In the other Songs of Innocence poems, the same colour is used throughout. ‘Holy Thursday’, which has 3 quatrains making it slightly different to the other poems, also uses reference to the colour white, this time as a simile “With wands as white as snow”. However, in this poem, white is also used to describe the coldness of the wand as well as the purity of children, leaving the poem open to interpretation on whether Blake is saying the “Grey headed beadles” are sinister or whether the children are pure and innocent.
The tone and mood of the poem are created in the first line when Blake reveals the children’s faces are “clean” and “innocent” showing that the mood of the speaker is positive and pleasant.
Furthermore, in ‘The Chimney Sweeper’, pastoral and white imagery are evident. “Bright key” and “naked & white” are shown in the poem and these are further proof that Blake clearly intended children to be associated with pure images. The poet seems to define his Songs of Innocence as pure poems with nothing but innocence at heart, mainly from the child’s perspective. While expanding from the innocence is the theme of religion, society and life.
Also featuring in the lamb is the constant reference to religion, especially Christianity, which is consistently seen throughout his work. Blake refers to religion and god by saying “For he calls himself a Lamb” which could be interpreted as a reference to Jesus, the Lamb of God. Exploring the theme of god, Blake also writes “Little Lamb God bless thee” as a blessing in the end of the poem, adding to the religious theme. Blake refers to religion and god through all his work as throughout his life he experienced visions of angels and biblical figures which contributed to his views of religion, Blake had an interest in religion and this explores positive aspects of Christianity.
In the ‘Holy Thursday’ poem from the Songs of Innocence collection, Blake further praises religion, and Christianity. There is clear evidence to religion with Blake using words such as “Angel” and he describes the guardians as “wise guardians” implying that they are saviours and they’ve assured the children of salvation. Blake was trying to show the readers of the poem how the Church and state work together to help the children and make sure they are raised in God. His language in the poem also praises the Church, using a metaphor, for looking after “these flowers of London” as he constantly uses vivid colours of blue, green and red promoting the happiness of the children.
Blake then refers back to his ‘Lamb’ poem by comparing the children to “multitudes of lamb” evoking pathos and innocence from the reader. This makes the reader think that the children are being well looked after and are clean and pure, which could only be done by the work of the Church and God.
Holy Thursday was held on Ascension Day (the day that Jesus ascended into heaven, 40 days after Easter) and on that day, the poor children of London were sent to St Paul’s Cathedral by the charity schools to pray. Charity schools were schools in 18th Century London for poor children; most were run by the local church and paid for by the public, endowments and charities’. The environment was harsh and it was regulated by the government after cases of neglection by the wealthy people, who often had false motives, who ran the schools.
Moreover, in the ‘Chimney Sweeper’ religion is portrayed in a positive light and Blake shows this through a dream of a chimney sweeper. In the dream, “an Angel who had a bright key, /And he open'd the coffins & set them all free;” which was Blake trying to express that religion gives new life to people and that if you follow God’s rules, you will be happy in your afterlife no matter how dismal your current life is. He also gives more pastoral imagery of a “green plain” which is natural and less industrial.
However, in Blake’s Songs of Experience he portrays a very different, contrasting view to religion. In ’Holy Thursday’ Blake condemns Christianity and religion by revealing the beadles have an “usurous hand” and he uses subverted pastoral imagery “their fields are bleak & bare” to further criticise the Church. The “usurous hand” could be interpreted as the hand of God, trying to imply that God has giving these children a horrid future or it could be the hand of society that is turning a blind eye to the welfare of the children by exploiting them. The language he uses now is darker and phrases like “eternal winter” create a dark and gloomy atmosphere. The thorns Blake describes in the poem are another reference to Jesus, and his crown of thorns that he wore which further portray religion in a negative light and compares the suffering of Christ to the suffering of the children.
Blake then makes reference to heaven by writing “For where-e’er the sun does shine, / And where-e’er the rain does fall” which could be interpreted as a sort of paradise, or heaven. This is an opposite of the children’s life experience and seems as if the children are in a different world.
In addition, in ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ religion is further degraded as the narrator, who has had experience now, blames the “God & his Priest & King” for his misfortunes, as well as his parents. Blake now uses darker imagery and language such as “little black thing among the snow” to describe the children, showing how a once pure and innocent child can be turned into the opposite through experience and society. The narrator then reflects upon how harsh the times were for him as a child by revealing “They clothed me in the clothes of death” which means he was left for death by his parents.
