Songs of the Not so Innocent

On William Blake’s Songs of Innocence

William Blake’s poems are much like many other children’s nursery rhymes we have all come to know and love. Like most nursery rhymes, the poems have a sense of bounce and an outward appearance of being light and happy, while they are often about something of the opposite nature. Take his poem “The Chimney Sweeper” for example, it has a bounce and rhythm that one would expect from a happy song or story, yet, it is a story about an orphaned boy whose friends are all dying and he has to work hard labor as a chimney sweep to survive. While dealing with this depressing topic, Blake chooses to express it with a bouncy rhythm and overall rather bright tone from the orphaned boy’s perspective. I would compare this as something very similar to the nursery rhyme “London Bridges”.  I find it almost humoursome that this poem, or any of the others in this collection, are called “songs of innocence” because they are not innocent at all. Each poem seems to hide a deeper darker meaning each time I re-read it.  Maybe that was Blake’s intention in the first place, to deceive the reader about what they are about to take in and expose the ugly in everyday events.  Whatever Blake’s intention, I’ve enjoyed reading his work and wrestling with them in my mind. I hope you all had a good fall break and I am excited to see you all in class tomorrow.  :) 

On William Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Unlike William Blake who seems to expose corruption in what appears as innocent youth, William Wordsworth longs for his days of childhood and emphasizes the innocence of the world in the eyes of a child. He refers to losing his innocence and growing up as “That there hath past away a glory from the earth”, and grieves the loss of it deeply.  He lightens his tone a little in the poem when he encounters a Shepherd-boy and has a realization. He comes to understand that even though he no longer has youth and all the joys that come with it, the boy and other children still do. He notices the bliss that the child is in and says that “Heaven lies about us in our infancy” which I interpret as him meaning that as children God protects us from the horrors of the world by blessing us with innocence. In the closing of his poem, he explains how childhood and its innocence are taken away by time and finishes by saying “Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears” which to me is a pure expression of Wordsworth’s sadness of losing what he views as a gift from God.

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