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Innocence, Experience and Higher Innocence: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis

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Content Page NumberIntroduction 03Argument 04Innocence and Experience:

Thesis and Antithesis

06

Higher Innocence: Synthesis 09Conclusion 13Bibliography 14

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Introduction

William Blake was born in 1757 when the world was totally

obsessed with the idea of enlightenment. He intellectually and

philosophically refuted Lock, Pope and Newton’s rational

approach. His beliefs in imagination rather than reason made him

the most unusual intellect of the age. Imagination was like God

to him. May be that is why he was undistinguishable among the

English writers until mid-nineteenth century. Finally, he is

recognized in English literature as a pre-romantic. It was an era

of pre-industrialization where child labor, injustice,

prostitution, socio-economical unrest and war were prevailing

factors in the arena of England. In his life-time he was more

recognized as an engraver than as a poet. Moreover,

intellectuals of his age were considering him as a lunatic rather

than a normal human being.1 His claims of having visions in his

early life prove his philosophical dependence on imaginative1 Two years before Blake’s death, Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) visited him and left this impression to him: “Shall I call him Artist or Genius, or Mystic, or Madman?Probably he is all”

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power which was later stressed and nurtured by later romantics as

‘romantic imagination’. He began his poetic creation with

prophetic writings but reached in a mature and organized

philosophical concept when he published his Songs of Innocence and of

Experience in 1794 in a combined volume. In this volume he

demonstrates two contrary states of human soul –innocence and

experience- which are two natural stages of human life. However,

a soul can face two kinds of destination and that is destruction

or salvation. The state of salvation is the state of higher

innocence for Blake. Ultimately, He shows that knowledge brings a

soul in a world of experience but only the power of imagination

sustains the soul for the state of higher innocence.

Argument

I have taken three keywords -thesis, antithesis and synthesis-

from the famous Hegelian dialectic method to show the gradual

improvement of Blake’s philosophy. However, Hegel never actually

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uses these three specific terms. He rather used Abstract-

Negative- Concrete.i To have a clear idea about this particular

dialectic method we have to know three2 (or four) principles of

Socratic or Dialectic methods as Hegelian dialectic method is

actually a modern approach of Greek dialectic method. In the

classical period the form of reasoning was based on arguments and

counter-arguments (thesis and anti-thesis). The outcome of such

combination may result in the refutation of the argued point or a

synthesis or a combination of the two argued topics. However, in

the Hegelian approach of Abstract-Negative-Concrete (Thesis,

Anti-thesis and Synthesis), Hegel suggests an error in any

initial thesis- that it is too abstract as it lacks in any

negative aspects, trial or experience. For Hegel, the thesis or

abstract must pass through Negative phase (anti-thesis) to reach

the concrete phase or synthesis. And, this is the essence of

popular Hegelian Dialectics. Now, if we follow this structure to

shape Blake’s philosophy we will categorize innocence as thesis,

experience as anti-thesis and higher innocence as synthesis. In2 Theoretical principles

Dialectics is based around three (or four) basic concepts:

-Everything is transient and finite, existing in the medium of time (this idea is notaccepted by some dialecticians).

-Everything is made out of opposing forces/opposing sides (contradictions).

-Gradual changes lead to turning points, where one force overcomes the other (quantitative change leads to qualitative change).

-Change moves in spirals (or helices), not circles. (Sometimes referred to as "negation of the negation")

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this essay we will observe this parallel approach between

Hegelian dialectic method and William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and

of Experience.