One aspect Blake was strongly against was religious hypocrisy, this was the idea that the Church was trying to tell people the right thing to do, but in fact were doing the exact opposite by neglecting the children and imposing fear into people using God.
In the ‘Tyger’, Blake’s companion poem to the ‘Lamb’, Blake explores the question of how God could create a “meek” and “mild” creature like the Lamb and yet still create the wild tiger. Blake uses industrial imagery to represent forces that can become destructive and negative; he uses “hammer”, “chain”, “anvil” and “furnace” to show the reference to the industrial revolution. The effect that industrial imagery gives is that it shows the tiger has been crafted in a furnace or factory, and Blake, being a romantic, dislikes the industrial revolution and therefore the tiger. Another interpretation of the industrial fire imagery is that it represents hell on earth and Blake’s view that with the coming of the industrial age, the earth is being destroyed. However, the fire could also represent cleansing and purification.
One aspect of Blake’s work we must consider is the fire associations, we must take into account that most people were Church of England followers and that time and would have made the associations much quicker than modern readers.
The poet also uses dark imagery to represent the negative aspect of life and the industrial ages. One phrase that illustrates that is “forest of the night” which symbolises the wildness of the tiger and contrasting to the pastoral imagery in the lamb. He also uses words which symbolise darkness such as “fearful” and “dread” that creates a sense of doubt in the benevolence in God. The doubt is then reinforced by the rhetorical question of “What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry” which is asking why God dared to create this beast and the symmetry is referring to the fact all humans have a duality, a good and bad side, yet the tiger does not.
Once again, Blake does refer to God, yet in a different way. In his poem he asks “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” meaning could God make both the lamb and the tiger? This question makes god seem ambiguous and leaves it open to interpretation.
Another change in the language is that of the “&” sign. In this poem, Blake uses the “&” sign more frequently in one stanza and this creates a sense of uncertainty and promotes awareness and can in fact confuse the reader. The confused state reflects Blake’s and society’s views on whether the new technology and the industrial age will in fact help London or cause it’s downfall. Blake’s language has become more complex and this reflects the theme of the poem, the person has become more experienced and is not naïve. Furthermore, Blake uses more question marks, which give the impression he is uncertain about God and shows that uncertainty comes as a part of being experienced in life.
Although the poem is a reflection on the industrial revolution, Blake still incorporates natural imagery of “When the stars threw down their spears” which could be a reference to the meteor showers which were occurring at that time. This reminds the reader that even though something can be negative and destructive, there is always a natural side present.
Blake may have been influenced to write this poem, about violence and destruction based on the French Revolution in 1789 where the working class overthrew the monarchy after years of dissatisfaction. The main reason Blake could have been inspired by this was the principles that the French people stood for – equality and freedom, which Blake also stood for.
By looking at the structure of Blake’s poems we can determine how he felt his poems should appeal to society and what effects he was trying to create. In the Songs of Innocence and Experience poems Blake was trying to use simple form so that everyone could access his poetry as it was meant for the simple man.
In his Songs of Innocence poems, Blake uses similar form techniques to give his poems a particular effect. In ‘The Lamb’ Blake uses a question and answer stanza style, with the first stanza asking the question and the second stanza answering it - this creates a very simple feel to the poem and is a reflection on the fact the narrator is a child and the poem is from a child’s perspective. Blake also uses rhyming couplets which creates a nursery rhyme rhythm adding to his desires that his poems should be accessible to all people. The question “who made thee?” is a very child like question, yet still a very philosophical question. The repetition of “Little Lamb who made thee /Dost thou know who made thee “in the first stanza is a refrain and helps create the song-like sound.
In Blake's ‘Holy Thursday’ poem, he uses three quatrains with longer line lengths that his other poems, this could be a reflection of the build up of the hymns from a “hum” to a “harmonious thunderings” or the queue of children waiting to be brought into the cathedral. Once again, Blake uses rhyming couplets to try and create the nursery rhyme type feel to the poem, yet the pace in this poem gets picked up during the end stanza. The point of view comes from an observer in the crowd, and he is also the narrator. The fact that the narrator is the observer makes the poem seem more realistic as he can see everything that is going on and makes the poem credible to the reader.
