme anxiety which marks of misery show up in every Man and every Infants faces which inform us that the Londoners are weakened in mind, body and spirit by the imposing of laws and chartered streets. Blake has utilised this to increase the audiences sympathy. Another main point with deeper meaning is in the third stanza, where Blake utilises imagery of religion and dest ruction as a paradox. He is implying the snuff it of religion such as the religious imagery of the blackning church which even ups the loss of innocence and the societys desertion of faith.The chimney-sweepers cry symbolises trying to weak the soot that covers society and clean what causes their misery. But the blackning church can also be blackened metaphorically with the shame of not helping the poor with the use of their power. There is also a pun as appals centre to become pale, as with fear, but the churches are becoming metaphorically black, with soot. lifelessness in the third stanza, the hapless soldiers sigh is about the aftermath of the French revolution when soldiers were drafted into war, unwilling or willing.Blake uses the imagery of destruction Runs in blood down palace walls to explain why the society is force to mend their weakness and woe so an uprising will not occur in London. The stretch forth stanza reveals Blakes feelings that the next generation will be affected by his generation, youthful harlots hatred symbolises the youths bad kit and boodle will cause the newborn infants tear which means the new generation will have to deal with the previous generations problems. This shows how old generations make mistakes for the new such as the current generation creating global warming, which the next generation must deal with.The language in the final stanza such as plagues also symbolises the curse. The marriage hearse symbolises eternity with death, an oxymoron. This makes the effect of showing life is not without death, in every life there is a final misery, death. William Blake wrote Holy atomic number 90 in songs of innocence in 1789. Holy Thursday describes the churchs festival to commemorate the ascension of Jesus which takes place thirty-nine days after Easter. On the Thursday, children from the charity schools across London went on a march to attend a service at St Pauls Cathedral.Beadles were lower rank church members who k ept the order of the children as they arrived. The Songs of innocence version of Holy Thursday consists of three quatrains each with two rhyming couplets. The first stanza brings the life to the poem with use of colour imagery red, blue and discolor to emphasize the childrens delight. Blake uses innocent faces clean to once again stress how simple and innocent children are. They are clean because they have not yet acquired experience, which Blake saw experience as something bad.The Beadles are Grey headed, revealing them as possibly old aged. Blake also describes them as wise guardians perhaps because of the knowledge they have acquired till their old age. This is peculiar because the main attitude of Blake was that experience was something bad. It may be that Blake writes this because he is pleased that the children are brought up with a good religious attitude by the church. In the last stanza the children sing above the aged men, more evidence of the beadles old age and a way to show their experience.Blake may have done this because he believed the Beadles were not wise or bothered to be guardians of the children because they cared not for them, another link to show experience as something bad. In the last line of the last stanza, Then cherish pity, lest you social movement an angel from your door is a reference to Hebrews 132, Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. This is God telling people to be good to our fellow man as you dont know who they are. This portrays the children as angelic to the reader.Also the sentences of the poem lengthen across the page. This can represent the long marching line of the children towards the church. The Songs of experience version was written in 1794. It is about the same event from the Songs of innocence but the manner is more disheartening. The poem consists of four quatrains and Blake has removed the effect of lengthening the sentences. agricultural imagery is evi dent that the children are in a rich and fruitful land. Blake has done this because of the looker of the actual church itself but he then stresses they are still reduced to misery.This is a reflection to the sour attitude of life expressed in the poem London. Blake is furthermore disapproved of the powerful winning advantage of the poor. Blake furthermore criticises the integrity of the church by writing that the children are Fed with cold and usurous hand. This means that the church has no concern of the children as is only interested in continuing the ceremony so it will benefit the church as usurous meant to lend money for a profit. Blake has also written deeper split including And their ways are filld with thorns, from the third stanza.Blake has used religious imagery to suggest the childrens lives will be full of adversity just as Jesus did. The thorns give a reminder to Jesus being flogged along with the crown of thorns. This was the hardship Jesus endured but after being crucified he ascended straight to heaven. Blake is saying the children will endure hardship like this but when the die they will go straight to heaven. Comparisons between the two are that in the last line of the third stanza of the Songs of Experience version, It is eternal winter there, describes how the children see the ceremony from the experienced point of view.This is different from Holy Thursdays of the Songs of innocence. The last stanza of the Songs of Experience version links to the winter by saying that when the sun shines and the rain doesnt fall, there can never hunger there and Nor poverty. But in winter the sun does not shine and rain does fall, so therefore Blake is saying there is hunger and there is poverty. The Songs of innocence version portrays the children as flowers of London town, this gives a good humor of the imagery for the children.But The Songs of Experience version opposes this mood as their fields are bleak & marginal which both quotes touch on past oral imagery. The experience of the children has lead them to become miserable as the adults and are bleak and bare physically and mentally. In general, Holy Thursday is meant to be a joyous juncture as Blake writes about the children in Songs of innocence but the exploitation by the powerful minority has discouraged the poor majority and this foul mood on such an occasion is shown in Holy Thursday from Songs of Experience.William Blake died in 1827. Blake wrote Songs of Innocence and Experience to show the world the bad deeds that society had created, expanding on matters he felt important like religion and morality, child labour and cruelty. It is true that Songs of Innocence and Songs of experience are very complex and Blake has done a good job of helping the reader understand the complexity by using his powerful use of imagery and language and William Blake has definitely expressed his beliefs well though his poems.