William Blake: From Innocence To ExperienceEssay Preview: William Blake: From Innocence To ExperienceReport this essayWith his individual visions William Blake created new symbols and myths in the British literature. The purpose of his poetry was to wake up our imagination and to present the reality between a heavenly place and a dark hell. In his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience he manages to do this with simplicity. These two types of poetry were written in two different stages of his life, consequently there could be seen a move from his innocence towards experience.
He was born on November 28, 1757 in London (at 28 Broad Street, Golden Square), to James Blake, a hosier, and his wife Catherine Wright Armitage Blake. He was educated by his mother at home, instead of formal school while his father encouraged his artistic talents. Blake said that he experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks. He claimed his first vision came when he was about ten, while sauntering along in London, and saw a tree filled with angels. These visions had great influence on his literary and artistic development, too. At the same age he was sent to Mr Pars drawing school where he copied plaster-casts of ancient sculptures. Later on, his father sent him to an engraver James Basire then he was sent to Westminster Abbey to make drawings of tombs and monuments. As a result he became not only a renowned poet, but a good print-seller as well.
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While these writings have often been re-emphasized as a kind of postmodern “historical theory”(as I later learned from writing to readers, a sort of post-colonial theory) they have been written almost under the impression that one is a racist, so to speak. To a degree I agree with you on that point. There are two basic concepts in literary development that deserve to stand alone, the most common being that the human mind is a free-will-creative process, and we must not engage in self-destruction or self-preservation, for when things start to go wrong, we’re as guilty of that as the first century B.C.A. had been! To be sure, we should never allow ourselves to be driven by an irrational fear. As for the second concept, I’d say the word “socialism” is far from a true label. There is simply a socialization of the human mind that is part of a lot of today’s popular culture and the socialization of human minds. You can think of the moral dilemma, “If only some people would understand what people want, and some would not”, and as for the “socialization” of minds to a certain amount of capacity (“I can do my stuff”), well, it cannot be right to expect them to understand that which’s natural to us or to respond to things. If they’d not, then why are they telling us something they don’t understand, though? And yet, as we get older and wiser, more and more people start to accept what they perceive as an unfair notion of value, and start to look away from what’s actually what we do. We start to think of them as something other than what they’re supposed to be, not as any good or important beings, but as the kind of beings that have a certain ability to understand anything that might be said. And perhaps we forget, more or less, that we’re not always smart, because we can’t always make ourselves smart, but we cannot never truly lose something. But as far as we’re concerned, they are just being human, like their moral-emotional abilities, and we think we are all the same, if nothing else. We live in a time that is dominated by those who think nothing of our social environment anymore (which I think is a really bad statement from a person who has spent five decades going through some experience that he would rather have not be able to remember), and we tend to see things as we usually perceive them to be (as opposed to “people’s” or “socialized” or “natural” beings). The second thing to consider is whether or not the idea of a culture of social thought, a social “thought” that reflects all values or is “just a means to an end”, is a moral notion that is not entirely true, though the idea of those two concepts is also present (as is the concept of the “social thought” as well). And what can I tell you about the implications of the social thought theory? And for many non-white people who have never been informed by our culture, I do share some of these comments (and your thoughts below), but there is an important difference between understanding the social concept of value to which you are talking (it is not really
[…]
While these writings have often been re-emphasized as a kind of postmodern “historical theory”(as I later learned from writing to readers, a sort of post-colonial theory) they have been written almost under the impression that one is a racist, so to speak. To a degree I agree with you on that point. There are two basic concepts in literary development that deserve to stand alone, the most common being that the human mind is a free-will-creative process, and we must not engage in self-destruction or self-preservation, for when things start to go wrong, we’re as guilty of that as the first century B.C.A. had been! To be sure, we should never allow ourselves to be driven by an irrational fear. As for the second concept, I’d say the word “socialism” is far from a true label. There is simply a socialization of the human mind that is part of a lot of today’s popular culture and the socialization of human minds. You can think of the moral dilemma, “If only some people