Blake's Dialectic in the Songs of Innocence and Experience
Blake 's dialectic is to be found everywhere in the Songs of Innocence and Experience - night and day, winter and spring, wilderness and Eden, etc. As Mitchell writes (1989:46), ‘dialogue and dialectic of contraries constitute the master code of Blake 's text’. Bass (1970:209) adds, ‘The total effect of Innocence and Experience is one of balanced opposites, each fulfilling and completing the other’. Moreover, according to John Beer, the ‘contrary states’ of the human soul are dialectic in themselves. Blake intended for his reader to come into a space where he/she could encounter the two contraries in dialogue, within the imagination, and come to a sense of resolution.
The most important contrary relationship in the Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794), of course, is that between Innocence and Experience. For Blake, as a quick glance of the Songs will show, Innocence was largely associated with childhood, and Experience with adulthood; but, as a more methodical analysis will show, these associations are not absolute, for instance, while such poems as ‘The Lamb’ represent a meek virtue, poems like ‘The Tyger’ exhibit opposing, darker forces.
As Marsh (2001:30) notes, ‘It would be wrong to think of Experience as any wiser than Innocence’ or any more cynical or world-weary; it would be equally wrong to think of Innocence as more joyful. There are elements of both in each. For Blake, these were virtual time-spaces or mind-states, with portals from one to the other appearing in either world. And it was not the road to or from one or the other that concerned Blake, but rather the road between them which eventually led beyond all dualities. As Marsh (2001:30) notes, for Blake ‘it appears that the route towards wholeness and a ‘true’ vision lies through combination of the two, not rejection of either of them.’
However, the collection as a whole explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems fall into pairs,
The most important contrary relationship in the Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794), of course, is that between Innocence and Experience. For Blake, as a quick glance of the Songs will show, Innocence was largely associated with childhood, and Experience with adulthood; but, as a more methodical analysis will show, these associations are not absolute, for instance, while such poems as ‘The Lamb’ represent a meek virtue, poems like ‘The Tyger’ exhibit opposing, darker forces.
As Marsh (2001:30) notes, ‘It would be wrong to think of Experience as any wiser than Innocence’ or any more cynical or world-weary; it would be equally wrong to think of Innocence as more joyful. There are elements of both in each. For Blake, these were virtual time-spaces or mind-states, with portals from one to the other appearing in either world. And it was not the road to or from one or the other that concerned Blake, but rather the road between them which eventually led beyond all dualities. As Marsh (2001:30) notes, for Blake ‘it appears that the route towards wholeness and a ‘true’ vision lies through combination of the two, not rejection of either of them.’
However, the collection as a whole explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems fall into pairs,
Bibliography: Marsh, N. (2001) William Blake: The Poems. New York: Palgrave. Mitchell, W.J.T. (1970) "Blake 's Composite Art." Blake 's Visionary Forms Dramatic. Eds. David V. Erdman and John E. Grant. Princeton: Princeton UP. Mitchell, W.J.T. (1989) "Image and Text in Songs." Approaches to Teaching Blake 's Songs of Innocence and Experience. Eds. Robert F. Gleckner and Mark L. Greenberg. New York: The Modern Language Association of America. Bass, E. (1970) "Songs of Innocence and of Experience: The Thrust of Design." Blake 's Visionary Forms Dramatic. Eds. David V. Erdman and John E. Grant. Princeton: Princeton UP. WU, D. (1998) Romanticism: an Anthology. Blackwell Publishers, 2nd ed.