SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE

-William Blake

Short question:

i) Infant Joy (From “Songs of Innocence”)

Written by William Blake the “Songs of innocence and experience” express two opposite states of the human soul, heaven and hell. “Songs of Innocence” expresses the state of childhood, a state of free imagination and infinite joy.

In the poem “Infant joy” from “Songs of Innocence”, the speakers can be a child and a mother; or a child and an angel; or a child and the poet. Here we find a two days old baby, whose name is given joy. Here the poet wants to show that the world is a place where human beings are born into joy. Giving birth to a child is joyful matter of motherhood and thus generations are bound of each other by faithfulness and innocence. To brief, the main idea of the poem is when innocence remains in earth everyone is happy like a new born baby.

Child is the symbol of innocence. Thus nothing should be imposed on them and they are free from everything, this is the main concept of “songs of Innocence”.

ii) Infant Sorrow (From “Songs of Experience”)

Written by William Blake the “Songs of innocence and experience” express two opposite states of the human soul, heaven and hell.  “Songs of Experience” expresses that how the society gets corrupted when the innocent soul gets corrupted.

In the poem “Infant Sorrow” from “Songs of Experience” the speaker is the child who does not welcome neither by his father nor his mother. He has helplessly surrendered to the society. Here the poet indicates the industrial revolution when people were getting involved with industry instead of farming. So, the rich were becoming richer and the poor were becoming poorer. Those people who were poorer sold their child for food. Thus, in the poem the parents are crying because they can’t maintain the child’s need properly and have to sell him on account of want.

Finally we can say that, the conflict between innocence and cruelty of life, how life challenges, corrupts and destroy the innocent soul, these are the main concept of “Songs of Experience”.

iii) The Chimney Sweeper (from “Song of Innocence”)

Written by William Blake the “Songs of innocence and experience” express two opposite states of the human soul, heaven and hell. (“Songs of Innocence” expresses the state of childhood, a state of free imagination and infinite joy.) Here, Blake gives a slight hints of the upcoming poem in “Songs of Experience”.

In the poem, “The Chimney Sweeper” from “Songs of Innocence”, the speaker is a young chimney sweeper. He has sold by his father to the master sweep when he was too young to cry. Tom Dacre, friend of the speaker, cried when he was shaved his hair on account of sweeping chimneys. That very night he has a dream where he sees, some chimney sweeper locked in a coffin .Then an angel comes and gets them free and, tells them if they behave properly then they can have God as their father. Thus Tom gets up and feels relieved and goes peacefully to brush the chimney.

In the time of industrial revolution, many poor parents sold their children for food to master sweep who engaged these children on poor payment. Here, the black coffin indicates the soot that the children have to wear while they sweep chimneys. And the angel symbolized that they are now in the heaven with complete freedom. Here the poem ends and reminds us that to do our duty is the way to happiness.

iv)The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Experience)

Written by William Blake the “Songs of innocence and experience” express two opposite states of the human soul, heaven and hell. “Songs of Experience” expresses that how the society gets corrupted when the innocent soul gets corrupted.

 In the poem, “The Chimney Sweeper” from “Songs of Experience”, the speaker is a child. His parents leave him and go for pray. Then the child tells a pathetic story of his life. Once he was happy child but his parents sold him and go for pray. When the unfeeling parents see the child happy, they think they do not make any harm to the child. Thus, they thank the God, His priest and the king who happily lived on the sufferings of the boy.

In the time of industrial revolution, many poor parents sold their children for food to master sweep who engaged these children on poor payment. Here, the poet focuses on the cruelty of the parents. The church, priest and the king symbolize the social and political view of Blake’s time, which conception was that, religion this more than children.

v) The Little Black Boy (from Songs of Innocence)

Written by William Blake the “Songs of innocence and experience” express two opposite states of the human soul, heaven and hell. (“Songs of Innocence” expresses the state of childhood, a state of free imagination and infinite joy.) Here, Blake gives slight hints of the upcoming poem in “Songs of Experience”.

In the poem, “The Little Black Boy” from “Songs of Innocence”, the speaker is a child who is frustrated for his black skin. His mother gives a consoling vision and tells the color is like ‘cloud’ which is not permanent. She also tells him that human soul doesn’t contain any color in front of God. Thus the boy overcomes from his frustration and thinks that when the white boy will love him when they bid farewell to this world because before God Negro boy will become fair too.

The poem is about racism. Through this poem the poet shows us the sufferings of black people and how they treated by the English people. But in the end, the poet gives us the massage that if human being loves each other, then the world will become heaven.

vi)London (from songs of experience)

Written by William Blake the “Songs of innocence and experience” express two opposite states of the human soul, heaven and hell. “Songs of Experience” expresses that how the society gets corrupted when the innocent soul gets corrupted.

In the poem, Blake is principally describing a very corrupted society, London, dominated by the power of materialism and the contrast between upper and working-class sections of society. Here, the poet uses repetition of words such as "every" to emphasize the fact that this suffering is not only affecting a group of people but everybody. Then "chimney-sweeper's cry" symbolizes that people are forced to repair the corrupted society. Blake is also blaming the church by describing as "blackening" to represent its corruption. Clearly, the author shows his hatred towards London by using dark imageries and evil-evoking words.  "The youthful harlot's curse" means that the child of his bed partner, a married person, will be born in their turn in poverty. All in all, the poem shows that life is hard and difficult, that there is misery everywhere in London and those who are too much concerned about money should feel guilty from those that suffer around them.