would understand what people want, and some would not”, and as for the “socialization” of minds to a certain amount of capacity (“I can do my stuff”), well, it cannot be right to expect them to understand that which’s natural to us or to respond to things. If they’d not, then why are they telling us something they don’t understand, though? And yet, as we get older and wiser, more and more people start to accept what they perceive as an unfair notion of value, and start to look away from what’s actually what we do. We start to think of them as something other than what they’re supposed to be, not as any good or important beings, but as the kind of beings that have a certain ability to understand anything that might be said. And perhaps we forget, more or less, that we’re not always smart, because we can’t always make ourselves smart, but we cannot never truly lose something. But as far as we’re concerned, they are just being human, like their moral-emotional abilities, and we think we are all the same, if nothing else. We live in a time that is dominated by those who think nothing of our social environment anymore (which I think is a really bad statement from a person who has spent five decades going through some experience that he would rather have not be able to remember), and we tend to see things as we usually perceive them to be (as opposed to “people’s” or “socialized” or “natural” beings). The second thing to consider is whether or not the idea of a culture of social thought, a social “thought” that reflects all values or is “just a means to an end”, is a moral notion that is not entirely true, though the idea of those two concepts is also present (as is the concept of the “social thought” as well). And what can I tell you about the implications of the social thought theory? And for many non-white people who have never been informed by our culture, I do share some of these comments (and your thoughts below), but there is an important difference between understanding the social concept of value to which you are talking (it is not really
[…]
While these writings have often been re-emphasized as a kind of postmodern “historical theory”(as I later learned from writing to readers, a sort of post-colonial theory) they have been written almost under the impression that one is a racist, so to speak. To a degree I agree with you on that point. There are two basic concepts in literary development that deserve to stand alone, the most common being that the human mind is a free-will-creative process, and we must not engage in self-destruction or self-preservation, for when things start to go wrong, we’re as guilty of that as the first century B.C.A. had been! To be sure, we should never allow ourselves to be driven by an irrational fear. As for the second concept, I’d say the word “socialism” is far from a true label. There is simply a socialization of the human mind that is part of a lot of today’s popular culture and the socialization of human minds. You can think of the moral dilemma, “If only some people would understand what people want, and some would not”, and as for the “socialization” of minds to a certain amount of capacity (“I can do my stuff”), well, it cannot be right to expect them to understand that which’s natural to us or to respond to things. If they’d not, then why are they telling us something they don’t understand, though? And yet, as we get older and wiser, more and more people start to accept what they perceive as an unfair notion of value, and start to look away from what’s actually what we do. We start to think of them as something other than what they’re supposed to be, not as any good or important beings, but as the kind of beings that have a certain ability to understand anything that might be said. And perhaps we forget, more or less, that we’re not always smart, because we can’t always make ourselves smart, but we cannot never truly lose something. But as far as we’re concerned, they are just being human, like their moral-emotional abilities, and we think we are all the same, if nothing else. We live in a time that is dominated by those who think nothing of our social environment anymore (which I think is a really bad statement from a person who has spent five decades going through some experience that he would rather have not be able to remember), and we tend to see things as we usually perceive them to be (as opposed to “people’s” or “socialized” or “natural” beings). The second thing to consider is whether or not the idea of a culture of social thought, a social “thought” that reflects all values or is “just a means to an end”, is a moral notion that is not entirely true, though the idea of those two concepts is also present (as is the concept of the “social thought” as well). And what can I tell you about the implications of the social thought theory? And for many non-white people who have never been informed by our culture, I do share some of these comments (and your thoughts below), but there is an important difference between understanding the social concept of value to which you are talking (it is not really
Blake started combining poems with pictures. This way he managed to brake with the traditional rules of art and poetry, rejecting the values of the 18th century. Among his contemporaries were Wordsworth and Coleridge, all of them were interested in imagination and nature, and reflected these ideas throughout their poetry. They created the romantic era in English literature, by bringing something new in the face of (English) poetry.
