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?
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William Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul”. Blake deciphers between the two because they are indeed different. What Blake means by innocence is more towards a youthful, naïve, morally unambiguous and inexperienced character. Blake describes experience as this self-awareness, developed, intelligent and ambiguous character. I agree with Blake’s descriptions of innocence and experienced human beings, I fell as though when we are young and growing up we have to be innocent and the more we get older we have no choice but to become experienced in life.
In Blake’s opinion, the notions of Innocence and Experience are quite a distinctive. Innocence represents the youth, naivete, free of prejudice and purity. On the contrary, Experience shows the morality, what ideas or behavior been influenced, self- justification, self-awareness and so on. In From Song of Innocence, we can easily found that there are numerous characteristics around this poem. The piper pipe a song about a Lamb without any annoyance in the countryside, and then sings and writes it down and spread it over the children in the rustic. At last, every child is enjoyable to hear and sing. What a joyful and free atmosphere in the Innocence poetry that all the people can be pleasant without any vex.
Songs of Innocence and Experience presents two drastically extraordinary perspectives of the world. In Songs of Innocence, Blake communicates a gullible, uncorrupt perspective of salvation. In Song of Experience, he releases that blamelessness and embraces a more develop voice, observing the extraordinary destitution in London. The vast majority of the lyrics in Songs of Innocence are routed to youngsters. They introduce an extremely oversimplified perspective of the world, in which the world is delightful and Jesus passed on for our transgressions. Tunes of Experience sings an alternate tune. The speaker of the ballad has been solidified by his encounters and has seen an excessive amount of destitution and enduring in London to consider salvation. Blake doesn’t accommodate the two unique perspectives. Rather, he lets every one remain all alone legitimacy, giving slight inclination to Songs of Experience, which closes the gathering and discredits a considerable lot of the cases and notions of the principal half.
1. Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
Blake describes two contradicting states of the human soul in his songs of innocence and experience. In songs of innocence his poems display a more childlike naivety that shows the pureness in humans curiosity and concerns. This is shown most effectively in his poem The Lamb, where he questions the existence of the lamb, questions that are very profound but at the same time reflect a naivety of not understanding the powers that create life. Blake then shows a contrary state of being with The Tyger, which reflects the same curiosity but also shows the darkness of the human mind. He questions what kind of great being would create such a vicious creature, understanding that life is scary now. Both are contemplating the higher being that created all life, but in the first he questions life with a playful innocent animal, the bright white lamb, and then questions life with the fearful tyger, two contradicting images of life.
In both “The Lamb” and in “The Tyger,” Blake calls upon a Creator to be the origin of these animals. He talks about how the two creatures, although polar opposites in their dispositions, are made from the same hands of God. The Lamb is contrasted by the Tyger since it is supposed to be a “meek and mild” animal that is used to display the innocence and purity of Jesus in a biblical context. The Tyger’s origin is much darker than the Lamb’s. Blake talks about the Tyger being made in the same way a piece of metal is forged and hammered into place. By painting the image of a dark forge for the creation of the Tyger, the speaker emphasizes the destructive abilities of the Tyger. This differs from the image of the Lamb that the speaker provides. The Lamb is considered childlike in its purity and meekness. The overall light image of Lamb is contradicted by the fierce one of the Tyger.
When Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul, he means that there are two ways people are. In the innocence poems he is leaning towards the youth, how young people are naive and pure. They lack knowledge and are ignorant. The first poem “Introduction” speaks about “Piper is piping a song about a Lamb.” The lamb in this poem describes innocence and purity. However in the second part, Songs of Experiences, he shows people have more wisdom and know how to handle things. In the poem, “The Tyger”, the tiger is described as a powerful, fearful animal. This poem describes the lose of innocence.
In his works “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”, William Blake defines the two different states of the human lifecycle. He believes that the first stage of the lifecycle is that of innocence. Blake defines innocence with the language choices in his poems. Through his language, Blake defines innocence as a state of naivety and ignorance. Furthermore, he uses his language to describe experience. His language choices create an image of experience as superiority and strength. The two images he uses to describe innocence and experience are a lamb and a tiger. The lamb is a meek and mild animal while the tiger is fierce and powerful.
Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” By this, Blake is saying that a human soul is innocent through its youth and gains experience as it gets to adulthood. What Blake means by innocence and an experience, is that through your youth you are innocent and as you age and experience more, you become less innocent and more experienced of the world around you.
Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
These are two states of mind and soul every human goes through, the significance of this is to understand each phase is important. Blake through his poems on the chimney sweeps shows how the innocent are exploited by the experienced as they have more knowledge and personal development. The inexperienced/innocence state would describe children who are naive, young, and pure. His poems revolve around the unknowing aspect for those who are innocent. During the shift to experience, Blake depicts are more surreal experience in the realities of society and life. He shows the abuse and exploitation of the innocent by the experienced adults by assigning them jobs as chimney sweeps.
Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
I think Blake means that innocence and experience is how our soul functions. Experience enables us to live differently and make different decisions compared to innocence. If we are innocent to a certain situation we may not know how to deal with it but if we have experience we are able to face it . To Blake they are what our existence is about. Every decision we make every situation we face is dictated by our level of innocence and experience.
The mind forged manacle line means that after being surrounded by all the man made things one loses his freedom to be. Wordsworth was someone who valued nature and saw a religious presence in side of it so when the Poem London takes place in a city it is to understand why all the citizens are not joyous.
The lamb and the tyger are similar and different in many ways. For instance, they are similar because they both speak of humanity but different because The Lamb speaks of someone with innocence while the Tyger speaks on someone with experience. The Lamb is very naive while The tyger is being admired from a far because of his stripes and what he has gone through. it is like the lamb is admiring the Tyger from a far wishing he had stripes but the only thing experience will give the lamb is more dirt in its fur.
Blake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this?
Innocence portrays something or someone that is still in their youth, and still has the qualities of being naive and ignorant, of sorts, to the ways to the world. Experience speaks for itself; it correlates with those who have gained specks of independence, in any form. As we grow, we become more experienced in different aspects; we gain intelligence and develop over time. These are, in fact, two contrary states of the human soul. I believe that, at times, they cannot be experienced alongside one another.