SONGS OF INNOCENCE

Songs of Innocence



Songs of Innocence

Introduction

'Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789-1793) were combined in one volume by William Blake and responded with their themes and figures. They are contemporaries of the French Revolution and one of the countless interpretations of their masterpieces of poetic work will typically see in the Tiger incarnation of the poet's radical, revolutionary ideas. It is easy to oppose Innocence and Experience, in Lamb Christ and Tygre, childhood and maturity etc, but is this related to about Blake? Of course, this is his project announced. However, the mysterious work of the poet of Jerusalem cannot be opened by a key so easy. Blake wrote a ghost. Blake is inhabited by a double. Blake draws, paints and composes his prolific poetry to talk to his brother Robert died too soon. All outstanding poetry was his invisible partner. Every word is offertory.

1789's Songs of Innocence celebrated innocence as variously reflected in childhood, showing infants' and children's relatively pure mental and physical states before adult corruption. Many of its poems are the first person from a child's perspective, and most of the rest describe a child's point of view; others speak to or about them. Blake used appropriately simple vocabulary and form; lines are short, rhymes are obvious, and imagery well pared down. Indeed, at first glance, the poems seem puerile. However, a closer look shows they are anything but; despite - or perhaps even to a certain degree because of - this, they have a wealth of significance. They are, in fact, at least as complex as most far longer works; extremely thought-provoking and often morally ambiguous, they raise a host of serious questions. These apparently classic poems address a wide range of theological and ontological queries. They also deal with more practical themes like class, race, and family relations, taking on economic, social, and other concerns.

Poetry of Blake, as well as any serious poetry, but requires careful and thoughtful reading. These comments only help to trace some of the systemic relationships that exist within each of his books, and among them, and to justify some translation decisions made on the basis of one or another interpretation of the text. They do not claim to ultimate truth, and do not deny the freedom of interpretation, like all living poetry, it is impossible to squeeze into the narrow framework unambiguous interpretation (Jones, 2005, 9). Some of his ...