William Blake Poems

Authors Avatar

“Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience” appears to be very simplistic on first reading. Explain how the poems are in fact a much more complex exploration of Blake’s beliefs and times.

   William Blake was born in London in 1757. He was home educated and was part of the upper working class as his father was a hosier. He was sent to a drawing school and was a dissenting Christian. His Christian beliefs are reflected in several of his poems. Blake became married in 1783 and married for love rather than money and status. To understand his poems fully we first need to understand what the titles of his two major sets of poetry mean. Innocence in the terms of Blake’s poetry is “a person who has very little experience and does not know about the bad things that happen in life”-Quoted from the Dictionary. Immediately a link is made between the songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Experience on the other hand means “(the process of getting) knowledge or skill which is obtained from doing, seeing or feeling things”-Quoted from the Dictionary. These two themes are explored significantly within the poems.

  During Blake’s time in London he saw many different movements and ideas develop such as a revolution in America where a group of British Colonies decided to rebel against Britain in their chance to gain independence. When the victory of this was won America and its allies of France and Spain went to war against Great Britain. Blake used this amongst other themes as the base for his poetry, and because of this he is associated with the Romantic poets even though he was not classed as a Romantic. Another main theme at the time was the use of seven year olds as chimney sweeps. Young boys were used because hard tar often got caught up in the chimney which a brush could not dislodge. To send a boy up was the easiest way to get rid of it and the flexible undeveloped body made it easy. They were often caught in the chimneys and many became cripples and got suit filled lungs. In London alone there were over 1000 sweeps. Blake uses this as one of the topics for both Songs of Experience and Innocence.

  In his two poems “The Chimney Sweeper” he utilises several literary techniques to create a successful poem. In “The Chimney Sweeper” (Innocence) Blake uses sorrowful imagery to create an atmosphere of anger and pain, “my father sold me while yet my tongue” shows just how young the boys were when they sold into the apprenticed with a master sweep. The repetition of, “weep!”, meant to be sweep which adds to the words meaning because it links the job of the child with his sorrow and also creates an atmosphere of rhythm of a brush going up and down within the chimney. On the other hand in “The Chimney Sweeper” (Experience) the boy is not introduced by his father but by a description of himself as a “black thing amongst the snow” which sounds as something discarded and dehumanises him. In this case “snow” is not used for peace and purity but for cold and harshness. The colour opposites of white snow and black dirty boy are another literacy technique of comparative representation by descriptive contrast. “Weep” is also used in this version but the words are described as being “cried…in notes of woe!” This links directly to sadness and cruelty rather than being hidden inside the verse as is shown in “Songs of Innocence”.  Religion is brought into this by the parents going “to church to pray” which also illustrates the normalness of their lives compared to their sons and highlights their hypocrisy. This is due to them being “all good” by going to Church and yet they are sending their son to work at such a young age and are almost bringing upon his fate of an unhappy life.

Join now!

  In the second verse in the “Innocence” version the boy’s “head curled like a lamb’s back” which links to the symbolism of the lamb being the son of God which is one of the main themes in another poem from “Songs of Innocence “the Lamb”. The Lamb is a prime example of innocence imagery because it is used in such a context as to promote the idea that the lamb symbolises not only pastoral imagery but Christ as the lamb of God. The boys hair is described as “white” to represent purity and innocence but then colour imagery ...

This is a preview of the whole essay