William Blake’s views of life concerning innocence and experience

William Blake, being a visionary and mystic poet, could see the contemporary real picture of the society and foresee the coming crisis and offered suggestions to relieve from it, and put them into his writings. His dealing matter is more spiritual than physical. In his “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”, he expresses two states of soul – innocence and experience and how the first one gradually turns to the second. (By a conscious going through these songs, we can realize Blake’s views of life, concerning innocence and experience.)

At first we can take a general idea of Blake’s views or philosophy. It “asserts the contrariety of systems with regard to soul and the other objects of creation.” And this contrary is between the stage of innocence and of experience. The stage of experience is energetic and unavoidable for human salvation. He says “without contrary is no progression.” For him ‘good’ is the passive that obeys reason whereas ‘evil’ is the active stemming out from energy.

At the stage of innocence, a soul remains very natural, joyful, universal and related to God Himself. But, after facing the hardness, cruelty and worldliness, and getting freedom of choice, it reaches the stage of experience. Almost in every case, it is encouraged or compelled to be converted into the stage of experience by the surroundings. Here one thing is mentionable that the latter stage is more important than the former because from the latter, there is a possibility of reaching the stage of higher or greater innocence, but the former is a heavenly thing.

Now we can look at the songs how the poet treats, with his excellent use of symbols, the stages and how the first turns to the second.

At the very introductory poem of the innocence, we are informed the nature of innocence. The setting of the poem is natural, pastoral and joyful, and it is about the children under the guidance of God, as ‘a child’ and ‘lamb’ represent Christ himself in the following lines-

          “On a cloud I saw a child

           And he laughing said to me

           ‘Pipe a song about a lamb!’ ”

And at last

          “Every child may joy to hear”

That means the followers of innocence may enjoy to hear the songs. On the other hand, the ‘Introduction’ of the song of experience expresses the nature of experience. It begins with these lines-

          Here the voice of the Bard!

          Who Present, Past and Future sees;

          Whose ears have heard

          The Holy word,

          That walked among the ancient trees,

That is, the speaker himself is experienced here and not bound to anyone. Moreover, in this poem there is ‘the lapsed soul’, representing the human being that was expelled from the Garden of Eden through bitter experience. However, at last of the poem, there is a hint of regeneration and salvation of this mankind.

According to Blake, through experience, the innocent ‘lamb’ becomes the dreadful ‘Tyger’. The symbolic poem ‘The Lamb’ represents the meek and mild part of human soul which is connected to the ‘child’ as well as ‘lamb’ or Christ, as we mentioned earlier. On the other hand, the poem, ‘the Tyger’, symbolizes the strong, reckless and harsher side of human soul. It is just opposite to the lamb. Even the poet himself is surprised at this creation-

          “Did he who made the lamb make thee?”

There are two poems under same name, ‘The Chimney Sweeper’, in both sections of innocence and experience, but they are different in nature. This different sort of harsh profession of the child is resulted from the Industrial Revolution which moved the poet much. However, in the first poem, though he has to work hard, the child is satisfied with the thought of getting God as his father and of the fact that –

          “ if all do their duty they need not fear harm”

On the other hand, the child in the second poem of same name is just the prey to the contemporary church system that the parents of poor children go to church, leaving their children working for chimney sweeping. The chimney sweeper is now experienced not for his own wish but by the cruel society. So, he is sad not cheerful, though he ironically expresses it.

Again, there is another pair of poems named ‘Holy Thursday’; both show the children of the charity school serving for the church. However, the first one shows them as ‘flowers of London town!’ and ‘angles;’ and advises the authority to be tender to them; giving hints of coming misery. On the contrary, the second one questions, seeing their misery, about their serving for the church –

          Is that trembling cry a song?

          Can it be a song of joy?

          And so many children poor?

          It is a land of poverty!

We see another pair of poems under same name. ‘The Nurse’s Song’ in the innocence shows the nurse as innocent caretaker granting the children’s claim to play more time. But the second one in the experience shows the contrary state. Here the nurse is experienced and grave, and she has no passion for joy, play and merriment. She can not bear with the children’s playing.

In this context, in Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, we see that the innocent wedding guest, coming to the feast, did not attend there, after he had heard the story of the mariner’s journey; he became grave because he had been experienced through hearing the story. In the same way the experienced stage of life becomes grave which can not accept the natural joy and pleasure.

‘The Divine Image’ in innocence with the definite article ‘The’, means the real, one and only divine Image which includes Mercy, Pity, Peace and love –

          “Where Mercy, love and Pity dwell,

           There God is dwelling too.”

On the contrary, ‘A Divine Image’ in the experience, with indefinite article ‘A’, points at a particular divine image which has a unique growth. It shows the basic social thing of the experienced and cruel world, ironically saying that –

          “Cruelty has a human heart

            And Jealousy a human face

            Terror the human form of divine

            And Secrecy the human dress.”

C.M. Bowra, a critic, in his ‘Romantic Imagination’ comments on Blake’s view of innocence and experience –

“The two sections of Blake’s book, the ‘Songs of Innocence’ and the ‘Songs of Experience’, are contrasted elements in a single design. The first part sets out an imaginative vision of the state of innocence; the second part shows how life challenges and corrupts and destroys it.”