Songs Of Innocence Research Articles

Keeping the Pursuit of Innocence in Experience: The Analysis of the Image of Children in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

The works of William Blake, an iconic figure in English Romanticism, are epitomized by "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience," wherein 'children' hold significant symbolic value. Blake delves into the essence of childhood, adopting their perspective and employing their voices to convey nuanced narratives. This approach serves as a vehicle for his profound exploration of humanity, social critique, and quest for innocence. Through an analysis of select poems featuring children in these two collections, this study juxtaposes the contrasting portrayals of children in these distinct realms while unearthing their shared characteristics. It investigates the dichotomy and harmony between innocence and experience in Blake's poetry. Remarkably, Blake's writing evolves from an emphasis on "innocence" to a recognition of "experience." However, even amidst this transformation, he steadfastly clings to the aspiration for innocence, albeit within the context of a more sober and rational world of experience. This evolution underscores Blake's intricate exploration of the human condition, wherein the pursuit of innocence endures as a central theme throughout his work.

The ‘Ands’ and ‘Buts’ in Kahlil Gibran’s English Works: A Corpus Stylistics Perspective

The sentence-initial coordinating conjunctions (and, but), referred to in the literature as SIA and SIB, have been well established as discourse markers beyond their syntactic function as connectors of related propositions. In reference to the proof-editing process of The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran’s most internationally acclaimed work in English, records show that Gibran tends to “overuse” “Ands” and “Buts”. In this context, this study traces Gibran’s use of sentence-initial coordinating conjunctions (and, but) in The Prophet and his seven other works in English, attempting to determine whether his use of SIA and SIB can be stylistically characterized. In this context, this study adopts a corpus stylistics approach to look into the frequency of SIA and SIB across Gibran’s English works. The findings of this study reveal that Gibran’s frequent use of SIA and SIB is statistically “meaningful” and his use of SIA and SIB is a “conscious” act of discourse marking, similar in nature to their “unique” use in King James Bible and William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience (Gibran’s most influential and inspirational literary sources). In addition, the collocational networks for both SIA and SIB display that Gibran depends heavily on the coordinating conjunction (and) to verbalize his arguments and points of view, shifting his prose-poetry as close as possible to “orality”—a biblical stylistic feature par excellence

Text Books for Innocence: Moravian-Swedenborgian Infant Education and William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

Abstract: Documents discovered in Moravian Archives reveal that William Blake's mother and her first husband were members of a controversial, heterodox Moravian church in 1749–52. She and her second husband, James Blake, attended Moravian services before moving on to Swedenborgianism. The discovery provides a new historical context for William's Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789–94). Count Zinzendorf and Emanuel Swedenborg presented radically new ideas for the education of "infants" (ages one to seven). Though political repression frustrated their early agenda, it was later fulfilled by Swedenborgian educators.

The Divine Image and A Divine Image: William Blake's Religious Gnostic Perspectives

It is well known that most of poems in Song of Innocence (1789) are contrary images to some of the in Songs of Experiences (1794). Both collections share two states of human souls. However, in some of the poems, William Blake distinguishes them by giving identical titles, as in The Devine Image and A Divine image or by giving completely different titles. This technique in Blake's songs gives clues to his intention to provide his readers with the direct shift from innocence to experience, from the universal view of the world to that limited, self-centered one. Moreover, in these two poems, the poet's condemnation of the tyranny of religion and the Church appears directly. It appears through his depiction of the existence of God in humans through the coexistence and disappearance of particular virtues. This paper will, first, shed light on the parallel between the two poems and how they interact with/build on/contrast one another. Second, it will shed light on William Blake's religious outlook in revolt to initialized Christianity.

Blake, Lucretius, and Prophecy: <i>The Book of Los</i>

In recent years historians of the Renaissance and Enlightenment have paid increasing attention to the influence of Epicureanism upon European thought. As a result, Lucretius, the Roman who expounded Epicurean philosophy in his epic poem De rerum natura, has come to assume a foundational role in accounts of the development of modern science and philosophy. This change has been reflected within the world of Blake criticism, where, as scholars have become more interested in Blake’s complex response to materialism, so the presence of Lucretius, as both a focus for Blake’s hostility and as a shaping influence on his mythology, has become a subject of detailed scholarly investigation. We now have two studies specifically devoted to Blake and Lucretius. Stephanie Codsi has considered how Blake’s hostility to Epicurean Deism could help to explain his depiction of absent fathers in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Joshua Schouten de Jel, in a book-length study, develops a comprehensive account of the sources from which Blake could have learned about Lucretius and a detailed view of particular areas of his response (focused upon figures that he associated with Epicurean atheism, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, and on specific areas of thought, including epistemology and cosmology). Since these studies have shed much light on this area, I need to explain why we need another discussion of Blake and Lucretius. In focusing upon the grounds of Blake’s hostility it is easy to overlook or underestimate the ambivalence that haunts his understanding of error and of prophecy. In this essay I shall argue that Blake saw in Lucretius not only a materialistic cosmology that he felt compelled to attack, but also a form of prophecy that represented an alluring alternative to his own prophetic mission, one whose malign influence could embroil those who tried to contain or oppose it—​including John Milton. The work that deals with this issue most directly is Blake’s creation myth, The Book of Los—​a work that seems to be nobody’s favorite, and that can appear frustratingly obscure.

