William Blake & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; Songs Of Innocence And Experience & # 8221 ; Essay, Research Paper

In this first essay, I will be covering with verse forms from

William Blake & # 8217 ; s Songs of Innocence and Experience. More

exactly, I shall be covering with the Introduction from

Songs of Innocence, every bit good as its opposite numbers Introduction

from Songs of Experience and Earth & # 8217 ; s Answer. For my thesis,

I shall try to show how Blake used the symbols of

the Piper and the Bard to stand for the provinces of artlessness

and of experience, and how he passes from one province to the

next through the usage of these symbols.

Blake & # 8217 ; s Songs of Innocence and Experience are two

series of verse forms which complete one another. Each verse form has a

opposite number in the opposite series. Many people tend to

misread or misinterpret these verse forms. In order to be able to

to the full understand what Blake is stating, we must look at both

matching verse forms as one.

Let us analyze the images of the Piper and the Bard.

The OED defines Bard as an & # 8220 ; Ancient Celtic order of

minstrel-poets, whose primary map appears to hold been

to compose and sing poetries observing the accomplishments of

heads and warriors. & # 8221 ; In his verse form, Blake & # 8217 ; s definition is

basically the same, except that he utilizes the term to

intend person & # 8220 ; Who Present, Past, & A ; Future sees & # 8221 ; . The Bard

is able to see through clip and infinite. He is what Blake

defines as a Visionary. The Piper, on the other manus, is

non of this nature. He is a simple adult male who dwells in

artlessness. He listens to the kid he encounters without

believing. In his head, everyone is good, everyone is

honest. But while the Bard is populating in a universe of

experience, he sees without judgment, he knows without

thought. The Bard is at the highest degree come-at-able by

world. He has returned to the perfect integrity that was

before the creative activity of our fallen universe. Therefore, he

lives in artlessness. But a Bard he can non be without

experience, because he is destined to state the narratives of

those from the yesteryear to the multitudes of the hereafter. He can non

be whole without uniting both artlessness and experience

within himself. No populating being can be entirely in

artlessness or experience. We needfully must be a

combination of both.

In Introduction from Songs of Innocence, the Piper

& # 8220 ; loses & # 8221 ; his artlessness, in a mode of speech production. The kid

makes the Piper compose his vocals so & # 8220 ; that all may read & # 8221 ; . In

making so, he creates composing for the first clip. Therefore,

he additions experience, in that he can educate others of his

vocals, learn them to others, all the piece, non holding to

retrieve them all. It is non so much that he has lost his

artlessness, as that he has gained experience.

Blake base on ballss from the Piper in Songs of Innocence to

the Bard in Songs of Experience much in the same mode he

did with the Lamb and the Tyger. In the Songs of Innocence,

the Lamb is a powerful symbol of artlessness. It is youth ; it

is white ; it is guiltless and soft. In contrast, the Tyger

is a symbol of experience. It is cunning, fallacious and

cruel. The images from the Songs of Innocence are reciprocally

paralleled in the Songs of Experience. Therefore, what is

guiltless becomes experienced, and vice-versa.

In his verse form, Blake does non depict artlessness or

experience. He does non even use these footings, yet

returns to paint a portrayal of these provinces. He recreates

a province of artlessness or of experience by utilizing a figure of

different techniques. For illustration, in Introduction from

Songs of Innocence, the beat of the verse form is really childly

and simple. It is a bouncy beat which is really easy

followed, but non structured in any manner. This form is

simple, like a kid, and free from experience. The usage of

the kid as a symbol of artlessness is another method Blake

utilizes to animate this province of artlessness.

Another technique Blake used is puting antonyms

within the verse form. For illustration, he writes: & # 8220 ; While he wept

with joy to hear. & # 8221 ; and & # 8221 ; And I stain & # 8217 ; d the H2O clear, & # 8221 ; .

In an grownup & # 8217 ; s rational head, these reverses can non be.

We do non usually shout when we are happy, but instead when we

are sad. And by staining the H2O clear, Blake is making

a paradox. Something can non be stained clear. In a kid & # 8217 ; s

head, antonyms do non be. These statements all make

perfect sense to him. A kid does non hold a rational

head ; a kid has a actual head.

