Blake Recalls Innocence and Experience

Blake Recalls Innocence and Experience Blake Recalls Innocence and Experience When attempting to penetrate into the deeper themes of William Blake 's cycle of poems "Songs of Innocence and Experience " it can be useful to recognize that the title of the poems , as well as the subsequent division into sections of innocence and experience carries ironic connotations . Blake 's intention in this cycle of poems , which he subtitled "Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (Ostriker 1977 ,

.104 ) was to posit the relationship of individual freedom and self-determination as being

at one with Divine Will . Therefore , the state of innocence which is referred to in the cycle 's title as well as in the division of poems itself is meant to suggest -- not ignorance which leads to innocence -- but the innocence which is gained (or reclaimed ) by the experience of the Divine . In fact the first poem in the "innocence " cycle "Introduction " makes plainly manifest , Blake 's ironic use of the titular connotations of innocence and experience . The poem 's second stanza reads

Pipe a song about a Lamb

So I piped with merry chear

Piper pipe that song again---

So I piped , he wept to hear (Ostriker , 1977 ,

. 104 The subtlety of Blake 's theme here is so accomplished as to be almost invisible when one reads the lines without carefully probing each word for its connotations . Special attention must be given to each word-choice to extract from the sing-song pleasantness of...