Likewise, ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ has six quatrains but the sentences are shorter in comparison to ‘Holy Thursday’. The poem also has rhyming couplets and this continues the song-like rhythm that Blake creates in his songs of Innocence poems. The speaker is a young boy, a chimney sweeper, and the poem is from his point of view. By having the young boy as the speaker it allows Blake to evoke pathos from the reader and allows Blake to describe how life was for a young chimney sweeper through a first-person perspective.
During his Songs of Innocence poems, Blake consistently uses rhyming couplets and a regular rhythm in order to create a song-like rhyme. However, in his Songs of Experience poems, Blake adopts a more different approach with his form.
The ‘Tyger’ has six quatrains, each with two pairs of rhyming couplets. Each stanza has its own question, all of which derive from the first question of “What immortal hand or eye, / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” The speaker is unknown in this poem; however Blake could be suggested as the speaker as it is his views which are being expressed.
The beat and the rhythm have changed from a nursery rhyme to a pounding beat which is faster and deeper than a nursery rhyme. The beat is a pounding beat, which is reminiscent of a hammer or anvil being hit against metal in a factory. Blake creates this powerful rhythm by using repetition, alliteration and creates the emphasis on the words using punctuation, in particular exclamation and question marks. This is clearly evident in “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” where the alliteration and repetition stress the emphasis on the words.
Blake tries to leave the poem open for interpretation by not setting a standard tone for the poem, but by rather giving different perspectives of the tiger. The mood changes from the images of “hammer” and “anvil” to the natural images of “water’d heaven” and “stars”. This reason why Blake decides to keep the tone and mood of the poem open is to create uncertainty in the reader’s mind whether the tiger is a good or bad creation, which highlights his own personal view.
Another one of Blake’s poem, ‘Holy Thursday’ contains four quatrains each with shorter line lengths than compared to its companion poem in the Songs of Innocence. The speaker in this poem seems to be Blake or someone with a similar perspective on life as Blake and this can be seen with the evidence of distorted pastoral imagery and Blake’s unhappiness with the treatment of children in society, “In a rich and fruitful land, / Babes reduc’d to misery”. However, Blake has now used an ABAB rhyming scheme, perhaps signalling the fact that this is less of a song like rhythm and more of a ballad styled rhythm.
Ballads are often songs that tell a story, often containing refrains and the story would often be about a saga, romance or tragedy. Ballads were more powerful than ordinary poems and they often contained a hidden agenda.
The ‘Chimney Sweeper’ consists of three quatrains each with rhyming couplets that make the poem sound more song-like. The speaker is the same young boy we read about in Blake’s Songs of Innocence poem, but now he is more mature and has a different perspective of life. This was one of the ways Blake tried to show his readers how life and growing up in London changed you as a person as you grew up with experience of life and knowledge.
The companion poems in Blake’s Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence poems contain similarities and some differences. In Blake’s ‘Tyger’ and ‘The Lamb’ there are some similarities and differences that help define them. In ‘Tyger’, the theme is to do with society and god. When you grow older, you are less naïve and you often get a darker view of society and what is has done to London. The theme is based on religion and explores god more complexly and with a modern thought of god. However, in ‘The Lamb’ Blake uses a message that a child who has been brought up in a theist environment would have said. The message is that god exists; God is benevolent and makes all things good and nice in the world. Religion theme, like the ‘Tyger’ is incorporated and it is portrayed through a Christian view.
However, in order to distinguish a difference between the innocence and experience poems, Blake uses contrasting imagery and language. The ‘Tyger’ has dark imagery, such as “deadly” and “night” whereas The Lamb’ uses imagery such as “bright”. Another difference that can be seen is the rhythm; ‘The Lamb’ has a soft and gentle rhythm, much like a nursery rhyme, however the ‘Tyger’ has a pounding rhythm, much like a factory sound.
Another one of Blake’s companion poems are the ‘Chimney Sweeper’ pairs, in these sets of poems, we can interpret that this is how Blake’s view on religion changes through time and experience. In the Songs of Innocence poem, Blake is trying to show depict how chimney sweepers are helped by God to overcome the daily struggles of life, and that god is in fact an aspiration to the children and helps keep their dreams of a good life open. This is shown when Blake writes that an angel, God’s messenger, “open'd the coffins & set them all free” which could be interpreted as God releasing the children of their harsh lives into heaven. However, in this Songs of Experience poem, Blake seems to criticise the Church and religion by saying they “taught me to sing the notes of woe” and gave him false hope. He also reveals that the Church helps conceal the person’s unhappiness as they “clothed me in the clothes of death” which could be taken literally, as they neglected him, or figuratively.
