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Poetry: British Literature after 1800
Blake: From Songs of Experience (1794)
Click here to see the full text of this poem sequence to the right.
Notes on:
General Notes: As noted before, many of these later poems are sarcastic or gloomy responses to the first set of songs of Innocence. It seems, in retrospect, as if he was setting himself up with straight lines in preparation for the punchlines herein. It reads a bit like Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary." Although the first group seems happy in most cases, it's kind of ditzy-chearful, and these in comparison seem more conscious of the real world. However it's thoroughly pessimistic, and suggests that Blake was an embittered misanthrope. Well--we'll see. There's a sense now of coming to the real meat of this sequence. If I didn't know that the whole "Songs of Innocence" was written and engraved first, I would suppose that the whole sequence was written just in order to be shot full of holes by the second sequence here.
I think it's important to remember that these are called SONGS of Innocence and of Experience, not POEMS. There are some things in lyrics that poetry would, perhaps, be embarrassed by: the musical element can adjust so that everything fits into the beat, but without the notation it's hard for readers of the text only to guess the writer's intention. I don't know of any specific musical element connected with these, however; possibly Blake called them songs so as to give him some freedom that isn't included on his Poetic License. Or maybe he's just a hack.
It is rather a mystery to me how the People In Charge chose just these poems out of the "Songs of Experience." Others seem better or more suited to a comparison with the Innocents. So since if you click here you can read the whole schlooumph, I recommend these: The Fly (compare with Burns's "hand on plough" piece "the Mouse"), Ah! Sun-flower, A Poison Tree (very good and pedagogical), the Human Abstract, To Tirzah (ca. 1805), Infant Sorrow (goes against Infant Joy), and A Divine Image (1790-91). And----
Before we may read "Earth's Answer," it's first necessary to see what the Earth is answering; it's a question posed in the "Introduction" for this poem sequence. According to our friend Norton (Anthology of English Literature, 5th Ed. Vol .2. p. 37), either the "Bard" (a poet-prophet: Blake) or the voice of God in Eden is calling to the fallen soul and the fallen Earth (fallen from grace by eating the Fruit of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, that is): "The behest is to turn full to the light and stop the endless natural cycle of alternating light and darkness"--symbolic darkness, of course. The voice calls out to these entities, "Why wilt thou turn away?/The starry floor/The watry shore/Is giv'n thee till the break of day." Norton also specifies that in Blake's symbology, the "starry floor," that is, the sky at night, "signifies rigid rational order, and the sea signifies chaos." Glad you asked? So, in a mystical way, God or the Bard is saying that, till the second coming (I think), the only choices open to Mankind are either to embrace chaos, or to be controlled by some external force. Yuck. Anyway, now it's time for
1. Earth's Answer (Show the poem!)
Norton, in the same page's notes, says, "The Earth's answer
explains why she, the natural world, cannot by her unaided endeavors renew
the fallen light." Bravo. Earth is personified as a careworn
woman. A gloomy setting. She blames her failure to the shackles
imposed upon her by "the Father of the ancient men." This is not "God
the Father," but instead a figure that was later called Urizen by Blake in
his prophetic works, according again to Norton. (38) She says
that no one can get on with their business unless they're free from chains,
selfishness, fear, secrecy, shame, jealousy, and Exams. (maybe Blake
didn't intend the Exams part; that's my personal interpretation.)
In terms of the technical aspects of this one, let me see. . . BRB!
Well. . .again there's a DIY aspect here, you've got to hide your love
of tradition away. We've got these half feet again, triplets,
etc. There's a feeling of forced rests that we've been unaccustomed
to. For example, verse 5:
| (oh) BREAK this HEAvy CHAIN
(ba dum) that DOES freeze my BONES aROUND; (da dum) (you) SELfish VAIN e-TER-nal
BANE that free
LOVE
with BON-dage BOUND. (ta-dahhhh!) |
If we can allow for this kind of heavy adjustment, putting lines 3 and
4 back together again (more successfully than my Humpty Dumpty attempt)
we get a kind of iambic tetrameter--I think so: though lines 1, 2,
and 5 of each verse are only three feet long, it doesn't work without the
rests--and with the 3rd and 4th lines making a line of tetrameter. Now
some PhD students would be depressed by this sort of thing!
In this configuration, this reads almost like a limerick (though in a
duple meter, not triple).
HERE's a new one, for comparison.
| A
student who lived in Changhua Loved to travel, but couldn't go far. "If I journey," said he, "I'll drop into the sea, "So what is the use of a car?" |
2. The Clod & The Pebble
(Show the poem!)
Blake works again with bookends here, in this case a kind of mini experiment
in Innocence and Experience, personified by the pliable clod of Clay who
doesn't care which way it's moulded, and the pebble, hard as a rock and living
in a stream, takes the opposite view of LOVE. The pebble seems to
win for a witty quip that reverses the Clod's opinion; I guess the Clod is
dirt stupid. Simple otherwise; it's like a little Aesop's fable.