Blake first published “Songs of Innocence” individually in 1789,

the year of French Revolution. Then he added some new poems and

published only 28 copies of his laborious ‘illuminated printing’

of Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794. It is also very

important to notice that Blake’s poem in printing without the

illustration does not carry the same value as it does with

illuminated paintings. The two parts of the book symbolize the

“two contrary states of the human soul”. Blake also confessed

that “all he knew was in the Bible” and that “The Old and New

Testaments are the Great Code of Art.” Even, two key words of his

philosophy, ‘vision’ and ‘imagination’ are often misunderstood by

taking these two words literally. Now we will see two

introductory poems from songs to see how he establishes the

foundation of his philosophy. “Introduction” from ‘Songs of

Innocence’ starts with heavenly atmosphere. A child from heaven

like a muse of a poet encourages a piper to sing and write a

happy song about the “Lamb”. It is important to note that the

piper is actually a poet since he also writes his song as he is

requested by the child. The overwhelming merry or gleeful

atmosphere is easily felt as the setting is heavenly and

peaceful. And, the symbol of ‘Lamb’ reminds us about the

meekness of Christ and the child is itself a symbol of childhood.

On the other hand, if we look at the “Introduction” from ‘Songs of

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Experience’ we will encounter a visionary ‘Bard’ ‘Who Present, Past

and Future sees’. Not the least, He is also aware of the Fall of

‘Adam and Eve’ from the heaven as Blake takes a reference from

the book of Genesis. In this regard, we can combine Blake’s basis

of knowledge as The Bible and we can compare the Fall with the

entering in the world of Experience for human race. Though,

interestingly the fruit of knowledge brings them in this stage,

it is also necessary for a human soul to encounter this stage. In

a way, we can say that sin is a kind of knowledge which brings a

human being into the state of experience. Though it may be

considered as “an exaggeration of truth that all of Blake’s

prophetic writings deal with the overall biblical plot of the

creation and the Fall, the history of the generations of humanity

in the fallen world, redemption, and the promise of a recovery of

Eden and of a New Jerusalem”ii, I would take this biblical plot

to show the gradual improvement of Blake’s philosophy. In the

second stanza, the prophet bard is calling all ‘lapsed soul’ for

redemption by renewing their fallen state. He can see light of

the morning starching out of ‘the slumberous mass’. Instead of

all rigidity and chaos some souls will survive ‘till the break of

day’ and finally will achieve promised Eden or higher innocence.

In this stage, the “Introduction” from Songs of Innocence is well

established in the state of innocence by referring to childhood

i http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake , Retrived from March 15, 2010.

ii The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Seventh Edition (Volume-2), (1990), W. W. Norton & Company, inc. London.

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which can be compared with the pre-fallen stage of ‘Adam and

Eve’. On the other hand, the “Introduction” from Songs of Experience

brings us in the state of experience where human kind is fallen

with a hope of salvation. But interestingly this fall is not

negative in Blake’s philosophy; rather it is the negative aspect

which is necessary to achieve the higher innocent state.

Innocence and Experience: Thesis and Antithesis

An expression of pure human innocence is “Infant Joy” where a

mother questions and answers for her two days old child. It

depicts a human child untouched and uncorrupted by any kind of

evil and is happily sheltered in its mother’s lap where sweet

smile and happy song create a pretty and joyous environment. On

the contrary, in a sudden a child enters in an insecure dangerous

world in “Infant Sorrow”. The mother is no more singing a

lullaby, and the child is no more in her lap rather he or she is

‘Helpless, naked’ and ‘crying loud’. Instead of a mother’s caring

hand, a father’s coercive hand and ‘swadling bands’ are making

him weary and bound. Though the mother groans, the child prefers

to take shelter in its mother’s breast. These two poems are

binary opposites where Blake intentionally depicts two contrary

states: joy and sorrow; comfort and struggle or security and

insecurity which represent two different worlds of innocence and

experience. In a way, these two poems show a mere comparison

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between the world of innocence (thesis) and that of experience

(anti-thesis).

In “The Chimney Sweeper” of Songs of Innocence, we have a motherless

child whose father sold him as a sweeper at his very young age.

It is also evident that he is so young that he cannot even utter

his speech clearly. He works as a sweeper and sleeps in soot. He

consoles his work-mate when the owner shaves Tom’s head. Then

that very night, Tom dreams a dream that thousands of sweepers

are locked in a black coffin. Meantime, an angel comes and sets

all the chimney sweepers free with a bright key. They run through

the green plain and wash them in a river. The angel is also

consoling Tom for his bad luck and telling him that if he wants

to remain a good boy and to get God as his father he would never

desire joy and happiness in his life. The inspiration from the

angel makes him content for accepting his life of darkness. He

has just taken a way out for escaping from the brutal reality.

