On Thursday we will be discussing William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a famous collection of poems accompanied by the author's own illustrations. Trained as an engraver, Blake made the plates for his books himself, printed a very small number of editions, and watercolored the illustrations by hand. To get the full experience, poke around on the Blake Archive's page of digitized copies of the work. If you do not yet have your textbook, a much more readable version of the text of Songs can be found here.
I encourage you to read all the poems in the volume, but at least make sure you read the following:
from Songs of Innocence: Introduction, The Ecchoing Green, The Lamb, The Little Black Boy, The Chimney Sweeper, Holy Thursday, and Nurse's Song; from Songs of Experience: Holy Thursday, The Chimney Sweeper, Nurse's Song, The Tyger, London, and Infant Sorrow.
For your response, you might consider how Blake's work relates to the genre of fairytales: what motifs or structures are familiar from the fairytales we read? Does his work address itself to the unconscious? Does it articulate a national or cultural identity? Or, you might choose to consider the relation between the poems in each of the volumes. In many cases, a poem bearing a given title appears in each volume. Are these paired poems oppositional or is their relationship more complicated? What formal elements repeat and differ?
Choose one poem or one pair of poems to focus on in your analysis, and publish your analysis as a response to this post.
Happy reading,
Prof. M.
“The Divine Image” presents an oddly human view on religion. The speaker of the poem speaks of divine virtues, yet instead of attributing these virtues to God, the speaker states that these virtues are God, “For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love / Is God our Father dear.” However, this seeming heresy is negated by the unity of the virtues symbolized by the verb misattribution. The speaker uses the ‘is’ as if the attributes are composed of a single compound noun. These virtues are what comprises God. They are not to be worshiped separately because each part unifies to form an aspect of God that can be channeled in times of need.
ReplyDeleteYet, the virtues are human in origin. They make up the external (Pity and Peace) and the internal (Mercy and Love). Therefore, in a radical shift from normative religion, God is in man’s own image as opposed to vice versa. Therefore, unification of the virtues applies to humans as well. Not only do we contain all them them, but all of us contain them. Similar to the “Hath not a Jew eyes” concept, the virtues are strikingly physical yet vague, they can belong to anyone in anyplace. Even if it means painting God as man, the speaker points out that human encompass each other under this ultimate truth; we all contain these virtues, reflected back to God.
Of course, if humans all contain an ultimate Godly good, then the opposite can be said as well. The second “A Divine Image” has little mention of God and plenty of mention of the inequity of man. Similar to virtues, Cruelty, jealousy, terror and secrecy are abstract ideas but, unlike virtues, they have no reality apart from human beings. These poems are not oppositional. If people and God share similar virtues, they must also share the vices. These are the truths we do not think about the good that unifies us, can also be the evil that unifies us. Humanity destroyed by itself, have been corrupted by the growth in their brain in the “Human Abstract.” The beauty of the unity in “A Divine Image is thus corrupted in the second “A Divine Image” because if we are unified in virtue, we are similarly unified in vice. This corruption moves us away from the image of God, who is barely mentioned in the second “A Divine Image.”
At first glance, the Introduction to Blake's Songs of Innocence promises a collection of sweet, child-friendly poems. The constant references to weeping, though, foreshadow the inclusion of darker pieces. "The Chimney Sweeper" of Songs of Innocence has some of the marks of a child-friendly poem, like a neat AA/BB rhyme scheme. The poem opens with the story of a poor child who has been forsaken by his family and cast into hardship, a common beginning for rags-to-riches stories. Unlike the good children in fairytales, however, the subject of this poem doesn't get earthly comforts. After we are introduced to the plight of the chimney sweeps, we are told that their only comfort will be in death.
ReplyDeleteThe last line of the poem, "So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm", reads like a Charles Perrault moral. It doesn't fit with the poem's beginning, which seems more sympathetic to the chimney sweeps. By making a sweep the speaker of the poem and addressing it directly to the reader, Blake makes the tone almost accusatory. After hearing that the abused child has been cleaning our chimneys, we as the readers could easily feel guilt and pity. The speaker continues by telling us names and personal details of his chimney weep friends, making the story even more pathetic. Surprisingly, the speaker himself tells his co-sweeps to "never mind", setting the "turn the other cheek" tone for the rest of the poem.