A Critical Analysis of William Blake’s Short Poems: Depth in Simplicity

The investigation’s goal is to examine a selection of William Blake’s short poems. The study discovered that, in contrast to other shorter works on the same theme, reviewers and scholars saw Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Joy” as a depiction of his subtle and profound poetry. Blake’s writings were studied to discover this. By examining the strong themes in Blake’s little poems, the study hopes to demonstrate that works like “Visions of the Daughters of Albion,” “America,” “The Book of Arisen,” and a few stanzas from his word-books are just as significant as “Songs of Innocence and of Enjoy.” Blake’s problem is the study’s focus. He must begin by stating his main point. Blake addresses four issues in his poetry. Subjects: God, love, faith, and innocence. Blake’s short poems are approached more interpretively than stylistically.

Mickle Maher, <i>There Is a Happiness That Morning Is</i> (Theater Oobleck, Chicago, 2011)

In There Is a Happiness That Morning Is, Mickle Maher has imagined a witty, amusing, and moving love story about two college professors, inspired by two of William Blake’s poems. The first poem, “Infant Joy” from Songs of Innocence, is taught by the exuberant Bernard (Colm O’Reilly). The second, “The Sick Rose” from Songs of Experience, is taught by the precise, severe Ellen (Diana Slickman). The college dean, James (Kirk Anderson), serves as the worm in this Garden of Eden. The audience serves as the students in the classroom. William Blake, eighteenth-century poet, is front, center stage. His poems, chalked with artistic flourish on a large blackboard which dominates the stage, are always in front of the student-audience. They are referred to again and again by the characters, speaking in verse. So skilled are the actors that this seems natural, while it adds texture and increases the emotions of the plot.

William Blake the designer: The reception of Robert Blair's “Graveˮ in Serbia

AbstractIt was in 2015 that the Blair edition featuring Blake's design first appeared in the Serbian language. Simultaneously, it was the first time in Serbia that Blake was approached solely as an artist, and not as a poet, i. e. not as the author of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793) or Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789)—works he was mainly recognised for there. The aim of this article is to bring the figure of William Blake the designer closer to the Serbian reader, and to set it apart from the previously dominant figure of Blake the poet, when it comes to his reception in that country. Our conclusions point towards Blake the designer acting as a constructive reader, deconstructing the meaning of Blair's poem which he designed, confirming the notion by Morris Eaves (1980) that Blake was his own sole audience. We also tend to examine the hitherto neglected relationships that exist between English Graveyard Poetry and the so‐called “Serbian Graveyard Poetry”.

Pessimism in Ebu'l-Alâ el-Ma'arrî's "al-Lüzûmiyyât" and William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience"

Bu makale Klasik dönem Arap Edebiyatı’nın önde gelen isimlerinden biri olan Ebu’l-Alâ el-Ma’arrî’nin el-Lüzûmiyyât’ı ile Romantik dönem İngiliz Edebiyatı dendiği zaman akla gelen ilk şairlerinden William Blake’in Masumiyet ve Tecrübe Şarkıları kitabındaki şiirlerde geçen pesimizm örneklerini mukayesesini ihtiva etmekte olup birbirinden tamamen farklı tarih, kültür ve coğrafyada yaşamış iki mühim edebi şahsiyetin eserlerinin bir kavram üzerinden benzerliklerini ve farklılıklarını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Hem Ebu’l-Alâ el-Ma’arrî hem de William Blake doğuştan gelen estetik hünerlerinin yanı sıra yaşadığı zaman ve mekânın özelliklerini de şiir dünyalarına yansıttığı bilinmektedir. Ebu’l-Alâ el-Ma’arrî toplumsal sorunların had safhada olduğu bir tarihi süreçte siyasî, iktisadî, içtimaî eleştirilerle dolu pek çok şiir örnekleri ile karşımıza çıkarken diğer taraftan İngiliz şair William Blake modern dünyanın filizlenip vücut bulduğu, rasyonalitenin ve maddiyatın yegâne ölçü olduğu bir coğrafyada mistik ve romantik olana temayül edip şiirlerinde mevzu bahis toplumsal süreci kıyasıya eleştirdiği görülmektedir. Farklı zaman, farklı mekân ve farklı kültürlerden gelen bu iki sanatçının eserlerine bakıldığında aynı ruh halinin tezahürü olabilecek şiirler söylediği tespit edilmiştir. Hem Ebu’l-Alâ el-Ma’arrî hem de William Blake’in şiirlerine pesimizm kavramı üzerinden yapılan karşılaştırmalı edebiyat alanındaki bu inceleme diğer bir taraftan da asırlar önceki tarihi Britanya adası ile kadim Diyâr-ı Şam coğrafyalarını farklı disiplinler aracılığı vasıtası ile bir okuma olacaktır.

