7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

1/42

Blakes Songs of Innocence

and Experience ENGL 203

Dr. Fike

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

2/42

Romantic Period: 1798-1832 1798: WW and Col published Lyrical Ballads ; see WWs

"Preface." A different kind of poetry: poetry about common persons written

in everyday language.

Also, the supernatural. WW:nature::Col:supernatural.

1832: First Reform Bill, which made changes in thesystem of representation and voting rights: Eliminated "rotten boroughs" depopulated areas whose seat in

Commons was at the disposal of a nobleman. Redistributed parliamentary representation to include the new

industrial cities. Extended the vote.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

3/42

More Dates 1765 : James Watt invented the steam engine.

Industrial Revolution begins. Extremes of rich andpoor (cf. Blake).

1776 : American Revolutions begins.

1789 : July 14 The storming of the Bastille: start of French Revolution , 1789-1815 (sympathy with American and French Revolutions, optimism aboutpositive social change, but later disappointment whenthe Fr. Rev. lapsed into anarchy and tyranny).

1789 : Blake publishes Songs of Innocence 1794 : Robespierre guillotined. 1794 : Blakes's Songs of Innocence and Experience

published.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

4/42

Two Generations of RomanticPoets

First Generation Blake: 1757-1827 Wordsworth: 1770-

1850 Coleridge: 1772-

1834

Second Generation Byron: 1788-1824 Shelley: 1792-1822 Keats: 1795-1821

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

5/42

Ways of Categorizing the RomanticPoets

Two generations, the second reacting to the first. Example: Shelley was disappointed in WW: thought WW had

sold out and thought that WW's view of nature was nave. See"To Wordsworth," and "Alastor." WW had been a "lone star," butnow he conforms to social norms.

Cosmological model: Earth:Blake, WW, Col, Shelley,and Keats::Byron:moon.

Different schools: Lake school: WW, Coleridge

Cockney school: Keats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney_School ) Satanic school: Shelley and Blake

(This obviously leaves out Byron.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney_Schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney_School

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

6/42

Definition

What IS Romanticism?

Write for 1 minute about what you think itmeans.

Discussion.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

7/42

Summary of Myths aboutRomanticism

It is nature poetry in the conventional sense(pastoral poetry).

Romantics are self-indulgent and sentimental.

Romantics were escapists who took refuge innature.

Romantics were nave or unlearned.

Romantics were irrational Romanticism is an attack on or an escape from

form.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

8/42

What Romanticism Is NOT Nature poetry in the conventional sense:

pastoralism . Example: WW's Lucy and her nutting bag.

POINT: Romantic poetry portrays a dialecticalrelationship between nature and the poeticimagination. Examples: Blake: "Where man is not, nature is barren ( MHH ).

Blake hated nature; thought that it must be overcomeif one is to live imaginatively.

WW: Mt. Snowdon is the "image of a mighty mind." Shelley: Mt. Blanc, a symbol of nature at its highest,

is nothing without the mind.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

9/42

What Romanticism Is NOT

Romantics are self-indulgent andsentimental : Shelley, "I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed (Ode to the West Wind ).

POINT: Romantics dramatize the self: the "I" israrely the poet himself. Example: Shelley in "Alastor" creates a speaker who

is incorrect.

Author isn't always equal to speaker. Persona.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

10/42

What Romanticism Is NOT Romantics were escapists who took refuge in nature . POINT: It is wrong to say that the Romantic poets were

escapists. Quite the contrary. Blake expresses great concern about social conditions.

WW comes down from Mt. Snowdon at the end of The Prelude :after having a transcendent experience, he affirms humancommunity.

Byron fought and died in Greece's war for independence againstTurkey (1824).

Shelley's Defense is about the importance of the poet'sengagement in human community: stresses the importance of love ("the great secret of morals") and declares that [p]oets arethe unacknowledged legislators of the world.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

11/42

What Romanticism Is NOT Romantics were nave and unlearned . POINT: To say that the Romantic poets were

nave and unlearned is false. Shelley was actually a better classical scholar than

Dryden. Coleridge said that poetry has a logic of its own: like

science but more complex. Col was himself as great a critic as Dr. Johnson. Keats is an interesting exception: in "Chapman's

Homer" he stakes a poetic claim despite the absenceof classical training (i.e., he was reading a translation ,not the original Greek version).

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

12/42

What Romanticism Is NOT

Romantics were irrational . They did recognize the claims of the irrational,

but with a twist. Wordsworth claimed thatimagination was "Reason in her most exaltedmood" ( Prelude 14.188-92).

Romantics took a broad view of the psyche,

but they hardly worshipped irrationality.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

13/42

What Romanticism Is NOT Romanticism is an attack on or an escape from form .

Definition of "form": rhyme scheme, meter, stanza structure. Romantic poets were actually interested in creating new forms:

Blake and Wordsworth created new forms of the epic.