Blake wrote these poems in support of the law that was being passed that protected the chimney sweepers. Despite the differences in tone, the innocence poem being tragic at first, but changing into an optimistic view later in the poem, and the experience poem being negative and doubtful, there are some similarities between the poems. Throughout the poem, there are consistent references to religion in both of them, with “Angels” being described in the Songs of Innocence poem and “heaven” in Songs of Experience poem.
Blake’s ‘Holy Thursday’ companion poems explore two different views of how the Church and state, together, are trying to help the children. In the Songs of Innocence poem, Blake is trying to portray a sense of cleanliness, purity and happiness in the children, which is expressed when he describes the children flowing through the “Thames waters” which is the river that runs through the centre of London, trying to imply the children are at the heart of the city. Blake’s message is that the “Grey headed beadles” are performing good deeds and are helping the children and that society is working together to help the future of the children. However, Blake subtly suggests that all is not as it seems when he says the children have “innocence faces clean” which could mean the children have been smartened up just for this occasion. In his Songs of Experience poem, Blake turns his subtle suggestion into a direct accusation that the Church and state are in fact the reason why the children are in such a bad state. He conveys the message that the children are forced to pray to God, and that religion is used to cover up their bad deeds and that the church are hypocrites. He gives us the picture that the children have no future when he writes “their fields are bleak & bare” but seems to suggest that there is a future for these children somewhere when he illustrates that where “the sun does shine” and the “rain does fall” there is chance.
This poem clearly shows Blakes’ understanding of society, and this poem reveals Blake’s opinion on society in general and through this, and it’s companion poem we can suggest that in 18th century London, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and that while it was society’s duty to help the poor, they in fact accelerate the process of neglection and deprivation of a future for the children.
However, while there are differences in the poem there are similarities which are clearly evident. There are still, as in all his works, references to the correlation between children and purity as highlighted when Blake writes the children have “innocence faces”.
There is also clear reference to religion as Blake describes heaven in Songs of Experience as “For where-e'er the sun does shine, / And where-e'er the rain does fall” which gives us a visual image of heaven and in the Songs of Innocence there is religious imagery such as “angels” and “lambs”
18th century London very much influenced, and is perhaps the foundation of Blake’s work. Blake portrays how life was for people in 18th century London using his ‘London’ and ‘Chimney Sweeper’ poems. He explored the theme of poverty and overcrowding in his poem called ‘London’ in the Songs of Experience collection. He writes that in London a new child is born into poverty as “new-born Infants tear”. Blake is trying to give the reader a vivid image of how London is and how a child is brought up in poverty from the moment they are born.
Another way he portrays poverty and restriction is through another industrial image. He says the people of London have “mind-forg'd manacles” which literally translate into ‘mind chains’. Blake is trying to tell the reader that the people, and city, of London are in a state of oppression and that they do not have freedom. The horror that this image creates is reflected in the form of the poem in which the repetition acts as a constant reminder of the horror the speaker sees throughout his journey into London.
Blake also gives us contextual information on social divide in his lifetime. He tried to show that the rich were becoming increasing worried on how the population of the poor people was increasing exponentially and their concern was reinforced the French Revolution, Blake described the social divide in Songs of Innocence in the ‘Chimney Sweeper’ poem where he revealed the young boy’s father had “sold me while yet my tongue” meaning that his father had sold him while he was young, probably in order to raise money to live or to spend at the local alehouse. This is again revealed in the Songs of Experience version of the poem, where the narrator’s parents have “both gone up to the church to pray”. Blake is trying to portray how there was a big gap in the quality of the living created by the social divide and illustrates what extents people were willing to go to in order to survive a little longer.
The Gordon Riots occurred in 1780 where there was a significant rise in the number of people, the majority of who was Protestant, opposed to the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1778. A large number of people marched up to the Houses of Parliament and tried to force their way in and repel the legislation. Outside, a riot was arising and many homes and Catholic-related buildings were destroyed. Blake was known to be apart of the riots and was perhaps trying to overcome the unfairness of the monarchy and church.
In conclusion, Blake’s poems give us a vivid picture of Blake’s times, his beliefs on issues such as religion, children and politics and highlight an in-depth insight on his views. Blake’s poetry is much more complex than one might see at first view and using various forms of poetic techniques and form, he creates an image worth more than a thousand words.
“I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.” – William Blake, on life in London.
