In 1794 he finished a slightly rearranged version of "Songs of Innocence" with the addition of "Songs of Experience" , the double collection, in Blake's own words in the subtitle,
"Showing the two contary states of the human soul".
...Songs of Innocence and Experience...
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"Songs of Innocence"
is Blake's first masterpiece of "illuminated
printing". In the "Songs" , Blake took as his models
the popular street ballads and rhymes for children of his own time, transmuting
these forms by his genius into some of the purest lyric poetry in the English
language. In 1794 he finished a slightly rearranged version of "Songs of Innocence" with the addition of "Songs of Experience" , the double collection, in Blake's own words in the subtitle, "Showing the two contary states of the human soul". |
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The two contrary states are innocence, (when the child's
imagination has simply the function of completing its own growth), and
experience, (when it faces the world of law, morality and repression).
Blake's "Songs" illustrate two imaginative realms: the state of
innocence and the state of experience. This contrast is used to say that the two
states represent two different ways of perceiving reality.
"Songs of Innocence" shows life the way it appears to innocent
children. "Songs of Experience" tells of a mature person's
realization of pain and terror in the universe.
These two collection af songs were clearly intended by Blake to be read together.
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Little Lamb,
who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life and bid thee feed, By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell
thee |
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Piccolo agnello chi ti ha creato? Non sai chi ti ha creato? Chi ti ha dato la vita e nutrito, vicino al ruscello e :::: Poi ti ha dato dei vestiti di delizia Il più soffice manto di lana; Chi ti ha dato una voce così tenera Che fa risuonare tutte le valli? Piccolo agnello chi ti ha creato? Non sai chi ti ha creato? Piccolo agnello te lo
dirò
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The Lamb is the main
figure and it is a symbol, in fact it embodies Christ as the victim of the
humanity and the Creator both of humanity and poetry, i. e. the poet. So Blake
is the embodiment of the Creator who can
see beyond reality and uses symbol to express something deeper. Weakness
and
innocence are features belonging both to the poet (that is the lamb) and the
child (that is Christ, when he was born). The Lamb's innocence and the perfect harmony of its existence make the poet ask "who made thee?". In fact the first stanza is based on a question that is repeated many times. The second one opens with the answer because for a child it's easy to find a solution to any kind of problems. In fact he uses his spontaneity and instinct, therefore reality is for him easy to explain because he has still got innocence and illusion and he is not "corrupted" by the experience. |
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| Tyger!
Tyger! burning bright In the forest of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In
what distant deeps or skies And
what shoulder, and what art What
the hammer? What the chain? When
the stars threw down their tears, Tyger!
Tyger! Burning bright
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Tigre!
Tigre! Che
splendente In
che remoti mari o cieli E
quale spalla, e quale arto Quale
il martello? Quale la catena? Quando
le stelle gettarono i loro dardi Tigre!
Tigre! Che splendente bruci
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It is hard to see Blake's tyger as a real animal, it rather seems to have a
symbolical value. In fact in the third stanza there are not only physical
details, but details that could be referred to any kind of animal : this means that evil
can be everywhere, even in a human being.
The 6th stanza is different from the 1th only for the verb "dare" . The
verb could suggest the author's surprise at the creator's capacity of creating
this animal; the verb "dare" focus the reader's attention on the
creator's boldness and the difficulty of the creator's task. It's
important to underline that this question, like all the others, have no answers
because when the man grows up it becomes much more difficult to find a solution
to the great problems of life : illusions have disappeared and rationality can't
explain everything or ,when it can, the answers are different from what the man
would have liked them to be.
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"Songs of Experience"
provides a kind of ironic answer to "Songs of Innocence" .
The earlier collection's celebration of a beneficent God is countered by the
image of him in "Experience" , in which he becomes the
tyrannous God of repression.
The key simbol of "Innocence" is the Lamb; the
corresponding image in "Experience" is the tyger.
The tyger in this poem is the incarnation of energy and cruelty. In the subject
of the tyger Blake also viewed the larger society, in the form of contemporary
London, with agonized doubt in "Experience" ,in contrast to his
happy vision of city in "Innocence".
In fact there is a distinction between the imagined states of innocence and
experience:
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WORLD OF INNOCENCE: unfallen world,
integration with nature, time in harmony with rhythm of human existence. Nature here is the setting of the ideal condition of man and of the state of innocence. |
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WORLD OF EXPERIENCE: fallen world,
alienation from nature, time as destructive, in opposition to. Nature here acquires a symbolic value, according to the very situation he wants to depict. |
"I do not behold the outward creation ... it is a hindrance and not action"
Thus William Blake - painter, engraver, and poet - explained why his work was filled with religious vision rather than whit subjects from everyday life. Few people in his time realized that Blake expressed these visions with a talent that approached genius. He lived in near povetry and died unrecognized. Today, however , Blake is acclaimed one of England's great figures of art and literature and one of the most inspired and original painters of his time.
| Blake was on November 28, 1757, in London, where he lived most of his life. As a child, Blake wanted to become a painter. William, the third of five children, went to school only long enough to learn to read and write and then he worked in the shop of his father until he was 14. When he saw the boy's talent for drawing, Blake's father apprenticed hin to an engraver. At 25 Blake married Catherine Boucher. He taught her to read and write and to help him in his work. They worked together to produce an edition of Blake's poem and drawing, called "Songs of Innocence" . Then in 1794 he publisched his "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" in a combined volume. In 1800 he was introduced to the wealthy William Hayley, who offered him patranage . He accepted the offer and moved to Felpham in Sussex. The relationship was not a happy one, Blake resisting Hayley's efford to make a conventional artist of him. He returned to London determinated to accept poverty and obscurity rather than compromise his vision. |
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Blake' personality and poetry really mark the beginning of the
Romantic age. He reacted violntely against all traditional forms.
He openly attacked such national institution as the Church of England and the
monarchy. Blake saw the culture he lived in as an unstrument for the oppression
of men who are born without power, a kind of intellectual and social tyranny. He
is now recognised as an archetypal revolutionary.
He died in 1827.
Songs of Innocence and Experience
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