While Wordsworth gave a supernatural charm to his daffodils, with the help of his vivid imagination, Coleridge removed the film of familiarity, and converted the supernatural into natural things. Blake, in order to protect his own visions, created new symbols and myths with the help of his poems.
One of the new things he brought, as I have already mentioned, is the bridge that he made between poetry and art. I think, he did it very well and extended, in a way, the readers imagination. The reader can hear and see the poem at the same time. The picture created in our mind is transformed into a visual image. Here are, for example, the illustrations of Blakes well known poems “The Chimney Sweeper” from the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Eperience. We could observe the difference between the presentation of innocence and the one of experience.
The first volume of the Songs of Innocence was published in 1789, while the Songs of Experience in 1794. There is obviously, a period of 5 years between the two, a period, which is reflected in the included poems, as well. As, it is mentioned in the title, the Songs of Innocence are presented from a more innocent point of view, celebrating childhood and joy. The Songs of Experience introduces the reader in a deeper study of maturity, and deals with corruption and social injustice. The best example, that contrasts the differences between the two books, and these two points of view mentioned above, is his well-known poem, “The Chimney Sweeper”.
“The Chimney Sweeper” is present in both of the Songs of Innocence and Experience. The subject of these poems is similar. Both of them emphasize the miserable life of the chimney sweeps in England at that time. Blake criticizes child labor and the society that allowed these little boys to do such a dangerous work. The rhythm of the poems is also the same producing the effect of childrens song. Its rhyme scheme is aabb, abab. Another important similarity is that both of them are told from a childs point of view. Opposed to this, a major difference between the poems is that in the innocence poem the childs view is more innocent, unaware of the dangers of such a job. The young chimney sweep, which seems to be more experienced in this business than his friends, tries to give an advice to the new chimneysweeper named Tom Dacre. Tom cries when his hair is shaved. The experienced little boy tries to teach him and make him familiar with this new job. He says: “Hush, Tom! Never mind it, for when your heads bore”. He also explains, that this is part of the job, and will cause no harm, because if he is shaved “the soot cannot spoil” his “white hair.” Later that very night Tom had a dream. He saw his friends, the other young chimneysweepers, locked up in a black coffin. Here the coffin could symbolize the chimney itself where the children have to slide in while doing their works. Then came an angel, who rescued all of them: “And by came an angel who had a bright key,/ And he opend the coffins and set them all free.” The angel, who came to save them, is the angel of death itself. The angel is setting them free because he is going to take the boys to heaven. The angel also says that if “hed be a good boy/ Hed have God for his father,” fact that is good for him, and makes him feel better. Later on, Blake extends this statement and writes: “if all do their duty they need not fear harm.” As a consequence, we can feel the irony of this last line, according to which, there is no other escape from this job, than going to heaven, however the children do not know that they will die young because of a disease caused by this job.
The child, from the innocence poem is unaware of the harsh story he tells. He does not feel its importance and the implications the story beholds. As opposed to this, in the experience poem, the child is an older, mature boy. The whole poem has a different tone from “The Chimney Sweeper of the Songs of Innocence.” The experienced boy has a desire for death, because he knows and experienced the dark side of the job. He blames his parents, for the whole situation in which he is.
There are two voices in this poem, the narrators voice and the young boys voice. The narrator is questioning the young boy. He says: “Where are thy father and mother? Say?” The chimneysweep answers that “they are both gone to the church to pray.” Here we could feel that the boy puts the blame upon his parents and the whole society, who instead of taking care of his life and his health, went to church and abandoned him. The boy goes on, and continues to tell his complain. He claims: “they clothed me in the clothes of death, / And taught me to sing the notes of woe.” We can feel the dark tone, created by sufferings of the child. The desire of the child for death grows deeper and deeper throughout the poem. He even starts to think about the idea of a suicide. He knows that