While an angel does appear to the abused innocents, it brings with it disturbing imagery: the children locked in black coffins, presumably symbolizing either their miserable lives or their impending deaths. This is followed by cheerful playful imagery ("leaping laughing they run"), which seems like a happy ending, but we are quickly reminded that this only a dream. The poem ends with the children waking up in the cold darkness and going to work. Would this dark ending have been less disturbing to children from strict Christian backgrounds, who were taught that the meek will inherit the earth? Is Blake excusing the adults who exploit the sweeps?
The poem's counterpart in Songs of Experience, in contrast, seems like a straightforward accusation. Blake presents us with a woeful child who blames his parents (and possibly the Church, by extension) for his misery. Here, the rhyme scheme is constantly shifting, making for a less neat and comfortable read. Unlike the first "Chimney Sweeper", which presents God as the sweeps' salvation("He'd have God for his father and never want joy"), the second poem seems to implicate Him as part of the problem ("a heaven of our misery").
Overall, it seems to me that the titles of the two works reflect their contents. Songs of Innocence depicts a more naïve world, one perceived in a manner that seems to lack reality. The poems are beautiful, but they do not seem quite as truthful as they could be – they gloss over the pain and beautify the ugly. Songs of Experience brings across a more realistic, if jaded, view of the world. In these poems, reality is stark and often unkind; the tone is often pessimistic. While the poems which share titles are not exactly opposites, they are definitely contrasts, one being the rose-tinted view of the “innocent” and one the darker view of the “experienced.” Blake appears to convey that the young are carefree and optimistic only because they have not yet seen enough to realize the true harsher realities within this world. Additionally, there is a clear contrast between the happily religious in Songs of Innocence and the reluctantly religious in Songs of Experience. This would seem to suggest that the religion he mentions (presumably Christianity) is comforting to the children but difficult for the adults, for whom “reward and punishment” appears murkier and for whom belief is harder to hold onto in the face of reality. Songs of Innocence has the feel of children’s rhymes and a little of the fairy tale fantasy, as well as reward and punishment, and even morals. Songs of Experience, on the other hand, gives us more of the cynic’s view, the realist’s perception that not everything is so clear cut.
ReplyDeleteThe Nurse’s Song is a title repeated in both works. In Song of Innocence, the Nurse’s Song has a pleasant tone, rhyme scheme, and rhythm. It rolls of the tongue like a nursery rhyme, as the words give across a peaceful or playful tone, depending on what is being said. The nurse, who is the caregiver of the children, derives pleasure from their joy and so is content to allow them to play as long as it remains safe to do so. There is a sense of peace, as none of the elements in the poem – nature, the children, and the nurse – are at odds with each other. Everything blends into a colorful, happy picture. It is important to note that though the nurse lets them play, she does so in a manner that says “Let them enjoy while they still can,” hinting at the future in which “the light fades away,” in which enjoyment will not come quite as easily as it does in childhood. This glimpse of reality is only a hint, and one on which that children (both those in the poem and those reading it) would not pick up on.
In Songs of Experience, there is a subtle change in tone and feeling in the Nurse’s Song. The rhyme scheme remains ABCB, but the shorter lines and verses lead to a choppier feel, even as the poem itself flows well. Additionally, the internal rhyme in the Songs of Innocence version is lacking, again contributing to the curt tone of the poem. Whereas the nurse before appeared indulgent and caring, she now seems jealous and apathetic. The color green is not used as a simple description of the place in which the children play; it is now added to the description of the nurse’s face as their play recalls to her the days of her own youth. Instead of sympathizing with them, she calls them in with words of rebuke. If the spring and day refer to their youth, then the winter and night symbolize their adulthood. It is as if she is saying, “You’re wasting your childhood with play, and it will come back to haunt you when you’re older.” The nurse is bitter, her own experience lending her a negative view of their innocence.
