1. Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
2. Compare the mode of creation described in “The Lamb” with that of “The Tyger.” How are they similar? How are they different?
3. In “London” the speaker says he hears “mind-forged manacles” (line 8) What do you think that phrase means?
4. What differences do you see between the two “Chimney Sweeper” poems?
5. The introductory poem to Songs of Innocence refers to a poet/singer/piper who composes “…happy songs,/Every child may joy to hear.” To what extent does this line describe the poems in Songs of Innocence?
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience
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The differences I see between the two “Chimney Sweeper” poems is that they the first one has a good ending while th second one has bad, and that the focuses are of each poem is different. What I mean in the first difference is that the first “Chimney Sweeper” starts talking about the cruelness of the job. but ends happily since an Angel gave hope, the second “Chimney Sweeper” poem starts out with the child being sad since parents left, and ends off with misery– it shows that somene might look happy, but really aren’t. What I mean in the second difference is that the first “Chimney Sweeper” poem focuses on having hope in bad times since the Angel came, while the second poem is about how misery children can become.
A difference I saw between the two “Chimney Sweeper” poems is that the first one has a more positive and innocent outlook to chimney sweeping. The first poem described the death of children who were chimney sweepers in a way that would be explained to a child, that the deceased became Angels who got to finally be free and enjoy their lives. The first poem has a childlike innocence and ignorance to it with the children not fully realizing just how dangerous their job is. They don’t see potentially dying from their job as a thing to fear, but something that meant that they could become Angels as long as they were a “good boy” as the poem says. In the second poem however, the childlike innocence is gone and the poem sounds more bitter. The second poem uses language like “clothes of death” to paint chimney sweeping in a much darker way than the first poem did. In this poem, the narrator sounds bitter to their family, who have assumed that their child is okay just because they seem happy and they dance and sing. As this second poem is part of Songs of Experience, it shows the moment in which the child becomes more experienced in chimney sweeping and thus, has realized the harsh reality of their job and of their parents who forced them to do it.
What Blake means by describing innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul” is that a human will go through both stages in their life, but they will be two very opposite states. The first state is innocence, where the baby has just been born. In the innocent state, the baby doesn’t know anything and accepts everything given. It doesn’t know the bad things in life or how to interpret things, so the baby is more willing to trust everything. The baby is very pure and unaware of its environment. However, once the baby grows up and goes through stages like being a teen, adult, or senior citizen, it goes through experience. Experience is a whole different state compared to innocence. In experience, a human will be more aware of its surroundings, make mistakes, and learn more. It will also grow judgment or morals, which will affect how it will behave in certain situations. A human that goes through experience gets to know reality and how the world works which is not something a baby would know. All humans have to go through both states, but they are very distinctly different in how humans act and interpret their environment.
5. There is an evident difference in the way that the author talks about creation in the two poems. In “The Little Lamb” the author talks about creation in a manner that comes off as very innocent and gentle. This is evident in the various adjectives that are used in the poem such as “bright”, “tender”, “mild”. This may seem like not much but when compared to the feel of “the Tyger” the difference is evident. In the Tyger, the author talks mire fiercely and mentions chains and hammers in a creation that seems very tense. Not to mention the obvious difference between a tiger and lamb, which in my opinion is a symbolic tool that highlights the ways in which the creations mentioned in each differs drastically.
I think he describes innocence and experience as “the contrary states of the human soul,” because they are the opposites of each other. According to Blake, innocence deals with one’s childhood; as a child people are often ignorant of their surroundings. Furthermore, during childhood one may not have the knowledge or the wisdom to know not to trust every single person. Additionally, innocence represents life, since a child is essentially new to this earth. On the other hand, experience represents the stage of life in which one has the knowledge to understand that not all people are trustworthy. Additionally, during the experience stage of life one has gone through certain circumstances that has opened their eyes to see the world as it could be, which is at times evil. Lastly, during the experience stage of life one has to face the reality of death, especially since the children that one once was may experience the death of their parents in their adult life. Thus, innocence deals with the more “pretty” parts of the human soul, whilst experience deals with the “ugly” truth, making them contradictory to one another.
I believe Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul” as a yin and yang effect. For example, innocence can be connected with trust, sympathy, purity, and thoughtfulness. While experience is more aware of its surrounding, less trustful, more knowledge and can be used as manipulation. The yin and yang have two dynamic systems, the yin side can be compared to softness because it is considered to be soft, finding a balance, and a more calming force. While the yang side is more energetic, determination and expressive. Blake uses this dynamic effect to reflect on how people are innocent and then as they grow older they develop this experienced mindset that can lead them into a whole different side of them compared to their childhood.