СТРУКТУРА ИНОГО МИРА В ПОВЕСТИ ЧАРЛЬЗА КИНГСЛИ "ВОДЯНЫЕ МАЛЫШИ"

The fairy tale “The Water-Babies” by the British novelist Charles Kingsley depicts the other world as water kingdom. The boy chimney sweeper Tom gets there having drowned in the river. The paper analyses how the other world is organized to provide the Victorian up-bringing and support the ideas of Darwinian evolution. Tom’s life in water is interpreted as the period of moral transformation and the study of nature. The topography of the other world is structured around the magic Isle of St. Brendan. The boundary between this world and the other world is crossed through mirrors, water surfaces and by looking in the eyes of fairies. “The Water-Babies” are interpreted as part of a specific literary tradition. The article compares different versions of the archetypal plot about a chimney sweeper in English literature. The analysis is focused around the poems about the chimney sweeper by William Blake in “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”, narrating the tale of children getting into the other world and the following Redemption. “The Three Sleeping Boys of Warwickshire” by Walter de la Mare is the final text in this tradition. In conclusion we examine beliefs about chimney sweeper in folklore sources and in particular the connection between chimney sweeper and good luck.

오에 겐자부로, 블레이크에게서 길을 찾다: 『새로운 사람이여, 눈을 떠라』를 중심으로

Kenzaburo Oe is a Japanese novelist who was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994. The novel, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age is a series of linked, meditative stories that describe Oe’s changing relationship with his adolescent brain-damaged son through the poems and paintings of William Blake. This study examines how Blake’s poems and symbols work in the novel, focusing the first story, “The Songs of Innocence, the Songs of Experience,” and the last one “Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age.” In the stories, Oe seeks the possibility of healing and salvation through much difficulties and symbiosis with his son. It includes the process of his son’s becoming an artist as a priest. The stories also include Oe’s own spiritual journey guided by Blake. Oe’s allusion to Blake serves as a device which establishes an entirely new form of novel. By doing so, the personal experiences of father and son rises to the height of universality.

The Contraries’ Progression: Romantic irony in the introductory poems of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience

In the vast bibliography on William Blake, scholars usually comment on the irony in his poetic works, but seldom they explain such comments. This paper is an attempt to understand the ironies present in some poems of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, while at the same time taking into consideration the dialectical quality of Blake’s thought. To do so, the concept of Romantic irony, developed by Friedrich Schlegel, is used, as it is also dialectical in its nature. In order to illustrate how Romantic irony is used to read the volume, an analysis of the introductory poems of each section, along with “Earth’s Answer” (the second introduction’s coda) and two plates which illustrate these poems, is made. The readings show some affinities between Blake’s and Schlegel’s way of thinking.

William Blake's Mystic Vision of Contraries in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

William Blake's Mystic Vision of Contraries in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

Taking Clinical Legal Education Online: Songs of Innocence and Experience

In common with the wider higher education sector, clinical legal education practitioners are facing the challenge of how to adapt their teaching practices to accommodate the restrictions imposed by governmental responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Facilitating distance learning via online technologies has unsurprisingly become an area of increasing interest in the hope that it may offer a potential solution to the problem of how to continue teaching undergraduates in a socially distanced environment.This paper seeks to provide clinical legal education practitioners with evidence-based insights into the challenges and opportunities afforded by using digital technologies to deliver clinical legal education. It adopts a case study approach by reflecting on the Open Justice Centre’s four-year experience of experimenting with online technologies to provide meaningful and socially useful legal pro bono projects for students studying a credit bearing undergraduate law module. It will analyse how a number of different types of pro bono activity were translated into an online environment, identify common obstacles and posit possible solutions. In doing so, this paper aims to provide a timely contribution to the literature on clinical legal education and offer a means to support colleagues in law schools in the UK and internationally, who are grappling with the challenges presented by taking clinical legal education online.

