Songs of innocence and experience full collection analysis

The title itself has had an enormous effect on ways of thinking about poetry. The idea of the songs is something like the idea of innocence. Experience does not sing although sorrow might , since the idea of experience might be that it no longer believes in song. But for Blake there is more than irony in the title. That all things should be in some sense poetic—should long for poetic expression, long to sing—is one of his central tenets.

The songs of experience also indicate the possibility that in experience there is still some fundamentally saving innocence that may not recognize itself but is still there, still attracted toward the love and life which for Blake constituted holiness. Conversely, the idea of Songs of Experience might mean that songs themselves are not the sure symptom and symbol and expression of incorruptibility we might wish them to be, so that the songs of innocence do not protect or immunize their singers from corruption as we would wish them to do.

The very idea of songs of innocence is an idea that comes from a no longer-innocent perspective.

William blake, songs of innocence and experience pdf

But the title alone of the volume is enough to make the point. To recognize innocence, as the title and entitler does, is to recognize that it is fleeting. This can be seen in the introductory poem.