Blake concludes with ‘So if all do their duty, they need not fear

harm.’ The last line is ironical here. All we realize is that the

phenomenon of child labor is an evil or curse of the time but

only for the legalization of this brutal activity the repressive

society is adapting disguise of religion. They are using

religious sermons for consoling the helpless children and

accepting their fate to keep them working in the miserable

situation. Tragically, the innocent soul of the sweeper boy

accepts his way of life unquestioningly only because he believes

that he is getting closer to God. Here Blake intentionally shows

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this to depict an innocent soul. In the same way in ‘Songs of

Experience’ we see how the society and the religious order are

corrupter. The parents go to the church for praying after selling

their child. It shows that the purest and closest of human

relationship is also corrupted. In the second stanza of the poem

the boy can understand that his parents actually have led him

towards the death. Finally, the boy can realize the hollowness of

religious sermons and religious orders as he can see that instead

of Trinity the church is guided by the king and the priest. As a

result, the boy directly condemns this institutional religion for

making ‘a heaven of our misery’. Now the boy is clearly has no

hope or light for rest of his life which mean the boy does not

overcome the barricade of experienced world as he is a victim of

a repressive society.

However, what happens if a soul is caught in the state of

experience? Blake shows it clearly in “London” and “The Poison

Tree”. In “London” we have a clear picture of a pre-

industrialized London where every face has ‘Marks of weakness,

marks of woe.’ Here, in this poem the whole human civilization is

depicted by London as it was the centre of the contemporary

civilization. It gradually focuses on corrupted family life,

chimney-sweeper’s crying, soldier’s sigh, harlot’s curse and

infant’s tears. It is a society where there is no sign of hope

and everything is corrupted and destruction is obvious. London is

like a doom where there is no sacred marriage bondage as a result

the husband goes to the harlots. Soldiers are sacrificing their

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life not for any well-being of the state but to fulfill the

illegal desire of the palace men. Small children are sold as

sweeper and no one pays heed to their crying. Sexual diseases are

spreading as a result of extra-marital relationship. This is a

hopeless world where instead of industrialization and increasing

prosperity no sign of happiness is seen. In the same line, “A

Poison Tree” is an allegorical evidence of a corrupted individual

soul. The person expresses his wrath to his friend but suppresses

his anger against his enemy; as a result it grows like a poison

tree. Finally, his enemy dies by eating the fruit of his poison

tree. It shows the absence of free expressions. The man does not

express his true feelings or emotions to his enemy; as a result

it brings a destructive and tragic ending. Both of these two

poems represent community and individual souls which are

gradually attacked, corrupted and destroyed. Both symbolize a

world of experience but without any possibility of salvation. It

is because the community and the individual souls are lacking any

vision or imaginative power which can save them. All kind of

rigidity, evil, envies or negetiveness surround them and

destruction of their souls is obvious. It is very difficult to

describe this stage by Hegelian dialectic method. Though this

stage is a necessary negative stage for thesis, it does not

success to reach in its synthesis as it is missing the necessary

imaginative power of Blake’s philosophy.

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Higher Innocence: Synthesis

In a dialectic approach of “Nurse’s Song” in Songs of Innocence we

observe nature as a mouthpiece of the children’s feelings and

emotions. Nature reflects and participates in the happiness of

children when their nurse lets them play till the end of the day-

“Well, well, go & play till the light fades away

And then go home to bed,”

The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh’d

And all the hills eccoed.

On the contrary, “Nurse’s Song” from Songs of Experience opens and

ends abruptly with a commanding voice of the nurse while

‘whispering’ voices of the children are heard in the valley. The

experienced nurse can only remember her unpleasant experiences

that make her ‘green and pale’. It is evident that the nurse’s

experience is making other’s life less enjoyable and frightful.