The difference between the first “Chimney Sweeper” and the second one is that the first one talks about a young boy named Tom who worked as a chimney sweeper and was set free by an angel. The second one talks about a boy being left behind by his parents while they went to church to pray for god. The first “Chimney Sweeper” displays a more positive emotion than the second one because it connects to the innocence of a child working as a chimney sweeper until the angel gave him freedom. But the second one describes the experience of young chimney sweepers left behind by their parents when they do not realize what they are going through. Not only that, the first poem talks about how Tom needed to work as a chimney sweeper to be free when Blake summarizes that it was a lie. The second poem illustrates how a family went to church to pray for god and left their son behind to sweep chimneys.
4. What differences do you see between the two “Chimney Sweeper” poems?
In the song of innocence is a message of hope in a dream. An angel with a bright key. If all do their duty, they need not fear harm. Expressed hope that God would reward them.
I think he expressed hope as a religious faith to comfort and relieve the suffering of young children.
but in the song of experience is The child no longer has faith in the angel’s message of salvation and hope. I think Blake criticizes the dark realities of child labor and the government of child exploitation in this poem.
The difference between the first “Chimney Sweeper” and the second one is that one was publish in the first book the songs of innocence while the second one we publish in the songs of experiences. Another difference is that first one talks about a little boy working as a chimney sweeper. The poem talks about how the little boy will go to heaven if he does all his work. This poem has a purity and innocence to it. It shows the little boy know he has to do all this work to reach heaven, but he doesn’t know this job can kill him. The second poem shows the chimney sweepers know more now, that they know the harsh life they have to endure. The parents of the chimney sweepers assume that they are doing fine while they don’t know the reality their child has to face.
The difference between the two “Chimney Sweeper poems”, is the emotions and freedom from the Angel. The first poem speaks about the innocence where as a child was given the opportunity to work. This child doesn’t realize how hard the life struggles can be. It alleviates the work pressures of young children. In addition the angel grants freedom. The second poem describes the experience the child chimney sweeper faces when he wasn’t given the opportunity to work. It shows motivation and self courage of how hard the work environment is. In the second poem the angel doesn’t grant freedom. However it gives a chance to speak with god. As Blake described these emotions would sought to be unfair.
The child in the second poem is also a chimney sweeper, just like the boys in the first poem.
1. Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
When Blake describes innocence and experience as being “two contrary states of the human soul,” I think he means that the human soul develops over time through different stages and these stages are going to be different from one another; these differences are what allow the human soul to have depth. Every human goes through a stage of innocence. When we are young and naive about the world around us, we explore other people and other things and this is just one stage in our life that “feeds” the soul. Experience is another stage in our lives where we learn more about the deceptions and manipulation of other people and the world in general. What we learn from these stages of life are contrasting which is what Blake means by “contrary states”; one seems relatively “positive” in nature and the other seems relatively “negative”. However, despite the differences, they both have an impact on the soul as a whole.
In both “The Lamb” and in “The Tyger,” there is a Creator who is the origin of the two creatures. He talks about how the two animals, although opposites, are made from the same hands of God. The Lamb is supposed to be a “meek and mild” animal used to illustrate the innocence and purity of Jesus in a biblical context. By painting the image of a dark forge for the creation of the Tyger, the speaker emphasizes the pernicious abilities of the Tyger. The Lamb expresses of someone with innocence while the Tyger speaks of someone with experience. The Lamb is very naive while The Tyger is admired from afar because of his stripes and what he has gone through.
1. Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
Innocence is when everyone starts off as a child, being ignorant and innocent to things happening around them. They have pure thinking and trust everyone around them, believing that people are just nice in general. Experience is when these children realize that people around them could be evil. They know the dark side of things and they are not innocent anymore. They will be less trusting in people because they learned from their experiences and mistakes.
1. Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
When Blake says that innocence and experience are two contrary states, he is talking about the blankness and newness we associate with innocence, versus the heaviness and knowledge of experience.
When we think of innocence, we think of purity. The literal definition is “lack of guile or corruption; purity.” I also tend to associate innocence with the color white. When you think of an innocent child, you know they don’t know people’s true intentions or quite understand their surroundings, everything is new to them, every experience is an adventure. When we mourn the loss of a child, we tend to think about the loss of their future, and think that they would’ve had a “bright” one, similar to the brightness and lightness of the color white. There is also cheeriness or happiness when we think of our childhood, something that Blake shows in his first set of poems. through a fun rhyme scheme that makes the words almost bounce, similar to a child skipping.
When we think of experience, we may associate this with experience in a subject or craft. In order to hone this craft and become “experienced”, you would need to have had years of practice, and know the ins and outs of the industry or skill. When a person is experienced in life, they’ve not only gone through great joys, but have also likely experienced pain and loss throughout their years living. They understand people’s intentions, as the famous catchphrase “I wasn’t born yesterday” is used when accusing somebody of trying to fool a person shows. There is a certain darkness that comes with experience, a new guile that only comes with age.
When Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” I think he is referring to childhood and adulthood. Innocence represents childhood, they don’t know anything about the world or society. While experience represents adulthood, they gain knowledge over the course of their life.