Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs
of Experience as precursors of the Romantic Age.
Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience as
precursors of the Romantic Age Poet, painter, engraver, and visionary Blake
worked to cause a change both within the social order and within the minds of
men. Though in his lifetime his work was largely neglected or dismissed, he's
now considered one of the leading lights of English poetry, and his work has
only grown in popularity. In his lifetime of Blake (1863) Alexander Gilchrist
warned his readers that Blake “neither wrote nor drew for the varied , hardly
for work’y-day men within the least , rather for kids and angels; himself ‘a
divine child,’ whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens and thus
the world .” Yet Blake himself believed that his writings were of national
importance which they could be understood by a majority of his peers. away from
being an isolated mystic, Blake lived and worked within the teeming metropolis
of London at a time of great social and political change that profoundly
influenced his writing. additionally to being considered one of the foremost
visionary of English poets and one of the great progenitors of English
Romanticism, his visual artwork is extremely regarded around the world.
Blake was born on November 28, 1757. Unlike many well-known
writers of his day, Blake was born into a family of moderate means. His father,
James, was a hosier, and thus the family lived at 28 Broad Street in London in
an unpretentious but “respectable” neighborhood. In all, seven children were
born to James and Catherine Harmitage Blake, but only five survived infancy.
Blake seems to possess been closest to his youngest brother, Robert, who died
young.
By all accounts Blake had a satisfying and peaceful
childhood, made even more pleasant by skipping any formal schooling. As a young
boy he wandered the streets of London and can easily escape to the encircling
countryside. Even at an early age, however, his unique mental powers would
prove disquieting. according to Gilchrist, on one ramble he was startled to
“see a tree full of angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like
stars.” His parents weren't amused at such a story, and only his mother’s
pleadings prevented him from receiving a beating. His parents did, however,
encourage his artistic talents, and thus the young Blake was enrolled at the
age of 10 in Pars’ drawing school. The expense of continued formal training in
art was a prohibitive, and thus the family decided that at the age of 14
William would be apprenticed to a master engraver. initially his father took him
to William Ryland, a highly respected engraver. William, however, resisted the
arrangement telling his father, “I don't a bit like the man’s face: it's as if
he will live to be hanged!” The grim prophecy was to return true 12 years
later. instead of Ryland the family settled on a lesser-known engraver, James
Basire. Basire seems to possess been an honest master, and Blake was an honest
student of the craft.
At the age of 21, Blake left Basire’s apprenticeship and
enrolled for a time within the newly formed Royal Academy . He earned his
living as a journeyman engraver. Booksellers employed him to engrave
illustrations for publications ranging from novels like Don Quixote to serials
like Ladies’ Magazine.
One incident at now affected Blake deeply. In June of 1780
riots broke out in London incited by the anti-Catholic preaching of Lord George
Gordon and by resistance to continued war against the American colonists.
Houses, churches, and prisons were burned by uncontrollable mobs bent
destruction. On one evening, whether intentionally or accidentally , Blake
found himself at the front of the mob that burned Newgate prison. These images
of violent destruction and unbridled revolution gave Blake powerful material
for works like Europe (1794) and America (1793).
Blake’s Songs of
Innocence and knowledge (1794) juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an
adult world of corruption and repression; while such poems as “The Lamb”
represent a meek virtue, poems like “The Tyger” exhibit opposing, darker
forces. Thus the gathering as a whole explores the price and limitations of two
different perspectives on the earth . Many of the poems fall into pairs, so as
that the same situation or problem is seen through the lens of innocence first
then experience. Blake doesn't identify himself wholly with either view; most
of the poems are dramatic—that is, within the voice of a speaker apart from the
poet himself. Blake stands outside innocence and knowledge , during a distanced
position from which he hopes to be able to recognize and proper the fallacies
of both. especially , he pits himself against despotic authority, restrictive
morality, sexual repression, and institutionalized religion; his great insight
is into the way these separate modes of control work together to squelch what's
most holy in citizenry .