But the nurse from ‘Songs of innocence’ may also have same kind of

cruel experience in her life but this experience could not spoil

her innocence. She is able to keep her innocence intact, and

enters a state of higher innocence. Now, naturally a question

that arises in our mind is “Why does she (nurse from ‘Songs of

Innocence’) allow her beloved children to play whereas the nurse

from Songs of Experience does not?” It is because they are in two

different states of mind. The nurse (experience) is restricted by

her experienced soul and can only realize the harshness of life

and is making her children aware of the cruelty and harshness of

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life. Interestingly in the case of the other nurse it does not

happen. Instead she sees no harm in letting the children play a

little more since it is yet day. She applies her free childlike

soul to allow the children to play which is also appreciated by

nature. It shows that she is reasonable, realistic as well as

sympathetic. Actually this nurse reaches her maturity or in the

state of higher innocence by using her imagination power as she

can realize the passion and desire of those children for playing.

In this way, she unifies her soul with others and reaches the

state of higher innocence. On the other hand, the other nurse

evaluates everything only by her own experience and does not

apply her own imaginative power to understand the children’s

desire. Her soul remains caged in an experienced world where

salvation is unreachable.

We meet another innocent soul of old John in “The Ecchoing Green”

that finally reaches in its synthesis by understanding his

present situation comparing with past in the midst of the echoing

green. The old man can remember his gleeful childhood when he

sees children playing. He realizes that youthfulness, day time

and sport have their endings. Everybody has to return their home

as time ends and needs to take shelter in the bosom of their

mother or nature. But it does not stop from arising the sun to

make the skies happy or ‘the merry bells to welcome the spring’.

It means that childhood and oldness or morning and night are the

natural cycle of life. Nature will continue her change but good

moments or reminiscence will remain in the mind of a person like

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old john which will give him peace and tranquility in the long

run. Now his mind is in a state of higher innocence because

instead of his old age he realizes the natural process of life

and rather than becoming frustrated about his forth-coming death

he reminiscences (power of imagination) his childhood and becomes

a part of eternal peace.

In “The Lamb” the first stanza starts and ends with rhetoric

questions where a little boy is asking the Lamb about its

creator. This stanza is about how the creator of the Lamb has

made its life beautiful and comfortable. So he utters-

Give thee life and bid thee feed,

By the stream & o’er the mead;

Give thee clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice!

In the second stanza, Blake compares the Lamb with Christ: ‘For

he calls himself a Lamb;’. This stanza is very important for

Blake’s philosophy. Here in this poem Blake concretizes that God

has created the lamb or childhood with its mildest, softest and

most innocent qualities. And I have mentioned earlier in this

essay that children and childhood are symbols of innocence in

Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Now we see it without doubt when

Blake says-

For he calls himself a Lamb;

He is meek & he is mild,

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He became a little child;

I a child and & thou a lamb,

We are called by his name.

On the contrary, we have ‘The Tyger’ as binary opposition of ‘The

Lamb’. The poet’s approach is as rhetoric as it is in his earlier

poem but the questions are more complex in its structure and

meaning. It is a representation of a God who has created a

fearful animal with symmetry. It shows the fierceness and the

power of a tiger and also stresses on the power of God who has

created this fearful animal. Here God is compared with a cosmic

blacksmith whose strong shoulder shapes ‘the sinews’ of the

tiger’s heart. As an obvious question Blake asks-

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

The tiger represents the opposite aspects of meekness and

mildness of the lamb, which are fierceness, strength and

terribleness. These two poems establish the philosophy of Blake

by depicting two aspects of God’s creation. The lamb represents

the world of innocence while the tiger represents the world of

experience and Blake stresses the fact that this world is not

only a place of innocence or meekness or peacefulness but also a

place of fierceness, force and cruelty. God smiles to see his

work because he knows the utility of the tiger in this world. In

this way we see God’s creation with two opposite forces which are

also prevailing in human nature as mildness and fierceness or as

two contrary states of a human soul. The symbol of a tiger is

also essential to understand the antithesis or negative phase of

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Blakian philosophy. Here, the tiger is a cosmic force and it

represents power and fire in a positive sense. Maurice Bowra in

his book The Romantic Imagination utters “When the lamb is destroyed

by experience, the tiger is needed to restore the world”. As a

result, we need this powerful force to bring change of this cruel

stagnant experienced world and reestablish the world of

innocence. Now ‘fire’ does not only destroy but can purify a soul

by burning it. As we have observed Hegelian dialectic method; we

can compare the quality of a tiger with a necessary or obvious

negative stage of human life. Finally, the combination of

meekness and fierceness will synthesize innocent and experienced

states into a higher innocent state.

