Songs of Innocence and of Experience



"Introduction" to Innocence

1. To what degree does the speaker's characterization of his songs at the end of this poem apply to the poems that make up Songs of Innocence? In particular, are they songs that "every child may joy to hear"?

2. Discuss the role of writing in this poem.

3. How are the two frontispieces (to Innocence and to Experience) related to the "Introduction" to Innocence?

4. Compare and contrast the piper of this "Introduction" with the bard of the "Introduction" to Experience.

"The Ecchoing Green"

1. How does Blake use sound to achieve an effect in this poem?

2. How does the role of the sun in this poem differ from that in "Ah! Sun-flower"?

"The Lamb"

1. Compare the child in the design on the first plate of this poem with those on plate a5 of There is No Natural Religion. How is each related to its accompanying text?

2. What, if any, ideas from the early tractates (All Religions are One and There is No Natural Religion) do you see reappearing in this poem?

“The Little Black Boy” / Little Black Boy (continued)

"The Chimney-Sweeper" (of Innocence)

1. What does the last line of the poem suggest about its speaker?

2. What is the effect of Blake's use of the second person ("your chimneys") in line 4?

"The Chimney-Sweeper" (of Experience)

1. Compare the tone of this poem with that of "The Chimney Sweeper" of Innocence. The speaker of the Innocence song and of lines 4 through 12 of this song are both young chimney sweepers with similar histories; how do you account for their different attitudes?

2. Discuss Blake's use of seasonal imagery in the text and design of this plate. Do winter, snow, etc. have similar connotations in his other poems and designs in Songs and elsewhere?

3. Like a number of other Songs (e.g., "The Lamb," "The Tyger," "The Little Boy Lost," "Holy Thursday" of Experience), this poem begins with a question; unlike most, however, it is cast as a dialogue. What effect does this use of dialogue have on the reader?

"The Divine Image"

1. Compare this song with its two counterparts in Experience, "The Human Abstract" and "A Divine Image."

2. How would you characterize the speaker of this poem? What does s/he have in common with other speakers in Songs of Innocence?

3. How do the figures in the design relate to the text of the poem?

"Holy Thursday" (of Innocence)

1. Do the designs at the top and bottom of this plate reinforce elements found in the text? Explain.

2. How should the last line of the poem be taken? Whose view does it express?

3. The word "multitude(s)" occurs three times in this poem. What associations does this word have? Why might Blake have chosen to characterize the children of "Holy Thursday" in this way?

"Holy Thursday" (of Experience)

1. Compare this poem and the "Holy Thursday" of Innocence.

2. How is the design related to the text of the poem?

3. How would you characterize the speaker of this poem?

"Infant Joy"

1. "Infant" means, literally, "speechless." Who speaks for the infant in this poem?

2. What is the function of naming in this poem?

3. How do you interpret the design? What might the winged figure represent, and why are the three figures depicted within an opened flower?

"Introduction" to Experience

1. Is this poem a fitting introduction to those that follow in Songs of Experience? Why or why not?

2. Who is the speaker? Does the bard speak throughout, or does the speaker change? To what extent should the speaker or speakers be identified with Blake himself?

3. To what (or whom) does the speaker urge "Earth" to "return"?

"The Clod and the Pebble"

1. Is the Clod's philosophy presented as "right"? Is the Pebble's? What flaws do you detect in either or both?

2. What is the effect of the close parallel between the first and third stanzas?

"The Sick Rose"

1. Why does the speaker tell the rose that she is sick? Is she unaware of her condition? If so, will self-awareness cure it?

"The Fly"

1. What relationship, if any, do you see between the poem "The Fly" and the design that accompanies it?

2. How reliable is the speaker of "The Fly"? Are we supposed to accept his sentiments as valid reflections on the human condition? Or is his analogy flawed--and, if so, in what way(s)?

"The Tyger"

1. Many readers have commented on the apparent disparity between the "fearful" Tyger of the poem and the mild-looking creature Blake drew for the design of this plate. Is this an accurate observation? If so, how do you account for the difference between the two Tygers?

2. In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Edmund Burke writes, "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling." How does this poem support or undermine the idea of a kind of sublimity based on terror?

3. By asking, "Did He who made the Lamb make thee?" the speaker of "The Tyger" invites readers to compare this poem with "The Lamb" of Songs of Innocence. What differences and/or similarities do you detect in the rhetorical situations of the two poems? What is each speaker trying to accomplish?

"My Pretty Rose Tree"

1. Does this poem have a "moral"? If so, what is it?

2. "My Pretty Rose Tree" shares a single plate in Songs of Experience with "Ah! Sun-flower" and "The Lilly." How is it related to these other two poems, aside from the obvious flower connection?

"Ah! Sun-flower"

1. Poems about flowers often comment, directly or obliquely, on the human condition. How does Blake's poem compare with some others that use flowers in this way?

2. What are some of the possible meanings of "clime" in line 3?

3. Does the tone of the poem seem, on balance, optimistic or pessimistic?

"London"

1. "London" is written in the first person. How would you characterize this "I"? Does he appear to speak for Blake?

2. Both the streets of London and the Thames River are called "charter'd" in this poem. Look up the word "charter" (both the noun and the verb) in the Oxford English Dictionary. Which definitions seem relevant here?

3. What effect does repetition have in this brief poem?

"The Human Abstract"

1. How do the figures in the design relate to the text of the poem?

2. Choose one of the animals mentioned in the poem--"Catterpiller," "Fly," or "Raven"--and look at its appearance in other texts and designs by Blake. Do any of these other works help to make "The Human Abstract" clearer?

"Infant Sorrow"

1. "Infant Joy" in Songs of Innocence is cast as a dialogue, but this poem is a monologue. Why might Blake have chosen those two different forms for these companion poems?

2. How are the text and design of this poem related?

"A Poison Tree"

1. Blake's original title for this poem in his Notebook was "Christian Forbearance." What role does that quality play in the poem?

2. Compare the tree in this poem with the tree of mystery in "The Human Abstract."

3. What is the effect of Blake's use of repetition in this poem?

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

1. Based on your reading of several Songs of Innocence, try to define "innocence" as Blake conceives it in this collection.

2. What role does fear play in the state Blake calls "experience"? Support your answer with examples from at least three of the Songs of Experience.

3. The Songs include a number of poems about children who are "lost" or "found." What do these poems have in common, besides their similar titles?

4. How is the act of making music (piping, singing, etc.) portrayed in the texts and images of Songs? What impression do these representations give you of Blake's attitude toward music?

5. What roles do laughing and weeping play in the Songs? Do these roles change between Innocence and Experience? If so, in what ways?

What light does Blake's treatment of beasts of prey shed on his ideas of the "contrary states" of innocence and experience? Consider "The Tyger."

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