Notes on the Age of Experience
Introduction (Experience)
The Songs of Innocence begins with an 'Introduction' in which the poet is the Piper; here the poet is Bard,
addressing the fallen and sinful Earth and asking it to return to Grace and God. Commentators have
disagreed in their view of the Bard, whether he is a benevolent prophet, weeping over the fallen world, or an
autocratic tyrant, jealous and possessive, full of the Holy Word. Furthermore, the Bard cannot wholly be seen
as Blake himself, for the Songs of Experience show that the fallen world can also be a route to wisdom,
understanding, and ultimately back to God.
Earth's Answer
Our understanding of Earth's Answer depends on how we interpret the questions posed by the Introduction
(Experience) and the Bard's motives for asking the Earth to return to Grace. If the Earth sees the "father of
ancient men" as cruel, jealous and selfish (symbolised, for Blake, in the figure of Urizen), then she is right to
turn away and attempt to remain free. However, because the Earth has fallen from Grace, then perhaps she
does not see the truth behind the Bard's plea for her to return, and remains, as she sees it, a prisoner and
victim of a jealous God. The elaborate form of personification in this poem, along with the imagery and its
associations, allows Blake to express complex metaphysical and theological issues, of the Fall of Man from
Grace and Good, in an apparently straightforward way. The figure of "Earth" here, might be loosely
interpreted as the representative of Experience itself, but more widely as temporal physical existence.
My Pretty Rose Tree
Some have seen this poem autobiographical, and as his reflections on a love passed over. However, it is
probably wiser to read the lyric as the product of the' Experience' state of mind and soul, which has had to
learn of thorns and jealousy from personal experience of love and life.
A Poison Tree
This lyric is a subtle product of the voice of experience, using the figure of the poison tree as a vehicle for
describing the psychological states of transferred hatred and anger. In an earlier draft of the poem the
speaker gives the fruit of his anger to his foe, whereas here the foe is attracted to the apple because he knows
it belongs to the speaker. Critical speculation surrounds the interpretation of both tree and apple in this
poem: the most obvious association is with the apple on the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, leading
to identification of the speaker as the jealous God of creation. Clearly the poem raises issues of the tone and
attitude of the speaker. Is he full of self-congratulation at the death of his foe? Can the poem be read as
simply a warning over the dangers of repressed anger, for where is the remorse over the foe's death or the
speaker's conscience?
The Tiger
Blake's most famous poem raises profound questions, but does not finally answer them. How could the creator
make something as terrifying and awesome as the Tiger? Could the same creator also be responsible for
making the Lamb (both Christ, and the creator whose meek and mild spirit dominates the Songs of
Innocence)? Is the Tiger not created in God's own image? Is the Tiger a symbol of Evil, for elsewhere (as in
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) Blake praises energy as a form of good and delight. These speculations
lead to wider questions, about the wisdom of a God who can create such terrifyingly destructive creations,
and questions of God's creation of Good and Evil, or Good-and-Evil. Comparison with The Lamb in the Songs
of Innocence is extremely illuminating here. The Tiger is personified as having been born from fire (stolen
from the Gods by Prometheus?), forged rather than created, and characterised also in terms of its (metallic)
coldness: note the effectiveness of the poem's imagery in creating associations of fire, coldness and darkness.
Interpretation of the poem is complicated by the fact that we cannot assume the speaker of the poem to be
Blake himself, but perhaps any poet, who has created this Tiger out of his own imagination ("forests of the
night").
The Sick Rose
Many have seen this poem as directly sexual, in its references to venereal disease and to the corruption of the
innocent Rose by the masculine "invisible worm" of sexual experience. Certainly the poem draws on these, but
it should also be read less literally, relying on the traditional associations of the Rose (Love, the young girl) in
its depiction of an altered state of psychological (and spiritual) awareness. The sickness, however, may well
be an internal psychological sickness that comes from unacted desires within the Rose ("Sooner murder an
infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires", from the 'Proverbs of Hell' in The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell) rather than corruption forced from outside. This is a recurrent theme in the Songs of Experience
Infant Sorrow
The counterpart to 'Infant Joy' , in the Songs of Innocence. Here the
child leaps into the "dangerous world", helpless as in the songs of
Innocence, but here imprisoned by the parents and the world, and
sulking at the breast. The infant describes himself as "fiend", having
that energy and instinct which Blake praises in poems such as the
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but we are a long way in this poem
from the innocence of the infant characterised in poems such as A
Cradle Song and other lyrics in the Songs of Innocence sequence. It
is worth noting, however, that the sense of constraint experienced
by the Schoolboy in the Songs of Innocence begins at birth in this
poem.
The Chimney Sweeper (Experience)
A very much darker and more savage vision here than in the
counterpart poem in the Songs of Innocence. The references to a
church which is complicit in the repression of the child, together
with the treatment of the negligent parents, make this one of the most
bitter poems in the sequence, with its emphasis on a whole system
(God, Priest and King) which represses the child, even forcing him
to conceal his unhappiness (a reference to being "clothed"),
psychologically as well as physically). Comparison with the Songs
of Innocence poem The Chimney Sweeper is valuable.
