The style of the Songs of Innocence and Experience is simple and direct, but the language and the rhythms are painstakingly crafted, and the ideas they explore are often deceptively complex. Many of the poems are narrative in style; others, like and make their arguments through symbolism or by means of abstract concepts. Some of Blake's favorite rhetorical techniques are personification and the reworking 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 combination 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.
Chimney Sweeper:
Unlike the one in Songs of Innocence, "The Chimney Sweeper", in Songs of Experience is very dark and pessimistic. This poem also seems to be very judgmental and gives motives for everything, but unlike Song of Innocence, the sweeper in this poem does not free himself from his misery.
In the first two lines, Blake gives us an image of an anguished child in a state of agony or even in a state of corruption. The color black seems to be very important because it is used to represent sin against innocence, the color of the white snow. Blake also shows the same child weeping, when he really means to say sweeping, because that is what has that child in such grief. This stanza ends by someone asking him about his parents, which later end up being responsible for this child’s state.
In the second stanza, the child is pictured in a very more happier and playful mood. This soon changes when he decides to tell the stranger more about his parents. They are showed to be punishing their child for being so happy by "clothing in clothes of death and teaching him to sing notes of woe." It is obvious the sweeper’s feels hate towards his parents for putting him in such sadness, but instead he chooses to hide it by making himself look happy and satisfied.
It is clear in the last Stanza that Blake’s criticizing the Church, especially, and the state for letting many of these things happen. During this time, many children were dying from being, either worked to death or from malnutrition. Neither the state nor the church did anything to stop this and is obviously, why Blake feels so much anger towards them. The sweeper’s parents are really no help towards their own child. This makes the reader wonder, if they are worshipping god, the source of good doings, why do they chose to ignore their own child. They would rather turn their heads the other way and instead find love at church.
Indeed, this is a very striking poem. It clearly shows Blake’s anger towards society at this time. Obviously, he used many of his poems to make people aware of the suffering of people at this time.
The Lamb and the Tyger:
In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, the gentle lamb and the dire tiger define childhood by setting a contrast between the innocence of youth and the experience of age. The Lamb is written with childish repetitions and a selection of words, which could satisfy any audience under the age of five. Blake applies the lamb in representation of youthful immaculateness. The Tyger is hard-featured in comparison to The Lamb, in respect to word choice and representation. The Tyger is a poem in which the author makes many inquiries, almost chant like in their reiterations. The question at hand: could the same creator have made both the tiger and the lamb? For William Blake, the answer is a frightening one. The Romantic Period’s affinity towards childhood is epitomized in the poetry of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. "Little Lamb who made thee/ Dost thou know who made thee." The Lamb’s introductory lines set the style for what follows: an innocent poem about an amiable lamb and its creator. It is divided into two stanzas, the first containing questions of whom it was who created such a docile creature with "clothing of delight." There are images of the lamb frolicking in divine meadows and babbling brooks. The stanza closes with the same inquiry, which it began with. The second stanza begins with the author claiming to know the lamb’s creator, and he proclaims that he will tell him. Blake then states that the lamb’s creator is none different then the lamb itself. Jesus Christ is often described as a lamb, and Blake uses lines such as "he is meek and he is mild" to accomplish this. Blake then makes it clear that the poem’s point of view is from that of a child, when he says "I a child and thou a lamb." The poem is one of a child’s curiosity, untainted conception of creation, and love of all things celestial. The Lamb’s nearly polar opposite is The Tyger. It is the difference between a feel-good minister waxing warm and fuzzy for Jesus, and a fiery evangelist preaching a hellfire sermon. Instead of the innocent lamb, we now have the frightful tiger- the emblem of nature red in tooth and claw- that embodies experience. William Blake’s words have turned from heavenly to hellish in the transition from lamb to tiger. "Burnt the fire of thine eye," and "What the hand dare seize the fire?" are examples of how somber and serrated his language is in this poem. No longer is the author asking about origins, but is now asking if he who made the innocuous lamb was capable of making such a dreadful beast. Experience asks questions unlike those of innocence. Innocence is "why and how?" while experience is "why and how do things go wrong, and why me?" Innocence is ignorance, and ignorance is, as they say, bliss. Innocence has not yet experienced fiery tigers in its existence, but when it does, it wants to know how lambs and tigers are supposed to co-exist. The poem begins with "Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" and ends with "Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?" This is important because when the author initially poses the question, he wants to know who has the ability to make such a creature. After more interrogation, the question evolves to "who could create such a villain of its potential wrath, and why?" William Blake’s implied answer is "God." In the poems, innocence is exhilaration and grace, contrasting with experience, which is ill favored and formidable. According to Blake, God created all creatures, some in his image and others in his antithesis. The Lamb is written in the frame of mind of a Romantic, and The Tyger sets a divergent Hadean image to make the former more holy. The Lamb, from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience is a befitting representation of the purity of heart in childhood, which was the Romantic period.