I feel that there are a few attributes of Blake that are similar to fairytales. One is that both fairytales and Blake call on specific themes and motifs multiple times over. The same way fairytales use the “damsel in distress”, the number 3, and mean stepsisters, Blake, in many of the poems talks about “sheep” and “shephards”. In The Lamb (obviously), In The Little Black Boy, Holy Thursday, Nurse’s Song and more.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know much about Blake, but perhaps all, or many of his poems are allegorical in some form, which would also make his poems similar to fairytales. He does use the motif of the lamb in the poem “The Lamb”, as a reference to god and religion saying that the one who created the lamb is also called a lamb. And perhaps the religious attribute of the lamb carries on as well, and can provide religious lessons to children. The fact that he seems to be catering to children is also similar to fairytales. The “protagonists” in his poems like in The Chimney Sweep, and The Little Black Boy are certainly children. I’m not sure if children would actually read these, especially the children whom the poems are about (I doubt a child chimney sweep knew how to read or even had access to poetry) but the thought still exists.
As for the meter and rhyme, Blake is extremely consistent in making rhyming poems and poems with an even meter. For example, The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence, rhymes AA, BB, and stays between 10 and 12 syllables as well as Infant Sorrow which rhymes AA, BB and sticks with 7-8 syllables throughout. This meter makes the poems sing-songy, and easier to remember, in a way similar to fairytales.
This wasn’t one of the poems highlighted, but I liked On Another’s Sorrow. (I really liked most of Blake’s poems – I think they’re lovely). I didn’t recognize it at first, but after reading the prompt, it became clear that this poem does share a number of elements with fairy-tales. Repetition, for one – the poem is full of doubles and triples. Specific phrases (“No no never can it be, / Never never can it be”) and specific words (“Hear the wren…hear the small bird…Hear the woes” and later on “He doth give…He becomes…He becomes…He doth feel” – and there are a couple of other instances) appear again and again. Even the rhyme scheme seems repetitious – each line rhymes with the one before it, a tit for tat. In a poem about empathy, this seems perfect – my emotion mimics your emotion. But this is also an element common to fairy tales. The very sound of it feels like a fairy tale – “No no never can it be, / Never never can it be” feels like the kind of formula a fairy-tale hero would say.
ReplyDeleteThe poem’s focus on the common, the innocent, and the unimportant also connects it with fairy tales. It’s about parents feeling sad when their child cries, little birds who are upset about who even knows what – small people, small concerns. And yet those small concerns are important, important enough for G-d himself to intervene.
Lastly, the very fact that it’s a lesson for children, with a clear moral, makes it feel like a fairy tale. It draws a very clear analogy between what people feel and what therefore G-d must feel, much like a fairy tale would draw a parallel between the actions of a wolf and a dastardly young man. (The fact that the G-d is Christian also points to a national/cultural identity, much like in a fairy tale).
In his poem “Holy Thursday” in “Songs of Innocence”, William Blake depicts a procession of fresh-faced children in festive garb streaming to church for a religious service. While the portrait he draws is, at first glance, beautiful and moving, closer inspection of his poem hints to the adverse realities which many of these children faced. For instance, Blake describes these youths as having “innocent faces clean”, insinuating that for them, cleanliness was something to be noted as an exception to the norm. The phrase “grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow” seems to suggest a rigidity, perhaps a forcedness, to the children’s procession. Additionally, Blake describes the children as a “multitude of lambs”. Perhaps this reference alludes to their meekness and powerlessness. To substantiate the reader’s sense of underlying suffering, Blake concludes his poem by admonishing the public to “cherish pity”, or else risk forfeiting divine protection.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is composed of three stanzas made of rhyming couplets, with the rhyme scheme AABB. The simplicity of the writing style conjures up a sense of innocence, faith, youthfulness, and naiveté.
If Blake alludes to social injustice in that poem, he decries it explicitly in “Holy Thursday” in “Songs of Experience”. With sharp rhetoric, he writes of a fruitful land where babies go hungry; a land where winter is eternal; a land where a song is heard as a trembling cry. He highlights the irony of prosperous, mighty Britain failing to feed its young. Unlike in “Songs of Innocence”, here Blake has no qualms detailing the suffering of England’s poor children.
This poem has no consistent rhyme scheme, reflecting the disorder and difficulty he is depicting.
The religious celebration of the first poem is apparently but a thin veneer of joy over the difficult lives of these children. On the one hand, this happy procession can be seen as respite from the constant suffering they encounter. Perhaps it offers the children a semblance of love and faith, and a defined place in society. However, one can also see it as a weak façade of normalcy in a society plagued by pain and injustice. As a further perspective, a Marxist might view the odd dichotomy of these two poems as proof that religion is indeed “the opiate of the masses”.