Meter is just iambic pentameter with no forced rests. abab, three
verses. Speech-narration-counterspeech. Representing, just as
in Aesop, two kinds of people. The Innocent ("Welcome to Eden!") kind
and the Experienced ("This way OUT") kind. That bite of the Fruit of
Knowledge was a doozy.
3. The Sick Rose
(Show the poem!)
This is the tiniest little poem, two verses of mixed meters,
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That's the first verse; the second is reconcilable but different.
As for the meaning, my Romantic Poetry professor Yu Guang Zhong told our
class that it represented the "harlots" or prostitutes in London, and VDs.
Well, could be. If so, Blake wasn't the last to suggest that
sexually contracted diseases were a kind of punishment for wickedness. Blake
said somewhere, "Every harlot was a virgin once." Astute chap! Was
every true poet a hack once? (Blake lived till he was seventy.)
4. The Tyger (Show the poem!)
This is probably the most popularly-known of Blake's work. Maybe
more well known for misspelling "tiger" and mis-rhyming "symmetry," but
anyhoo. . .
This one was written beween 1790 and 1792, before the others, as far as
we know. It's kind of a parallel to the meek Lamb of the previous poem
cycle. But this time it's the writer addressing the Tyger, whereas
the Lamb was addressed by the child, not the narrator. The core of
this one seems to be that this scarey warey tiger might have been made by
the creator of the Lamb. It suggests that maybe there's more to God
than the smiley faced creator.
I can't get much more out of it than that. The star reference seems
related to order from above, but it's not worked up.
5. The Garden Of Love (Show the poem!)
Depressing and rather obviously symbolic in a dreamlike way. Though this is not a response, it seems, to a specific song of Innocence, it's comparing a childhood memory with the "facts" of experienced life, and the narrator is disillusioned with maturity. Sounds like he's now more disillusioned with church--perhaps not with God--with its regulations of our lives, possibly representing all of the social graces. The priests seem to be the agents of submission--related to the work of the 'stars'?
6. London (Show the poem!)
This is a little plainer when we apply the really great footnotes from Our Pal Norton, Anthology of English Lit 5th Ed. Vol. 2 p. 42-3. I like this one a bit more, because it seems to be saying something more concrete and constructive, while still using "poetic language" that has lots of meanings. As a punster, I appreciate that.
"Chartered" means "given liberty" but also "pre-empted as private property, and rented out". Good work, Billy.
"Ban" is a really good word, referring to political and legal prohibition, curse, public condemnation, and also is like "Bann", which is a marriage proclamation. All related, by Blake, to "mind-forged manacles"--excellent work, Billy. You get a star.
Compare the "mind-forged manacles" to various other literary paraphrases, such as Doris Lessing: "Prisons we choose to live in" etc. (sorry if that's a bit off)
Blake even refers to the next poem on our list, #7. The reference to the "blackening" church could refer to the pollution from new factories as London becomes more industrialized, and also to the misuse that organized religion is being put to. The soldier is certainly a good example of someone manipulated by social and political forces--from without. The 'palace' reinforces the lousiness of monarchy.
The Harlot--or prostitute--has a "curse" which is commonly interpreted as venereal disease, which can cause prenatal blindness in patients' children, and often kills the child before it has a chance to live. The curse could perhaps be merely kvetching and swearing at the unwanted child, but that is a less forceful image. Why is Blake so interested in these harlots? They seem less "forced" than the soldier and sweep...? Anyhow it sounds like he'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company, get socially active without getting a social disease.
I'd rather not talk about the meter.
7. The Chimney Sweeper (Show the poem!)
Getting still sharper here, tackling social hypocrisy. The little black thing needn't be a Black boy; all sweeps got turn'd black in the flues. They were a bunch of fluesies. Blake doesn't go so far as to show the parents breaking the kid's limbs in order to make money off of him as a cogent beggar, but that's the inclination. The second to last line is hard. *ourch!* Sounds rather leechlike, burning the poor to make the rich comfy. Those dastards. The ties with the earlier "sweeper" poem are obvious. Perhaps it's the same kid, with a few more chimneys under his belt. Well, scratch that, no, this one has both parents. Yet this kid here has a better life, it sounds like it at least, but the other one complains less. Spoiled!
If you want to compare my sorry notes on The Chimney Sweeper (in Songs of Innocence) just click on its title and you'll go there, lickity-splat.
8. Holy Thursday (Show the poem!)
Of course it is a "flipside" to the other Holy Thursday, see link below.
The rhyming is a bit wonky. Verse 1 is abab. Verse 2 is abcd. Verse 3 is abcb. Verse 4 is abcb again. Iambic tetrameter.
Blake is again obsessing over comparisons--and fanciful comparisons at that. He fantasizes about the symbolic emotional landscape of the poor children's lives, then compares it to a different fantasy mindscape. Get over it, William! The meanings are rather plain though dressed up a bit. Maybe it's easy for us to "get it" because others have followed his figures of speech? It is possible.
Well, anyhow, if you want to re-look at the other Holy Thursday, just click on its title. But come back soon!
This is the end of the notes for "Songs of Experience"
Next: notes on "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"!
