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Blake believed that people go through three stages in life:  Innocence, Experience, and
Second Innocence.
Innocence is a state of childlike sweetness, when a person hasn’t had much to do with
the outside “real” world and has not had too many bad things happen to them.  The
innocent is sweet, but they are not very wise and can be very vulnerable. They, like the
little child in “The Lamb”, are full of innocent, untested faith.
 
Experience is just what it sounds like—a person has been out in the world, has had
some knocks, knows about the hard or cruel and evil things in human life.  He or she is
wiser, defended, but also cynical. They may not believe there is a benevolent higher
power.  Or they may wonder how there can be a good higher power, or they may
question faith.
 
Second Innocence is a state a person can choose to enter—after going through the
first two, a person can believe there is something good or better in life, that there is a
higher power. The person in a state of second innocence is no fool, but he or she has
hope in God or a higher power of some sort.
 

1. Please think about the little black boy in Blake’s “The Little Black Boy.”  What
does he believe about himself in relation to the white boy?  How does he come to
believe this? Is he one of the vulnerable Innocents?  Is his mother in a state of
Experience?  
 He believes although he and the white boy are different in complexion, on
the inside the are both the same. He come to believe this from the
teaching he receives from his mother about God and his love for us all.
She teaches the boy that his black skin is like a cloud that will fade away
once his soul meets God in heaven. The young black boy would be
considered one of the vulnerable innocents who looks to his experienced
mother for wisdom.
2. “The Tyger” is a companion poem to “The Lamb”—obviously the tiger is an
awesome beast—quite different from the lamb; and the speaker wonders who or
what could have created him.  He asks, “did he who made the lamb make thee?” 
What is implied in this question?  Does the speaker have he same faith in a
benevolent higher power as the child in “The Lamb?”  Why or why not?

 By asking this question the writer is questioning or implying whether or not

the same God that made the lamb made the Tyger. Because of this you
can assume that the speaker does believe in a higher power such as the
child in “The Lamb”. However, he is questioning his motives behind
creating The Lamb so sweet and the tiger so evil, therefore, his faith is not
as unwavering of that of the boy in The Lamb.
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3. “The Poison Tree” is another poem by Blake—please find it in the Poems of the
Romantic Period file. Read it and tell me:  is it depicting Innocence or Experience
and how can you tell?
 I believe this poem is depicting experience. The speaker mentions that he
was angry with a friend and he told him, so all was well. However, when
he became angry with an enemy and could not tell him, he bottled that
anger up and it began to grow into a poisonous fruit tree. His enemy then
eats from this tree and dies. While the speaker appears to be happy to
have killed of his enemy, this poem depicts a deeper meaning behind how
harmful it is to bottle up emotions and anger. Additionally, it shows how
suppressed emotions are not only harmful to the individual but can also
turn them into someone that can harm those around them.
With all poems, you want to be sure about several things: 
Who the speaker is and who or what is addressed?  We call this the “dramatic
situation.”
Always read the poem according to the punctuation; don’t pause at the ends of the
lines.  This will help you follow the though units in the poem, so you can understand
what the words are saying. When the poet runs past the end of a line to get to the end
of a thought and to a punctuation mark, we say he has employed enjambment, or the
lines are enjambed.
Read every poem at least three times—even the long ones.  And the third time, read it
out loud, listening for the accented syllables. Listen for the most regular lines, see if you
can identify the metrical contract.
 
3. With Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud:”

 What is the dramatic situation? The dramatic situation in this poem is the unity
between nature and man. The speaker uses metaphorical language to compare his
loneliness to that of a cloud wandering through the sky. Then he suddenly sees a
felid of daffodils that go on for miles dancing in the breeze and outshining all other
arts of nature surrounding it. The speaker finds happiness and tranquility in this view
and thinks about it often when he is down or lonely.
 What seem to be the most regularly accented lines?
 Where is the first noticeable metrical variation? Fluttering and dancing in the
breeze.
 What is the effect of that variation? The speaker starts to change how he
feels.
 
4. With Wordsworth’s “We are seven”:
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 What is the dramatic situation? The dramatic situation in this poem is the
debate between a young girl and a man about the number of siblings the young girl
has and her understanding of death. Although two of her siblings have passed away,
she still believes she has a family of seven. While the man argues that because they
are not alive and breathing like her, they are dead and therefore should no longer be
considered a part of the count. The man feels the young girl is bling to the truth
behind death however discovers this is not true, the young girl just chooses not to
act in grief and still spend time with her dead siblings.
 Who is speaking? The poem is written like a conversation between the man and
the young girl, having them both speak throughout the poem.
 Where are the little girl’s siblings? Two of the girl’s sibling are away at sea,
two are in Conway (UK) and two of them have died.

 What are the child and the speaker arguing about? They are arguing about
why the little girl insist on believing she has a family of seven when in fact two are
gone.
 What do you take away from this argument? From this argument you can
conclude that the young girl is viewing this through the innocence mind frame,
whereas the older man is looking at it from a more experienced viewpoint and
believes the child is not wise enough to understand death.
 Think about Blake’s ideas of Innocence, Experience, and Second
Innocence.