William Blake's Songs of Innocence
Blake’s use of the pastoral in Songs of Innocence and Experience
Put simply, Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience juxtapose the innocent pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression. The collection as a whole, by means of paired poems in Innocence and Experience (The Lamb, The Tyger; The Ecchoing Green, The Garden of Love/London; The Nurse’s Song (I and E); Introduction (I and E); The Chimney sweeper (I and E), etc) explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives of the world. The same situation or problem is seen through the eyes or perspective of Innocence first, then Experience. Blake stands outside Innocence and Experience, in a distanced position from which he recognises and attempts to correct the fallacies of both perspectives. He uses the pastoral, in many songs, to attack oppressive and destructive authority (Church, King, parents, adult figures), restrictive morality, sexual repression, established religion – the Established Church, social inequality, militarism.
The pastoral is a literary style that presents an idealised and artificial picture of rural life, the naturalness and innocence of which is seen in contrast with the corruption and artificiality of city and court. The pastoral is often seen as a nostalgic looking back at a lost paradise, a lost Eden, a lost Golden Age. However, Blake does something different with the pastoral. Firstly, he rejects the nostalgia of the ideal in order to show the real human condition. He does this by opposing pastoral ideal and urban reality both within the single states of Innocence and Experience and between the two states. (For example – ‘Introduction’ of Innocence, ‘The Shepherd’). Secondly, he radically redefines the relation of the pastoral to the city because the Songs as a volume could be said to take place in the city. Blake frames the obviously pastoral scenes within an urban setting in a way that breaks down the conventional city/country
Put simply, Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience juxtapose the innocent pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression. The collection as a whole, by means of paired poems in Innocence and Experience (The Lamb, The Tyger; The Ecchoing Green, The Garden of Love/London; The Nurse’s Song (I and E); Introduction (I and E); The Chimney sweeper (I and E), etc) explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives of the world. The same situation or problem is seen through the eyes or perspective of Innocence first, then Experience. Blake stands outside Innocence and Experience, in a distanced position from which he recognises and attempts to correct the fallacies of both perspectives. He uses the pastoral, in many songs, to attack oppressive and destructive authority (Church, King, parents, adult figures), restrictive morality, sexual repression, established religion – the Established Church, social inequality, militarism.
The pastoral is a literary style that presents an idealised and artificial picture of rural life, the naturalness and innocence of which is seen in contrast with the corruption and artificiality of city and court. The pastoral is often seen as a nostalgic looking back at a lost paradise, a lost Eden, a lost Golden Age. However, Blake does something different with the pastoral. Firstly, he rejects the nostalgia of the ideal in order to show the real human condition. He does this by opposing pastoral ideal and urban reality both within the single states of Innocence and Experience and between the two states. (For example – ‘Introduction’ of Innocence, ‘The Shepherd’). Secondly, he radically redefines the relation of the pastoral to the city because the Songs as a volume could be said to take place in the city. Blake frames the obviously pastoral scenes within an urban setting in a way that breaks down the conventional city/country