Holy Thursday (Experience)
As might be expected, the perspective in the Experience poem is
much darker and more savage than in the Songs of Innocence
counterpart poem. Here the tone, from the opening lines onward, is
openly questioning of the 'usurous' system of charity which
represses the children, and of the hypocritical un-Christian religion
which refuses to do something more positive for them. It is far less
descriptive than Holy Thursday (Innocence), but it still raises
questions of the speaker's attitude and tone, particularly as to the
status of the final lines: is this the speaker's vision of the after-life,
or an ironic portrait of the vision of Heaven which is being offered
to the children at this service?
London
This provides a bitter and harsh view of the city, which is
characterised in terms of repression, regimentation, disease,
hypocrisy and death. London is dominated by the spirit of
"Reason", the "mind-forged manacles" which bind and restrain
the natural spirit (symbolised in the regimented streets and the
"charter'd Thames"), and the hypocritical Establishment
("church" and "palace") does nothing to prevent or speak out
against injustice (symbolised in the cries of the young chimney
sweepers, with reference here to the political agitation from the
1780s onwards to improve their working conditions of child ).
The new-born child, traditionally a symbol of hope and the
promise of a new start, is here the child of an adolescent
prostitute, blighted by venereal disease, and every marriage, in
this city, is associated with Death (the hearse) rather than Life.
This portrait of a city of repression and death owes
something, perhaps, to Old Testament portraits of Jerusalem prior
to its destruction, but it is clear also that Blake was offering a
perspective on contemporary London, and more particularly to
the city under the counter-revolutionary regime of Pitt in the
1790s. Blake, like contemporary Romantic poets such as Shelley
and the young Wordsworth, were highly critical of the political
reaction to the French Revolution in England, and in this poem
we have some insight into the colour of Blake's radical politics,
and his attempt to provide a total snapshot of a reactionary
culture in all its aspects.
Ah! Sunflower
In this poem the Sunflower, which traditionally looks like the sun
and always turns its face to the sun, yearns to escape, partly from
the sun and from what the sun represents, Time. Where the
sunflower seeks to go is not clear, except that it is to a region out of
or beyond time, a place either of rest and completion, or of
exhausted desire, or of cold virginity (associated here with death
and unacted desire). The actual destination aimed for is perhaps
less important than the fact that the sunflower, rather than joyously
rejoicing in life (the spirit of the Songs of Innocence), is here tired
and weary of life.
The Fly
The speaker, in this poem, speculates on whether he is or is not like
the Fly, carelessly swept away by the speaker's hand. The Fly may
have little, if any, conscious awareness of himself and his mortality
and, if the speaker shares that freedom from awareness, then life or
death is of little consequence. If, on the other hand, the fly does
have human awareness then it is a different story.
The Clod and the Pebble
This poem provides two contrasting attitudes, one of selfless love for
others, and the second, of Love as self-absorption and
possessiveness. The first stanza seems to belong to the Songs of
Innocence sequence, and the final stanza to Songs of Experience,
and perhaps it is left to the reader to adjudicate between the two
attitudes. However, as a poem in the Songs of Experience sequence,
it is important that the final words are given to the selfish Pebble
rather than to the down-trodden Clod, perhaps suggesting that it is
the former's attitude which is seen to be the most insightful. An
alternative view is that the poem presents both perspectives as
equally valid, and mutually true.
The Garden of Love
This Songs of Experience lyric deals with the repression of joys,
desires and instincts by the church and by prohibitive morality. The
speaker, presumably no longer a child, returns to the Garden of
Love, and sees that earlier pastoral and natural vision of Love
transformed by the influence of the Chapel, and by the 'Priests in
black gowns' . Given that the poem deals with a vision of a journey
into the "garden", it is worthwhile to see the poem as a commentary
on the ways that conscience and guilt are imposed on the
Imagination and on what is natural and instinctual, the 'mind-forged
manacles' of London. In Freudian psychological terms this would
correspond to the Superego's policing of the Id. It is also worth
noting that the references to playing "on the green" hark back to a
recurrent image in the Songs of Innocence sequence.
The Voice of the Ancient Bard
Originally this poem belonged to the Songs of Innocence sequence,
but was later transferred to the Songs of Experience, such that its
final stance is uncertain. It is worth contrasting the figure of the
Ancient Bard with that of the Shepherd-piper who speaks in the
Introduction:Innocence. Here the 'Youth of Delight' is invited to
participate in a vision of truth, and to cast aside doubt and folly.
Possibly the poem is inviting the attitude of Innocence to cast aside
its innocence and to learn from what is presented in the Songs of
Experience. Alternatively, perhaps the poem is a kind of summative
statement for the Songs of Innocence and Experience as a whole,
with its summons to a new life and vision.
A Divine Image
This poem was replaced by The Human Abstract in the Songs of
Experience, as a counterpart to The Divine Image
in the Songs of
Innocence. As such it directly opposes the view of humanity
presented in the Songs of Innocence poem: Man, created in God's
image, is seen here in terms of Cruelty, Jealousy, Terror and
Secrecy, and characterised by images of fire, emptiness and
coldness. As a Songs of Experience poem, however, it is the human
(and therefore divine) form as seen from the vantage point of
Experience, rather than being Blake's last word on human nature!
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