Romantics resurrected an old form: the sonnet. Keats used the Spenserian stanza (ababbcbcc). Romantic poets used form in the line: iambic pentameter in

much of WW vs. the free verse of the 20th C.

POINT: The invention and recreation of new forms.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

14/42

Summary of Romanticisms ActualCharacteristics

Romanticism stresses the mind'sdialectical relationship to nature. Natureactivates the imagination.

Imagination is the supreme organizingand unifying power. Imagination in turncolors nature.

A poetry focusing on the role of the poetand of poetry in society: poetry of socialengagement .

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

15/42

What Romanticism IS Romanticism stresses the mind's dialectical

relationship to nature : (a) it is used to define the poet'sego, and (b) Rom poetry is about how the mind shapesperception. Examples: Blake explored the "fearful symmetry" of his own mind. How a

forest figures forth the night of the mind. He also said, Whereman is not, nature is barren. WW: told the story of his own mind's growth in an epic poem:

poetry about the making of poetry and about the interaction of mind and nature.

WW: "the Mind of Man" is "my haunt, and the main region of mysong" Prospectus to The Recluse .

POINT: The poetry emphasizes the acts of mind of thespeakers/poets, especially with respect to their relationship with nature.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

16/42

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

17/42

What Romanticism IS

A poetry focusing on the role of the poet andof poetry in society . Opposition to the status quo. The poet becomes a prophet addressing individuals

and society, and the poetic act becomes a metaphor for any imaginative act in society at large. Shelley'sDefense : any act of creation is poetry.

So the poetic act is a metaphor for any imaginative

act in society at large. Goal was unity: of individual and society. Imagination is the agency of this unity.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

18/42

18 th Century vs. Romantic Period

18 th Century Reason Mirror

Source: M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp

Romanticism Imagination Lamp

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

19/42

Clarification

The eye/brain is not a faithful camera, buttinkers with the world before it gives it tous.

--Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe , p. 163

Wordsworth, Preface, page 597: What distinguishes

the poems in Lyrical Ballads from others is that thefeeling therein developed gives importance to the actionand situation, and not the action and situation to thefeeling.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

20/42

Exercise

http://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20203/203%20Three%20Key%20Passages.htm

Match these passages to the 18 th or 19 th century and be able to defend your choice.

http://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20203/203%20Three%20Key%20Passages.htmhttp://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20203/203%20Three%20Key%20Passages.htmhttp://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20203/203%20Three%20Key%20Passages.htmhttp://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20203/203%20Three%20Key%20Passages.htmhttp://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20203/203%20Three%20Key%20Passages.htmhttp://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20203/203%20Three%20Key%20Passages.htm

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

21/42

Answers Rasselas : Interest in characteristics of a general type, rather than in

individual deviations from type; emphasis on universals; art should portraythings as they ought to be, not as they sometimes are in actual life. Think of art as a mirror. 18 th century.

Coopers Hill : The poet wants to model his poetry on a river, so thatpoetry not only describes the river accurately and prescriptively (idealconditions) but also takes on the rivers essential characteristics: clarity indepth, gentleness in excitement, strength without rage. In other words, thelines celebrate a mean between extremes. The mean is a neoclassicalideal: precisely what Denham, though he wrote in the 17 th century,expresses. Restraint vs. Elizabethan excesses. 18 th century.

Tintern Abbey : The minds relationship to nature and the role of theimagination in creating the world around us: the mind does not just receivesensory data; it also plays a key role in creating the surrounding world.Mirror (Johnson & Denham) vs. lamp (WW). Positive attitude towardnature: nature as a quasi-divine ministering presence vs. what we will seein Blake. Romantic period.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

22/42

Blakes Main Ideas Reality is ultimately mental or spiritual. All existence derives from an infinite divine spirit that

exists outside of space and time. The divine spark in each of us is the Real Man or

imaginative part of the self. Christ = the poetic genius in each person. What are expressions of the divine in us? See The

Divine Image : Mercy Pity Peace and Love, / Is God

our father dear. Bad things happen when human virtues are cut off fromtheir divine source: sadism, cruelty, war, hatred, deceit.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

23/42

Summary

You have a divine spark inside you; toaffirm it is to live imaginatively and toembrace virtues; to separate yourself fromyour own true nature, which participates inthe divine, is to embrace spiritual death.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

24/42

Alternatives

Divine spark live imaginatively embrace virtue

OR

Divine spark separate from it vice, spiritual death

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

25/42

Blake Goes Further:Main Ideas Continued

The soul exists prior to birth, and birth is the soulsdescent into the body. It moves from heaven (eternalday) to the wilderness of this world. That is why natureis bad. See The Book of Thel.

See example: "Little Black Boy": Boy is born into nature (the southern wild, My mother taught

me underneath a tree, grove ). Other associations: darkness,blackness

Vs. heaven, a realm of light (Look on the rising sun: there Goddoes live )

See Plate 9: darkness and shadow of the earthly state vs. thelight of the rising sun.