Repeat is yet another method used by Blake to

animate the province of artlessness. Repetition is an of import

tool used by kids to larn. They repeat what they are

told, and grownups repeat what the kid says to ass

ure

lucidity. In this verse form, we find the words piper, pipe,

piping and vocal repeated legion times. We therefore

tie in the repeat with the symbol of the immature kid,

therefore reenforcing the image of artlessness. It aides in

making the province of artlessness in this series of verse forms. We

besides find parallel structuring which is repeated throughout

the verse form.

In the Songs of Experience, Blake has divided the

dialectic which took topographic point in the Introduction from Songs of

Artlessness, between the kid and the piper, into two parts.

The first being Introduction and the 2nd Earth & # 8217 ; s Answer.

The first portion is the voice of the Bard speech production to the

Earth. Although, there appears to be an ambiguity in this.

In the first stanza, we are presented to the Bard who has

heard & # 8220 ; the Holy Word & # 8221 ; . The 2nd stanza begins with a

conjugated verb, but it & # 8217 ; s capable is left equivocal. We do

non cognize for certain whether it is the voice of the Bard or

the Holy Word which is & # 8220 ; Naming the nonchurchgoing Soul & # 8221 ; . In an

essay written by Robert F. Gleckner ( 1960 ) , he states that

he interprets the ambiguity as grounds of two separate

voices within the verse form. One is the voice of the Bard, the

2nd the Holy Word of God. They both are stating the same

thing in the concluding two stanzas. They are both pleading with

the Earth to return to its luster. The answer to this

naming is found in Earth & # 8217 ; s Answer. In this verse form, Earth is

replying to the voice ( or voices ) naming it, but it is

experiencing restrained by green-eyed monster, by the ironss of

uncreativity.

The beat in the Songs of Experience is much more

defined. It is more grave and stiff. Blake remains really

faithful to the format. The rhyme strategy does non alter in

the Introduction, and the metre length remains comparatively

the same in each stanza, which creates order. This

construction allows the reader to be able to expect what

shall come following.

Now the symbols have been modified. The Piper of the

Introduction to Songs of Innocence has matured into the Bard

of Introduction to Songs of Experience. When the kid made

him compose out his poetries, he became, in kernel the Bard.

The kid, so, was transferred to the symbol of the Earth

( Gleckner, 1959, p. 238 ) . This transition from Gleckner & # 8217 ; s work

amounts up the state of affairs best:

In footings of the Introduction and Earth & # 8217 ; s Answer,

the Songs of Experience can now be viewed in their

proper position. The Bard who sees the present

as it is, knows of the yesteryear and how it works in

the present, will sing of experience and expression with

certain vision at the province beyond ( Jerusalem and

Milton ) . The hearer is Earth, and we excessively

listen, non to rejoice, as in Songs of Innocence, but

to happen our manner. ( p. 238 )

While the Bard sees events past, present and future, he

does non needfully see them as & # 8220 ; a individual mental signifier & # 8221 ;

( Bloom, 1963, p. 130 ) . What he means is that the Bard has

heard the Holy Word, but does non hear it now. The Bard

besides perceives adult male as a & # 8220 ; lapsed Soul & # 8221 ; , while Blake does non.

Blake believed that all work forces had the innate capacity to

return to their religious consciousness, but the Bard sees

no hope. He instead implores for Earth herself to return to

her higher signifier, her signifier before holding fallen. The Bard

hence still possesses some artlessness in him.

Therefore, in decision, the Piper and the Bard are

two major symbols of artlessness and of experience in their

several series of verse forms. But while they demonstrate

their provinces through their actions, we besides find that they

possess qualities from their opposite provinces. The Piper who

learns to compose his vocals additions in experience, and the Bard

still possesses a slightly naif position on the fallen

universe. One can non be without a mixture of both universes.

It is of import to retrieve that if we merely look at one verse form

from either series, it is non yet complete in as of itself.

It is besides of import to observe that unless we examine the

verse forms with the cognition of which series they are found in,

we may non needfully be able to place which province it

exemplifies.

Bibliography

Mentions

Bloom, Harold. ( 1963 ) . Blake & # 8217 ; s Apocalypse & # 8211 ; A Study in

Poetic Argument. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.

443 P.

Gleckner, Robert F. ( 1959 ) . The Piper and the Bard & # 8211 ; a

survey of William Blake. Detroit, Wayne State

University Press. 318 P.

Gleckner, Robert F. ( 1960 ) . Point of View and Context in

Blake & # 8217 ; s Songs. In M.H. Abrams ( Ed. ) . English Romantic

Poets & # 8211 ; Modern Essays in Criticism. New York, Oxford

University Press. ( pp. 68-75 )