Taking Clinical Legal Education Online: Songs of Innocence and Experience

<p>In common with the wider higher education sector, clinical legal education practitioners are facing the challenge of how to adapt their teaching practices to accommodate the restrictions imposed by governmental responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Facilitating distance learning via online technologies has unsurprisingly become an area of increasing interest in the hope that it may offer a potential solution to the problem of how to continue teaching undergraduates in a socially distanced environment.</p><p><br />This paper seeks to provide clinical legal education practitioners with evidence-based insights into the challenges and opportunities afforded by using digital technologies to deliver clinical legal education. It adopts a case study approach by reflecting on the Open Justice Centre’s four-year experience of experimenting with online technologies to provide meaningful and socially useful legal pro bono projects for students studying a credit bearing undergraduate law module. It will analyse how a number of different types of pro bono activity were translated into an online environment, identify common obstacles and posit possible solutions. In doing so, this paper aims to provide a timely contribution to the literature on clinical legal education and offer a means to support colleagues in law schools in the UK and internationally, who are grappling with the challenges presented by taking clinical legal education online.</p>

Stylistic Analysis on William Blake's The Little Boy Lost

This research presented the stylistic analysis of a poem by William Blake, The Little Boy Lost. The poem was chosen as it becomes Blake's one of well-known poems in his Song of Innocence. Moreover, this poem uses simple structure and dictions, but it conveys a profound meaning. This research aimed: (1) to discover how the language level in the poem used and (2) to find out the interpretation of the poem. The stylistic analysis aimed at observing the meaning of either literary or non-literary text by the language device used. The researcher conducted a data population method in analyzing the poem. There were four language levels to achieve the goal; they were phonological, graphological, lexical, and syntactic level (Verdonk: 2002). In the phonological level, assonance, consonance, and alliteration were used to emphasize important words. In the graphological level, the comma in the last line of stanza 1 is prominent to distinguish the different speakers. In the lexical level, metaphor was used to voice the little boy's hopes to find enlightenment to get out of his difficulties. Meanwhile, symbolism conveys a deeper meaning than the literal meaning. In the syntactic level, the tenses switching used to emphasize the different speakers and the comma in the graphological level; and the word repetition used to create the little boy's sense of innocence.

<i>Sendak and Blake Illustrating “Songs of Innocence” with an Essay by Prof. Robert N. Essick</i>

Maurice Sendak studied Blake’s art and poetry, and collected drawings, watercolors, illuminated books, and prints. In interviews, he frequently professed his adoration of Blake, stating in 2001, “I love Blake; I have all my life.” The experimental synthesis of the verbal and visual in much of Sendak’s work is self-consciously Blakean, a deliberate evocation of the composite art of the illuminated books that is perhaps seen most forcefully in his final work, My Brother’s Book, completed before Sendak’s death in May 2012 but published posthumously. In a much earlier work, a 1967 Christmas keepsake published by Bodley Head, we find Sendak engaging directly with the man whom he described in a 1970 interview as “my teacher in all things.”

“he who made the Lamb”: Catechistic Subversion of Children’s Literature in Blake’s Songs

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience employed catechistic structures frequently found in eighteenth-century children’s literature; however, this appropriation by Blake provokes ques...

Historical formation of the originality of an American choral tradition of the second half of the XX century

Historical formation of the originality of an American choral tradition of the second half of the XX century

Representation of two Contrary States of Human Soul: Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake

It is difficult to ignore the basic point about William Blake that though chronologically he is an eighteenth-century poet, he is a highly gifted and immensely successful lyric poet. While Blake’s poetry may or may not have the pleasantness of great poetry, it is perhaps true that Blake has no notable predecessors and no followers. He consistently stresses the importance of freedom, as opposed to the tyranny that he feels to be characteristic of the government of his day, and attacks negative moralizing, which he associates with the church, as opposed to a true sense of religion. The Songs of Innocence and of Experience occupy a vital place in the corpus of Blake’s poetical writings. This is so because these Songs are as much the product of Blake’s earlier writings as the pointer to his future writings. The kind of philosophical tone that we encounter in The Songs of Innocence and of Experience is indeed astounding. It is said that Blake looked upon poetry as something that is dictated by spirits, or as the result of inspiration, but he was also aware of the role of the poet to bring out certain truths of human life in front of the people in a symbolic way. There is no doubt about the fact that in the corpus of English Poetry no other poet has got as much success, if equal but certainly not more, as Blake. The present paper is mainly focused on the philosophical appeal and symbolic portrayal of human existence that the Songs of William Blake illustrate to us.