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Assignment
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Topic: Comparison between William Blake’s
‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience’
dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzx 10/11/2019

Submitted by: Prarthana Kakoty(EGB16010); Course code: EG303.

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Comparison between William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of
Experience’:
The ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience’ are the best known work of the English poet and
artist, William Blake. He employs the mediums of poetry and colored engraving in a series of visionary
poems that show the two contrary states of the human soul. ‘Songs of Innocence’ was published in 1789
and ‘Songs of Experience’ in 1794, and then the two were combined. The poems are written in simple
lyrical form like children’s songs, and they contrast an innocent vision of life with a more experienced or
tarnished one. Each poem is accompanied by illustrations and they are occasionally paired in the two
kinds, by assigning them the same or similar titles.

The ‘Innocence’ poems were the products of a mind in a state of innocence and of an imagination,
unspoiled by the ways of the world. At the time when he wrote, he had not been exposed to the social
injustices. “They are a picture of soul’s perfect existence, when it is at one with itself- the condition
which Blake mirrors as a state of childhood.”It is such that no evil has yet come to entice the soul of
from its paradise. Blake expressed much pity for the suffering of people that he witnessed in the streets
of London. His increasing awareness of these injustices in a world of oppression led him to compose the
‘Experience’ poems. ‘Songs of Experience’ always had the accompanying abridgement of ‘Songs of
Innocence’.

Each individual poem is important not only in itself but the drawings which accompany these poems are
equally important. The two contrary states of innocence and experience symbolized in the poem also
get reflected in the poem’s design, for e.g. the word ‘travelling’ is represented by a traveler. Hence it is
important to take into account the poem in its entirety.

Blake was thirty years old when he wrote the ‘Songs of Innocence’. In order to do so, he himself had to
be dyed in such spontaneous innocence. He did not merely write about childish happiness but became
the happy child of the world. “The finest poems of the ‘Songs of Innocence’ are those in which there is
some admission of the hardships which actually face the innocents of the world; but, in these poems the
innocent view can be seen as easily transcending adversity.”The design which comprises these poems
represents vegetation that is fresh, attractive and abundant. The tree of innocence which is large and
healthy has its branches entangled in a natural embrace. However, the serpentine creeper that winds
about its trunk anticipates the Fall from innocence. Blake tries to show the perverted state of man in his
other set of poems, through vegetation which surrounds text and design. In ‘Experience’ it recalls the
earlier ripeness but it is actually, in a withering state. The dry branches of the tree “form round arches or
flat inhibiting horizontals” over the pages and it intersect the lines of the text.

Blake develops the setting in the introduction to the poems. In ‘Songs of Innocence’, he imagines himself
as a shepherd, wandering in the valley, piping to his sheep. He sees the vision of a child sitting on a
cloud, and is directed by it. The shepherd is asked by a higher force to do his bidding. The higher force or
the child represents Jesus who is the ultimate symbol of innocence. The last line highlights children as
his audience, whether child or adult, innocent at heart. On the contrary, in the introduction to the
‘Songs of Experience’, the poet views himself as a bard. He is a prophet who hears God speaking to
Adam after he has been exposed to Experience in Eden. “Earth is the symbol of the fallen man, who is
jolted from materialism and asked to go back to life of innocence and the imagination.”Superficially,
there is little distinction between the piper and the bard. The piper displays signs of imaginative vision
and the bard visualizes present, past and future. However for each, the notions of present, past and
future are different. The past of the piper is primal unity, the present in innocence and the future is
experience. For the bard, the past is innocence, the present experience, and the future is a higher
innocence. Both the singers are imaginative or prophetic in character. But while one singer uses mild
and gentle numbers, the other uses more terrific tones, depending on their disposition. Even then, both
see the imaginative and symbolic significance of all the activity in the songs.

‘The Chimney Sweeper’ in ‘Innocence’, begins with a narrative and ends with a general moral. Blake sets
this poem against the shameful use of small boys for sweeping chimneys. In the poem, the white boy is
blackened by dirt of human cruelty. The angel of Tom’s dream sets their spirits free to float on the
clouds of imagination. But it is living and accepting their grim reality that appears as a moral message or
‘duty’, in the final lines. Hence, even if Tom awakens in the dark and cold weather, he knows his duty
which will secure him a place near God, and so he stays warm. This is half ironic as it proves innocence
as whatever we perceive to be innocent. On the contrary, in ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ of ‘Experience’, a
completely different picture is shown. In this poem, the boy narrates about his exploitation by his
parents. The boy is in a miserable state because his parents do not realize his suffering as he appears
apparently happy. His parents are in the Church, an institute of oppression which disregards society’s
infliction of such cruelty on the innocent child. Unlike the ‘Innocence’ poem where Tom is released by
the coming of the angel with the message of hope, the boy in the ‘Experience’ poem is completely
abandoned and left for the Church. Tom’s ignorance of the evils around him is contrasted with the boy’s
realization of the same, which brings forth the perspectives of innocence and experience respectively.

‘Infant Joy’ in ‘Innocence’ is the statement of the simple joy of a new life whereas ‘Infant Sorrow’ in
‘Experience’ shows the other side, where the new born infant is brought up in pain and sorrow. In
‘Infant Joy’, the baby is seen to have no problems or worries, happily placed in its mother’s protective
arms. On the other hand, in ‘Infant Sorrow’, the baby is seen to be cold, naked and crying. The
nakedness of the infant is symbolic of its vulnerability. This vulnerability of human life is hidden behind
the cover of love and comfort in former poem but is torn apart to show its ugly face in the latter.

The Songs of Innocence are guided by two main factors. One is the assumption that the world is made
for the benefit of human beings and the other is the ignorance of the evils around us. As the child grows
up, he becomes conscious of this reality and his mind accepts the same. His childhood innocence is
forgotten and lost. One important thing about both the sets of poems is that they portray the growth of
the human mind, from innocence to a more matured state, and hence share an organic unity.