Some Differences Between Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

Janika Mohan
Section 1H

William Blake etched Songs of Innocence in 1789, he added additional works and published Songs of Innocence and Experience in 1794

"SHEWING THE TWO CONTRARY STATES OF THE HUMAN SOUL"
In Songs of Innocence, Blake " assumes the stance that he is writing "happy songs/Every child may joy to hear "( Norton 81). The poems however deal with aspects of the "fallen " world; evil,suffering, inequity and loss of what we define as "innocent".So, what makes these poems innocent? It is the way they seem to be perceived and spoken with a voice of a soul in an innocent state. From the mouths of lamb and babes comes this expression of the fallen world.
Songs of Experience is " the vision of the same world as it appears to the 'contrary' state of the soul that Blake calls 'experience', is an ugly and terrifying one of poverty, disease, prostitution, war and social, institutional and sexual repression, epitomized in the ghastly representation of modern London. Though each stands as an independent poem, a number of the songs of innocence have a matched counterpart or 'contrary' in the songs of experience.(81) "Infant Joy" is paired with "Infant Sorrow" and "the Lamb" is paired with "the Tyger"
The difference between innocence and experience can also be seen as that between nature and humanity.

Various Lines from Songs of Innocence and their "counterparts" from Songs of Experience

Introduction
" Pipe a song about a Lamb";/So I piped with merry chear;/[HOW DO YOU PIPE A SONG ABOUT A LAMB?]"Piper pipe that song again"-/So I piped, he wept to hear./.....And I made a rural pen/And I stain'd the water clear/And I wrote my happy songs/Every child may joy to hear.

Introduction
Calling the lapsed Soul/And weeping in the evening dew,/That might controll/The starry pole/And fallen, fallen light renew

"O Earth, O Earth, return!/Arise from out the dewy grass;/Night is worn/And the morn/Rises from the slumberous mass.

"Turn away no more;/Why wilt thou turn away?/The starry floor/The watry shore/Is giv'n thee till the break of day."

The Lamb

Little lamb, who made thee?/Dost thou know who made thee?....

Little Lamb I'll tell thee/He is called by thy name,/For he calls himself a lamb;/He is meek and he is mild./He became a little child;/I a child & thou a lamb/We are called by his name.

The Tyger

"When the stars threw down their spears/And waterd heaven with their tears,/Did he smile his work to see?/ Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

The Chimney Sweeper ( Innocence)

...Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black;

And by cam an Angel who had a bright key,/And he open'd the coffins and set them all free;/Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run, And wash in a river and shine in the sun

The Chimney Sweeper ( Experience)

They clothed me in clothes of death,/And taught me to sing the notes of woe./
" And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury,/And are gone to praise God and his Priest & King,/Who make up a heaven of our misery."