Sun/son: East = the direction of Jerusalem.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

26/42

Key Term: Contraries MHH , page 35, plate 3: Without Contraries is no progression.

These are not mere opposites (they are not negations oppositesthat do not struggle with each other) but opposites that interact witheach other, opposites locked in struggle, which results in progress.

Subtitle: Songs of Innocence and Experience: Showing the TwoContrary States of the Human Soul .

Innocence and Experience satirize each other: Experienceexposes the precarious unreality of Innocence; Innocence censuresthe duplicity of Experiences realities (Bloom 34).

You cannot have one without the other. Other examples:

The Human Abstract, page 27: care and cruelty MHH , page 37, plate 8, line 1: Prisons are built with stones of Law,

Brothels with bricks of Religion.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

27/42

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

28/42

Images General title page:

http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.01&java=yes

Frontispiece to Songs of Innocence :http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yes

Title page from Songs of Innocence :http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.03&java=yes

The Lamb :http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.16&java=yes

Frontispiece from Songs of Experience :

http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.29&java=yes Title page from Songs of Experience :

http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.30&java=yes

http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.01&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.01&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.03&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.03&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.16&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.16&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.29&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.29&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.30&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.30&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.30&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.30&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.29&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.29&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.16&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.16&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.03&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.03&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.02&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.01&java=yeshttp://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.01&java=yes

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

29/42

Sacred History ParallelsIndividual Experience

Paradise:innocence : contraries are not perceived, andyou lack awareness of sin and death.

Fall:experience : contraries are perceived; you knowsuffering and hate your oppressors; you get stuck in the

mire of earthly existence. You know good by knowingevil. Death is realized: See #4 on the handout (see nextslide).

Paradise regained:organized innocence : contrariesare perceived; you are aware of but not overcome by lifein the world. Happy people whose experience does notmerit happiness enjoy organized innocence.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

30/42

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

31/42

John Keats: Negative Capability

Page 768: Negative Capability , that iswhen man is capable of being inuncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, withoutany irritable reaching after fact &reason.

POINT: Negative capability is somewhatparallel to organized innocence.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

32/42

Summary Pre-existence of the soul birth/descent into the

wilderness of this world innocence experience organized innocence return to the spirit world.

POINT: Innocence and experience are not static states:you move from one to another; and if you are lucky, youmove to a higher state of organized innocence.

POINT: Organized innocence is very much like our concept felix culpa , the fortunate fall: the fall enables arise. As in sacred history, so in individual experience:Romantic poets like to secularize the sacred.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

33/42

Example of Such Secularizing

Luke 17:20: The kingdom of God iswithin you.

Blake on page 39, plate 11: All deitiesreside in the human breast.

The catch is that all demons reside therealso.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

34/42

Examples of Movement betweenStates: Innocence Experience

Introduction to Songs of Innocence Introduction to Songs of Experience

Earths Answer The Sick Rose To Tirzah

London (write a response paper aboutthis poem)

Introduction to Songs of

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

35/42

Introduction to Songs of Innocence

Piper vs. bard. Shape of a poets life: pastoral epic. Things suggesting movement out of innocence:

wept, staind. POINT: Innocence is a transient state. Onemust move out of it into the realm of experience.

See #3 on handout: the vine makes the plate

look like a tombstone. One must leave the stateon innocence and enter the world of experiencewhere death is realized.

Introduction to Songs of

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

36/42

Introduction to Songs of Experience

How is this poem different? Answer: Whereas the piper implies that

innocence must yield to experience, the bardcalls to the fallen world of experience to renewitself and achieve a state of organizedinnocence.

Note: Put quotation marks around the last twostanzas: the bard speaks here. It may also helpyou to put a comma between fallen and fallenin line 10.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

37/42

Earths Answer

This poem identifies the problem of sexual jealousy. Healthy sexuality and darknessare incompatible.

Stanzas 2-5 are spoken by Earth. Touch is important in Blakes poetry. Proper sexual relations, he suggests, are

not dark and secret.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

38/42

The Sick Rose

The Sick Rose is an example of problematic sexuality a poem aboutrape-marriage, VD, the absence of bright,open love.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

39/42

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

40/42

Cleansing the doors of perception

MHH , page 40, page 14: If the doors of perception were cleansed every thingwould appear to man as it is, infinite.

POINT: This should be the goal of our intellectual/spiritual endeavors. Blake is

getting at the need not just to see thingsbut to see through them to their significance.

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

41/42

Blakes London

7/27/2019 William Blake 's Songs

42/42

Response Paper Topic: London

What things in the first two stanzas suggestrestriction or control?

What things relate to blackness?

What do blast and blight mean? Whatparallels are there? Why hearse ?

What role does prostitution play in this poem?

How are contraries at work in this poem? What is the moral of the poem?

END