Sigmund Freud believed that humans are undeniably evil, but, to live peacefully amongst one another, one must suppress their animalistic behaviors. A Romanticist such as William Blake, for example, may have agreed with Freud’s assumption based on is works of Innocence and Experience.
William Blake, a well know poet during the controversial time of the Enlightenment, had strong opinions on both humans and their ways of life during this time. As a result, Blake wrote, “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”. The content in both selections are similar, yet, have opposing views on the particular situation at hand. Some may argue that there is unsettled tension between the two lines of work, and others claim there is a direct relation between the two. When one thinks of the literal and connotative definitions of innocence and experience, it is easy to see that they are relative to each other. For example, one who is “innocent” is usually a child who has yet to learn right from wrong. However, to get passed one’s stage of innocence, and be accepted into adulthood, they must gain life experience which rids them of their innocence.
A person who represents innocence, like a child, for example, looks at the world with a fresh eye. Thus meaning, they are unbiased and unaware of any binaries such as, “good and evil”. Blake was an avid believer in binaries, which others may have dismayed, and his “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience represent such a phenomena.
Blake’s work tended to include aspects of religion and nature, and as a Romanticist poet, he disproved of the Enlightenment and its interest in science and realism. His poem “The Lamb” has religious undertones, considering Jesus was considered a Sheppard himself. “The Lamb” is a child’s song, written in the form of question and answer, “Little Lamb who made thee?” (1) “Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee” (11). Jesus of course represents all that is calm and peaceful, and “The Lamb” expresses the positive side of Christianity. The poem only discusses the “good” and “clear” and does not mention the bad and evil that exists in the world, which has a direct correlation to innocence itself. “Gave thee clothing of delight, softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice…” (5-8). According to the bible, Jesus was a tender and graci9ous figure, and considering this child is blinded by his innocence, he does not pick up on any evil in the world.
Unlike its light counterpart, “The Tiger”, exposes suffering in the world which the speaker in “The Lamb” is blind sighted too. Like “The Lamb”, this poem is also in the form of question, but instead, it does not provide any answers to the proposed questions. “In what distance deeps or skies-Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire” (4-8). The speaker longs to know what type of God would create such a beautiful yet horrid being. He questions that life and nature is a reflection of it’s creator. Does that mean that God himself is evil? Blake writes, “Did he smile His work to see? Did he who made the lamb make the?” (19-20). In a world that can be both good and evil, how can the same God create a creature as innocent as the lamb, and one so vicious as the tiger? For an innocent child, finding an answer to his question may prove simple, however, for those who have experienced harm these questions remain unanswered.
Like “The Lamb” and “The Tiger”, Blake also wrote two versions of, “The Chimney Sweeper”. The earlier version can be found in “A Song of Innocence”. Both versions reject the idea of child labor during the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Because of their size, young boys were often sent to become chimney sweepers, and due to the lack of child labor laws, these children were greatly oppressed. In the earlier work, the speaker, presumably a child, speaks of a dream that one of his fellow chimney sweeps had. “As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, - that thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, were all of them locked up in a coffins black. And by came an angel who had a bright key, and he opened the coffins and set them all free…” (12-16). The boys feel there is hope in a better place, “Then down a green plain leaping, laughing ,they run, and wash in a river, and sine in the sun” (17-18). The innocent child does not loose sign of hope and optimism, where, the adult who is not so blind sighted, may not prove so hopeful. In the last stanza, Blake writes; “And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark, and got with our bags and our brushes to work, with the idea that there is something lying beyond this world.
In the later version of “The Chimney Sweeper”, the speaker is presumably an adult, who has life experience. In his experience, the speaker encountered a young chimney sweep in the snow, “A littlr blak thing among the snow, crying “weep! ;Weep!” In notes of woe! “Where are thy father & mother? Say?” “They are both gone up to the church to pray” (1-4). Ironically, these parents are at a church, the house of God, while their child lay miserable and dying. In the last stanza Blake writes, “And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, who make up a heaven of our misery.” (11-12). These lines are incredibly powerful. The speaker explains that life in this word is struck by oppression, danger, and injustices, and those who have died under such harsh conditions, make up heaven itself.
William Blake’s attempt to expose oppression during the Enlightenment was effective. By writing, “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”, Blake allows the reader to see these harsh realities through different eyes and perspectives.
No comments:
Post a Comment