In “Nurse’s Song” and “The Ecchoing Green” we have two souls in

its higher innocence state by using their imaginative power. But

one may question why imaginative power rather than a common

knowledge can make it possible for a soul to reach in its

synthesis. We will be surer if we concentrate on two allegorical

poems from Songs of Experience named “The Little Girl Lost” and “The

Little Girl Found”. In the first poem we observe the return of

the prophet bard who says-

In futurity

I prophetic see

The prophet observes parents who have lost their little girl

Lyca. The girl who was very lovely and innocent has now lost her

way in forest, and is now passing her time with leopards, tigers

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and lions. Now she is no more an innocent girl rather is a gowned

and experienced person after being exposed to the negative phase

of life. In the next poem, when the parents lost their hope for

getting back their girl they have a vision which helps them to

trace their dearest girl-

Then they followed,

Where the vision led:

And saw their sleeping child

Among tigers wild.

Here in this poem, the little girl is a symbol of a human soul

which ought to be a dearest one for every human life. And the

poet allegorically shows that if a human soul is lost in an

experienced world one must have a vision to regain it. And

according to Blake the most obvious abode of this vision is

“Poetic Genius”. In Blake’s early illuminated prose work named All

Religions Are One he establishes that all people possess a power of

“Poetic Genius” which itself is an ability of imaginative

vision.iii As a result it is important to recognize that in

Blakian philosophy vision or imaginative vision or imaginative

power is not a rare quality far away from the reach of common

people. It means a power of speaking truth or remaining truthful

to one’s soul. This vision or imaginative power or poetic genius

is the tool of salvation for Blake. In the same line, in the

Application of There Is No Natural Religion Blake says ‘He who sees the

infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees

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himself only.’ In The Divine Image we observe Blake concludes with

same tone -

And all must love the human form,

In heathen, Turk, or Jew.

Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,

There God is dwelling too.

Now it is clear that from the state of anti-thesis the soul will

reach to its synthesis only when it will be guided through his or

her visionary imaginative power. Otherwise, it will remain in a

hopeless state of anti-thesis.

Conclusion

Now we have an overall picture of Blake’s philosophy on Songs of

Innocence and of Experience. We have gradually observed a number of

poems to make a clear parallel approach between Hegelian

dialectic method and Blakian philosophy of higher innocence. I

iii The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Seventh Edition (Volume-2), (1990), W. W. Norton & Company, inc. London.

IV. Maurice Bowra, (1950) , The Romantic Imagination, Oxford University Press,London.

V. The Penguin, (1988), William Blake , Selected Poetry, Penguin Book Ltd, London.

Vi. David W. Lindsay, (1989), Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience, Macmillan Education Ltd, Hong Kong.

Vii. Edited by Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant, (2004), Blake’s Poetry andDesign, W. W. Norton & Company, London.

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have stressed on some abstract issues like imaginative power and

vision to show Blake’s approach to literature and life which is

not a rational one but a spiritual one. In my argument, I have

also mentioned that I would use the Biblical Plot of Fall to

prove my thesis sentence. Biblically, it has been mentioned that

the fruit of knowledge brings the human folk in this experienced

world as a punishment, but it has also promised the return of

Eden. In the same way, Blake believes that it is necessary for

every soul to enter the world of experience and thereby gain his

or her higher innocence by nurturing specific qualities like

imaginative power which will show an individual the way of

unification towards God or in other words will show the way of

promised Eden. In this way, each and every individual will

complete his or her journey and unify with God.

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Bibliography: