William Blakes Two Incompatible States Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

European Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research
Vol.5, No.8, pp.32-43, September 2017

Published by European Centre for Research Training and Development UK ( www.eajournals.org)
WILLIAM BLAKE'S TWO INCOMPATIBLE STATES: SONGS OF

INNOCENCE AND SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
Dr. Abdel Elah Al-Nehar

Associate Prof., Dept. of English
Mu'tah University
P. O. Box 7
Kerak- Jordan
ABSTRACT: The level of songs of Innocence and Experience is that of the view of
human life in innocence or in experience, but this does not preclude the presence of the
macrocosm or life of the world itself. If each human life contains space and time, then the
microcosm contains the macrocosm. Experience is Generation and the fall, through
which man can either reassert a visionary condition (Eden) or move to an acceptance of
experience or "nature" as the ultimate reality. To exist in such a condition is to deny Eden
and commit the mind to endless circles of natural birth and rebirth. In the natural world
man's divine human form dissolves into material substance and is regenerated without
visionary consciousness. Man not only becomes what he beholds, but also becomes as
he beholds.Innocence in its pure form is, for the childish consciousness, a condition of
complete animation in nature best signified by a prolific garden. This garden serves along
with the figure of the mother to indicate a protective world. Innocence is portrayed in
poems that present these images either from within, or through the eyes of a mother figure
who conceives of herself as a protector of the child. Examples of the former are "Spring"
and "Laughing Song"; examples of the latter are "Cradle Song" and "A Dream".These
poems are set against certain songs of Experience which employ the symbols of nature in
their fallen forms and build up the picture of a false garden ("The Garden of Love", "The
Sick Rose"). This false garden is contained within the familiar tree of the knowledge of
good and evil ("The Human Abstract") and is seen a wasteland ("The Voice of the Ancient
Bard"). These are the two states seen simply in their archetypal forms.
KEYWORDS: William Blake's, Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience.
WILLIAM BLAKE'S TWO INCOMPATIBLE STATES: SONGS OF

INNOCENCE AND SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
In studying Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience (which had merged into one work
in 1794) we must not forget that not only is each individual poem important in itself but,
that the drawing which accompanies it is also of importance. In other words, the two
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Print ISSN: ISSN 2053-406X, Online ISSN: ISSN 2053-4078
contrary states of Innocence and Experience are not only symbolized in the poem alone
but rather, there exists a closely-knit coherence between each poem and its particular
design. Sometimes the design duplicates what the words say (i.e. the word "travelling" is
paralleled by a traveler); more often, the designs complement Blake's words in such a
way that, on almost every plate (if one takes into account the border and design as well
as the word) his entire paradox is represented.1 So, it is essential that whoever reads Blake
must account for his work (both written and engraved) in its entirety.
Innocence and Experience, the two contrary states of the human soul, are opposites. The
state of Innocence is selfless and desires to please "All." 2 It represents the spontaneous
happiness of childhood. Truly, nothing in the world of emotion is lighter than the
happiness of a child. This innocence, possessed by each of us in childhood or fantasy, is
a kind of proof that we do possess the powerful, creative, and "Divine Imagination".
Experience, on the other hand, is blighted innocence. It is an analytic state of mind that
finds the limits of the world that the human's fallen perception gives him"3. It is selfish
and has a devouring character which seeks to please only itself. The greatness of Blake's
work 4arises from the juxtaposition of the two modes of vision--Innocence and
Experience. They deserve to be respected as "contraries"; therefore, they are both good;
both are necessary to progression in one's spiritual life--that is, both states are necessary
to human existence5. Not only are Innocence and Experience contrary states but, there
also exist two contrary types of Innocence as well as two contrary states of Experience.
Moreover, these contrary states appear in single poems.
Blake was thirty years old when he began to write the Songs of Innocence, which is
amazing because in order to compose such songs, one would have to, himself, be so
deeply dyed in such spontaneous innocence. How could Blake retain his innocence since
he had already become an adult and was experiencing life as such? He was thirty: he had
been married for five years and was working hard to earn a living6. Yes, Blake recaptures
the child mind. He does not merely write about childish happiness; he becomes the happy
child--the happy child of the world. The finest poems of the Songs of Innocence are those
in which there is some admission of the hardships which actually face the innocents of
the world; but, in these poems the innocent view can be seen as easily transcending
adversity7. In these songs, the designs which accompany the poems manifest vegetation
that is fresh, attractive and abundant. The tree of Innocence is large and healthy, its
branches entwined in a natural embrace; but, it anticipates the Fall in the serpentine
creeper that often winds about its trunk.
Blake's most obvious sign of man's perverted state appears in the borders--in the
vegetation with which he surrounds text and design. In Innocence it was fresh, attractive,
and abundant; in Experience it recalls the earlier ripeness but it is in fact withering or
dying. The tree of Innocence is healthy, its branches entwined in a natural embrace; but
it anticipates the Fall in the serpentine creeper that often winds about its trunk. The tree
of Experience is dry and dying, its withering branches form round arches or flat, inhibiting
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horizontals over the pages as its spiky twigs invade the text. Experience is related to
Innocence. The vegetated flames of Innocence are destructive and symbolize the wrath
that falls upon a corrupt society.
In Experience, Old Nobodaddy, his priests, and his Kings have replaced Christ, the poet,
and the child-the gods of Innocence. The Urizen of Experience is not primarily the fallen
Lucifer, the mythic figure of Blake's prophecy, but a social creature, a supporter of
repressive institutions. The design to the poem that reverses the "The Divine Image" of
Innocence ("The Human Abstract" of Experience) presents a bearded and ensnared old
man making nets that stand for established religion. Urizen stands for the cruelty of an
establishment that has failed to keep the peace and give the people bread and that has
forced the young to work and weep in grime and suffering. The chimney sweeper's
parents have gone to church to pray, leaving him to weep and work. His cry is matched
by the sight of a soldier that, surrealistically, flows as blood down a palace wall, and by
a broken old man, who appears in the design but not the text of "London", heading for his
grave, an image of his god, Urizen, whose victim he is.
But institutional cruelty, through hideously direct in its results, is subtle in its means.
Urizen has transformed natural pity and love, the daughters of the voice of God in
Innocence, to institutional pity and charity in Experience. Urizenic pity arises from social
poverty, Urizenic mercy from a lack of equal happiness. The songs of Experience does
rival Innocence. Experience is, like Innocence, a serious and integrated idea. It is
expressed by the pervasive metaphor of the fall and of the expulsion from Eden that is
recalled vividly on the title page and with subtle indirection elsewhere. Songs of
Innocence are introduced and sung by the piper, Songs of Experience by the bard,
superficially there seems to be little to distinguish one from the other since the piper
clearly exhibits imaginative vision and the Bard "Present, Past, and Future sees". Yet for
each, the past, present, and future are different: for the piper the past can only be the
primal unity, for the present is innocence and the immediate future is experience; for the
Bard the past is innocence, the present experience, the future a higher innocence. It is
natural, then, that the piper's point of view is prevailingly happy; he is conscious of the
child's essential divinity and assured of his present protection. But into that joyous context
the elements of experience constantly insinuate themselves so that the note of sorrow is
never completely absent from the piper's pipe. In Experience, on the other hand, the Bard's
voice is solemn and more deeply resonant, for the high-pitched joy of innocence is now
only a memory. Within this gloom, though, lies the ember which can leap into flame at
any moment to light the way to the highest innocence. Yet despite this difference in
direction of their vision, both singers are imaginative, are what Black called the poetic or
prophetic character. And though one singer uses mild and gentle numbers and the other
more terrific tones, both see the imaginative (and symbolic) significance of all the activity
in the songs. The explicit, Blacke said, "rouzes the faculties to act"8.
Hear the voice of the Bard!
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Who present, past, and future sees,
Whose ears have heard
The Holy word,
That walk'd that walked among the ancient tree.
Innocence is belief and experience is doubt. The tragedy of experience is that we become
incapable of love. The tragedy of childhood is that we inflict our lovelessness upon it.
Blacke's thinking is always organic; it is always directed to the hidden fountains of our
humanity. Having never lost the creative freshness of childhood, he challenged
experience with it.
Experience is the "contrary" of innocence, not its negation. Contraries are phases of the
doubleness of all existence in the mind of man; they reflect the unalterable condition of
the human struggle. As hell can be married to heaven, the body seen by the soul, so
experience lifts innocence into a higher synthesis based on vision. But vision is
impossible without truth to one's deepest feelings. A lie "the negation of passion". Life is
thought and creation; it is to be only in its fullness, for the "want of thought" is death. To
enter fully into life we must go through the flame of disbelief, kill the fiction that man's
desire is lawless and evil. In Innocence, mercy has a human heart, pity a human face. In
Experience, cruelty has a human head, and jealousy a human face.
Experience is blighted Innocence. It is not a period of horrible but healthy probation, a

purgatory we must inevitably traverse enroute to the heavenly kingdom. It is a
congregation of social, political, psychological, and unnatural horrors, a pestilential state
whose vapors sicken the soul. The one ray of light that penetrates its darkness is that of
the coming judgment that will destroy it9.
Now, let us look at some of Blake's Songs: some Songs of Innocence are in respective
contrast to others from his Songs of Experience. 'The first of those from the Songs of
Innocence is a poem entitled The Lamb", which is in contrast to "The Tyger" in the Songs
of Innocence. "Lamb" and "Tyger" are two opposing mentalities and social characters.
The former symbolizes humanity while the latter is the representation of bestial existence.
The lamb represents selflessness whereas the tyger symbolizes individualism and
selfhood10. Both are prophetic characters but one sacrifices his self-experience and
selfhood for others while the other indulges his own limited and selfish interest by turning
against others. The power of the lamb springs from his relationship with others, with the
"All". The tyger is the product of a jungle-like society where the weak is the prey of the
strong and the one who possesses bestial passion becomes the strongest by restraining
others. The lamb represents a social and human unity, the selfless state of the human soul.
The poem itself secularizes divinity and universalizes humanity. The divine and human
are one:
"He becomes a little child."
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In simple language the speaker in "The Lamb", who is universalized to be anyone,
identifies himself with the lamb he is addressing. The poem's figures are recognizably
conventional: the lamb's wool is "clothing", his bleat that of a "voice". The "vales" of the
poem "rejoice". The metaphors of stanza one do not intrude upon the reader's perception
of the nature of the lamb, yet he is made aware of that which is human, as well. The
conventional clothing figure takes on more meaning; "clothing of delight" becomes
equivalent to what Blake calls the human form divine. The word "bright" is symbolic.
"Bright" closes the gap between the lamb and the tiger. The tiger is "burning bright". His
fire is the Fire of purgation, while the brightness of the lamb is that of purity. The two are
related and become one, but the immediate effect of "bright" in "The Lamb" is less
dramatic, a gesture with the simplicity of innocence.
The figure of rejoicing vales is in contrast with "The Tyger". The tiger lurks in the "forests
of the night". His wrath ultimately purges the world of experience of its material form.
But the lamb's surroundings are not "natural"; they are "human". The vales are alive, and
the lamb's "voice" speaks to them. The tiger as well as the lamb are assimilated to the
human form, and this requires the process of experience. The voice who provides the
direct answers of "The Lamb", as compared to the rhetorical questions of "The Tyger",
may be a child in the natural sense of that word, but we feel that he can be something
more than that as well, that the poem is also an adult poem (a poem of Experience and of
Innocence).
"The Tyger" is a poem of rather simple form, clearly proportioned, all of its statements
contributing to a single, sustained, dramatic gesture. Read aloud, it is powerful enough to
move listeners without their having much understanding of the poem beyond its
expression of a dramatic situation. But there is a big gulf between simplicity and
insipidity. The total force of the poem comes not only from its immediate rhetorical power
but also from its symbolical structure.
The image of the tiger, at first sensuous, is to continued inspection symbolic. Things
which burn brightly, even tigers, can be thought of as either purifying something or being
purified. In the dark of night, in a forest, a tiger's eyes would seem to burn. The fire image
suggests immediate violence and purgatorial revelation. The forests of the poem represent
those mythological areas inhabited by blatant beasts, lost knights, and various spiritual
wanderers and travelers. These forests belong to the night. There is a violent contrast
between light and darkness, between the tiger and its surroundings, and the forest and the
night are to be thought of in a derogatory way. The tiger, on the other hand, is presented
ambiguously. In spite of its natural viciousness, it also suggests clarity and energy.
The forest is a symbol of the natural cycle of growth and decay in the fallen, natural world.
It therefore represents not only spatial but also temporal enclosure. The stars are a part of
the concave surface of the mundane shell where man is trapped, and their movements
represent the delusory, mechanical aspects of time.
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"The Tyger" is an account of the origins of the limited and terrifying world we inhabit.
Blake's choice of words in the poem defines the self-centered and destructive
individualism which has an independent and separate mind and body from others. The
tyger represents a fallen man. He is a fallen character because of his individualistic
selfishness which has divided him from others. The answer to the question posed in the
poem is negative11:
"Did he who made the Lamb make thee?" (the tyger)
No, he who made the lamb did not make the tyger. Who, then, made the tyger? We did
with our fallen and limited perception that separates the universe from eternity and fills a
world with threatening objects12.
The second poem of Blak's Songs of Innocence that I will contrast with one of the same
title from his Songs of Experience is entitled "The Chimney Sweeper". In the Songs of
Innocence it is one of the finest poems in which the innocent view transcends adversity.
In Eighteenth Century England, social inequality and low wages forced children of the
poor to begin work at a very early age. They were cheap labour, easily replaceable and
thus, readily exploited. Blake's chimney sweeper is a typical example of a child labourer.
"When my mother died I was very young,

And my Father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! Weep!
So your chimeys I sweep, and in soot I sleep".
Tom, the chimney sweeper, dreams of an angel who has a "bright key" and sets all
chimney sweepers free and who tells Tom that if he'd be a good boy, he'd have God for
his Father. But, in the Songs of Experience God and his priest and king are held
responsible as the cause of social inequality and misery:
"A Little black thing among the snow,

Crying, 'weep! 'weep! In notes of woe!
Where are thy father and mother? Say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray…
And are gone to praise God and his priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery".
The innocent vision of this poem converts the harsh world into a world of shepherds and
sheep. Tom Dacre has white hair as do lambs, and it "curls like a lamb's back". When this
world cannot support the pastoral vision, Innocence transfers it into another life where
chimney sweepers will sport like lambs:
"… down a green hill leaping, laughing they run,

And wash in a river and shine in the sun…"
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and where they will have a loving Father who will be their shepherd13:
"… have God for Father and never want joy".
This other life is based on irrelevant moral statements but it is still an imaginative vision
that is proof of our powers. "The Chimney Sweeper" possesses the ability to envision
pastoral relationships, despite the harsh world he lives in, which is proof of his divinity.
In "The Chimney Sweeper" of the Songs of Experience, Blake attacks the Father. He is
attacking the social system and the cultural authority which teach abstract moral laws but
in practice are immoral and inhuman in their relationships with others. The true innocence
sees that Father, God, Priest and King are set up as guardians and saviours are, in fact,
the causes of evil and human misery. In this poem, the true innocence unveils the deceit
and accuses "God and his Priest and King" of being responsible for this condition. The
difference between these two poems is the contrast between what the ruling interests
preach and what they practice.
The third poem of Blake's Song of Innocence that I would like to contrast with a poem of
the same title in his Songs of Experience is "Nurse's Song". In the poem of the former
work, Blake satirizes false innocence:
"When the voices of children are heard on the green

And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still".
The satire is social. Blake's target is the social class whose literature is limited to
recollection of their own childhood memories. Their "heart is at rest" while the same
memories are repeated. The satire is directed against the limited and exclusive nature of
experience rather than against the children. Blake satirizes the exclusive innocence of the
few who claim their intellectual superiority and innocence by the recreation of their
memories. By this satire, he in fact opposes the social condition itself; the gulf between
the poor and the rich child.
The experience of the poor child and nurse in the Songs of Experience is different from
that in the Songs of Innocence. In the poem of the latter, true innocence is constricted by
the natural memories based on the senses and in the Songs of Experience true innocence
is chained by poverty and by the appalling blight of the Church.
The difference between "Nurse's Song" in Songs of Innocence and of Experience is the
difference in social conditions. In Innocence the nurse's "heart is at rest" when she hears
the voices of the children on the green, but in Experience the nurse's "face turns green
and pale" when she hears the voices of children. The appearance of unpleasant memories
of her own childhood makes the nurse bitter and resentful towards other children. Neither
of these two kinds of "innocence" so far discussed is true innocence. One is founded on
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the basis of limited natural memories and individualism, the other is lost because of the
absence of a genuine background. In other words, neither has achieved true freedom of
imagination.
To further illustrate his point, Blake shows us that the contrary states of Innocence and
Experience do exist in a single poem. In "A Dream" the contraries are manifested by the
empty sigh of the father and by the selflessness and love of the glow-worm. That is, these
two characters represent two contrary states of innocence: one is dynamic and active
while the other is static and passive (the latter is represented by the Songs of Experience
in their entirety). Thus, the Songs of Innocence and Experience each present two
contrasts--concerning the poem "A Dream", true innocence (represented by the glow-
worm) is in revolt against the contrary innocence (represented by the sigh of the father).
Blake recognized these contrasts within the hypocrisy of society and within his own
imagination.
Blake's poem "A Dream" has a counterpart in Experience, "The Angel". In the former,
nature is portrayed as a kind of protective, universal, maternal love. The speaker of the
poem has dreamed that "an Emmet lost its way" and wandered, haphazardly, near where
the speaker lay. "Troubled, wildered, and folorn", the despondent Emmet expresses her
woe to the speaker. Deeply touched by the Emmet's sorrow, the speaker "drops a tear".
But, this pity soon dissipates when the speaker notices a "glow-worm near". It is this
warm, friendly little fellow, the glow-worm, who will "set to light the ground" so as to
guide the Emmet safely home. The glow-worm represents nature, which is the comforter
of all who suffer and are lost in some way or another, like the Emmet.
In "The Angel", the speaker has also had a dream, which in this peom presents the
opposite of that presented in "A Dream".
I Dreamt a Dream! What it can mean?

And that I was a maiden Queen:
Gaurded by an Angle mild;
Witless woe, was ne'er beguil'd!
The dream of the angel contains some of the terrors of experience: loss of innocence,
sorrow and loss of youth.
Both poems prophesy possible states. If the speaker can read the signs of her dream she
can avoid the loss that occurs in experience. She cannot, though, avoid experience. In "the
Angel" the speaker is in a state of "witless woe" and "beguilement". Here, the word
"beguile" means a kind of deception. In the second stanza, she describes how she actually
preserves her selfhood through deceptive action: both night and day she weeps and
conceals her heart's delight from the angel. So, the angel flies away from the speaker, who
proceeds to arm her fears with "ten thousand shields and spears". That is, when the angel
departs, she hardens herself against the world--she fears giving herself to others. Then,
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when the angel returns, the speaker's defenses are stronger than ever. But, as she so
harshly discovers in the last two lines of the poem, the intricate defenses, once built, have
actually become her prison. How can she not express some kind of regret? The dreamer
must interpret the dream in its rightful sense and live accordingly.
Blake's "London" reminds me of Dr. Samuel Johnson's "London", the imitation of

Juvenal's third satire of the Roman Empire in Rome. Juvenal, in his third satire, attacks
Rome, the place where social inferiorities grow rich by following contemptible jobs, and
he gives in his satire a list of the hazards in Roman society. Dr. Johnson wrote his poem
"London" in 1738 when he was twenty-eight, during which time he was strongly opposed
to Walpol's government. Johnson was quite receptive to Juvenal's angry condemnation of
vice and corruption in Roman Public life. The hard societal and governmental situation
inspired the young Johnson to begin writing the great poem "London", attacking the
aristocracy, the rich, the merchants the slaves of gold, oppression, covetousness and
avarice.
SLOWRISES WORTH, BY POVERTY DEPRESSED

But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold.
"London", lines 185-86 and in spite of this, Johnson still says, "When a man is tired of
London, he is tired of life".
Blake's "London" parallels that of Johnson in that it describes the degeneration

(blackness) of the city. In addition to this, he criticizes the hypocrisy of the Church. The
politics of London is tyranny. Blake employs London's streets and lanes, "its filth and
mire" and "its pathetic inhabitants" as symbols of desolation14.
The speaker of the poem is exploring London. What he sees is a vision of a debased
society. Its streets are "charter'd" as its river, the Thames, which is an image of London's
desolation. The word "charter'd" suggests artificial enclosure, both physical and
theoretical. According to Blake, things are enclosed by being cast out.
In the poem, Blake has the citizens of London come alive and speak, cry or groan in its
behalf. Since "London" is a speaking form, the poem is primarily one of sound because
of its vivid sensuous images. The noises that the people make are also made by those who
we envision to live in Hell. In other words, "London" is like Hell, but its people are not
eternally damned as are those who have already descended into Hell. London's people are
in fact redeemed because, for Blake, redemption is always possible. This is why Blake's
prophet (the speaker of the poem) is so scornful of London because in order to speak of
redemption, he feels first obliged to reveal the existing, fallen society15.
The cry of the chimney sweeper focuses attention upon the soot in which he must work
on a day-to-day basis. This soot is symbolic in that it represents the "blackness"
(degeneration) of London's society. It settles upon London's churches, which is quite
symbolic because it draws attention to the "blackness": (hypocrisy) of the Church. Yes,
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even the Church has become degenerate. The hypocrisy here is that the Church is appalled
at what is taking place in London and yet, its theatrical reaction to this is clearly
hypocritical. Even though the Church wants oppression to cease, by being passive, it
encourages its spread16.
Blake's "London" is climaxed in the fourth stanza when the harlot's curse is heard above
the sounds of the city. Her curse is a symbol of how infected her society is. It is a stroke
against the hypocrisy of her time. The harlot's curse is, therefore, a figure for the venereal
disease that "blasts the new born infant's tear" and "blights with plagues the marriage
hearse". London holds ancient charters which grant certain liberties, but these are not
extended to most of the inhabitants. The Magna Carta of 1215 is famous as a guarantee
of liberty, hence the "chartered rights of Englishmen". To charter was also coming to
mean "to limit" or "to hire". In drafting the poem Blake first tried the adjective "dirty".
Although manacles are objectively real, Blake's compound adjective emphasize states of
mind that give rise to the manacles-primarily the authorities of church and state, perhaps
also the twisted minds of the compliant victims. In first drafting the poem Blake had tried
"German forged", suggesting the tyranny of the German or Hanoverian King George III
and also the German mercenaries employed by the crown.
The verbal curse becomes a metaphor for the plague of gonorrhea, which can cause
blindness at birth. The birth of infants into the present moral system is a birth into death,
and marriage is a hearse of death that the couple should be taken in from the wedding.
In summation, I would, once again, like to reiterate that William Blake did a superb job
in his illustration (both written and artistic) of the two contrary states of the human soul.
Innocence should be considered the primary state, the norm by which Experience is
evaluated; for Innocence represents what life ought to be like and which indeed can be
like. Blake's Innocence is a condition of total animation in nature, which he most
appropriately represented with a prolific garden. Its poems are set against certain songs
of Experience which themselves employ the symbols of nature in their fallen forms and
which build up the picture of a false garden which contains the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil.
As I have previously said, Blake speaks on behalf of the world. Thus, the Songs of
Innocence and Experience contain two conflicting loves and interests in which the
prophetic character, Blake himself, sides with the innocent and meek against the selfish
ruling interests.
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END NOTE:
1
Jean H. Hagstrum, William Blake: Poet and Printer. (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1964), p. 77.
2
G. R. Sabri-Tabrizi, The Heaven and Hell of William Blake. (London: Lawrence and
Wishart, 1973), p. 25.
3
Victor N. Paananen. William Blake. (Boston: A Division of G. K. Hall & Co., 1977), p.
74
5
Ibid.
6
Max Plowman, An Introduction to the Study of William Blake. (London: Frank Cass.
& Co. Ltd., 1967), p. 40.
7
Paananenm, p. 75.
8
Gleckner, The Piper and the Bard, Wayne State University Press, 1959, p. 312.
9
Jean H. Hagstrum, William Blake: Poet and Painter, Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press, 1964, pp. 78-87.
10
Sabri-Tabrizi, p. 35.
11
Sabri-Tabrizi, p, 37.
12
Paananen, p. 79.
13
Paananem, p. 76.
14
Adams, Paul. William Blake: A Study of the Shorter Poems, pp. 280-81.
15
Ibid., p. 281.
16
Ibid., p. 282.
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William Blakes Two Incompatible States Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

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William Blakes Two Incompatible States Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

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European Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research

Vol.5, No.8, pp.32-43, September 2017

WILLIAM BLAKE'S TWO INCOMPATIBLE STATES: SONGS OF

Dr. Abdel Elah Al-Nehar

KEYWORDS: William Blake's, Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience.

WILLIAM BLAKE'S TWO INCOMPATIBLE STATES: SONGS OF

Hear the voice of the Bard!

Experience is blighted Innocence. It is not a period of horrible but healthy probation, a

"He becomes a little child."

"Did he who made the Lamb make thee?" (the tyger)

"When my mother died I was very young,

"A Little black thing among the snow,

"… down a green hill leaping, laughing they run,

"… have God for Father and never want joy".

"When the voices of children are heard on the green

I Dreamt a Dream! What it can mean?

Blake's "London" reminds me of Dr. Samuel Johnson's "London", the imitation of

SLOWRISES WORTH, BY POVERTY DEPRESSED

Blake's "London" parallels that of Johnson in that it describes the degeneration

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES

Priestman, Martin. Romantic Atheism: Poetry and Freethonght 17801830. Cambridge:

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