The Songs of Innocence dramatize the naive hopes and fears
that inform the lives of kids and trace their transformation because the kid
grows into adulthood. variety of the poems are written from the attitude of
kids , while others are about children as seen from an adult perspective. Many
of the poems draw attention to the positive aspects of natural human
understanding before the corruption and distortion of experience. Others take a
more critical stance toward innocent purity: as an example , while Blake draws
touching portraits of the emotional power of rudimentary Christian values, he
also exposes—over the heads, because it were, of the innocent—Christianity’s
capacity for promoting injustice and cruelty.
The Songs of Experience work via parallels and contrasts to
lament the ways during which the tough experiences of adult life destroy what's
good in innocence, while also articulating the weaknesses of the innocent
perspective (“The Tyger,” as an example , attempts to account for real,
negative forces within the universe, which innocence fails to confront). These
latter poems treat virtue in terms of the repressive effects of jealousy,
shame, and secrecy, all of which corrupt the ingenuousness of innocent love.
With regard to religion, they're less concerned with the character of
individual faith than with the institution of the Church, its role in politics,
and its effects on society and thus the individual mind. Experience thus adds a
layer to innocence that darkens its hopeful vision while compensating for a
couple of of its blindness.
The style of the Songs
of Innocence and
knowledge is simple and direct, but the language and thus the rhythms are
painstakingly crafted, and thus the ideas they explore are often deceptively
complex. Many of the poems are narrative in style; others, like “The Sick Rose”
and “The Divine Image,” make their arguments through symbolism or by means of
abstract concepts. variety of Blake’s favorite rhetorical techniques are personification
and thus the transforming of Biblical symbolism and language. Blake frequently
employs the familiar meters of ballads, nursery rhymes, and hymns, applying
them to his own, often unorthodox conceptions. this mixture of the traditional
with the unfamiliar is consonant with Blake’s perpetual interest in
reconsidering and reframing the assumptions of human thought and social
behavior.
Songs of Experience
allows Blake to be
more direct in his criticism of society. He attacks church leaders, wealthy socialites,
and cruel parents with equal vehemence. Blake also uses Songs of Experience to
further develop his own personal theology , which was portrayed as mostly very
traditional in Songs of Innocence. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of
Experience as precursors of the Romantic Age In Songs of Experience, Blake
questions how we all know that God exists, whether a God who allows poor
children to suffer and be exploited is really , good, and whether love can
exist as an abstract concept apart from human interaction. Blake also hints at
his belief in “free love” during this volume, suggesting that he would adore to
dismantle the institution of marriage in conjunction with all other artificial
restrictions on human freedom.
Both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience contain poems
that are interdependent. A critical reading of “The Lamb,” as an example , is
impossible without also reading the “Introduction,” “The Shepherd,” and “Night”
from Songs of Innocence. Its meaning is further deepened when reading “The
Tyger” from Songs of Experience, and therefore the other way around .
Taken as a whole , Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of
Experience offer a romanticized yet carefully thought out view of nature, God,
society, and religion from a selection of perspectives, ultimately demanding
that the reader choose the view he or she finds most compelling from among the
myriad voices of the poems Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
as precursors of the Romantic Age.
William Blake published his second collection of
poetry, Songs of Innocence, in 1789. He published it with the accompanying
illustrative plates, a feat accomplished through an engraving and illustrating
process of his own design. The publication of Songs of Innocence began his
series of “Illuminated Books,” during which Blake combined text and visual
artwork to understand his poetic effect. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs
of Experience as precursors of the Romantic Age Blake always intended the poems
of Songs of Innocence to be amid their respective illustrations, making
analysis of the texts alone problematic sometimes .
Blake’s Songs of
Innocence and Songs of Experience as precursors of the Romantic Age While ostensibly about the
naivety and simple innocent youth, Songs of Innocence isn't merely a group of
verses for kids . Several of the poems include an ironic tone, and some, like
“The Chimney Sweeper,” imply sharp criticism of the society of Blake’s time.
Although clearly intended as a celebration of kids and of
their unadulterated enjoyment of the earth around them, Songs of Innocence is
additionally a warning to adult readers. Innocence has been lost not simply
through aging, but because the forces of culture have allowed a hope-crushing
society to flourish, sometimes at the direct expense of children’s souls.
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