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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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