A Comparison of Blake’s Poems “the Divine Image” and “the Human Abstract”
Erich Nolan
CMLT-C205
3/19/12
A Comparison of Blake’s Poems “The Divine Image” and “The Human Abstract”
William Blake (1757-1827, London) is considered the first of the great English Romantic poets; he was also a master engraver, a printer, and a painter. Blake was not widely known during his life and it wasn’t until some time after his death that his poetic works became widely read. Two of his best-known works “Songs of Innocence” (SoI) and “Songs of Experience” (SoE) contain the poems that I will compare here. These collections of poems are companions, but it should be noted that SoE was written about 4-5 years after SoI. The poems are best read by seeing them in their original print form with the accompanying engravings. Many of the poems in SoE can be seen as responses to particular poems in SoI. “The Divine Image” and “The Human Abstract” are a perfect example of one poem being written as a response to another. Blake described innocence and experience as “Showing the two contrary states of the human soul” (Blake’s subtitle). The use of the word contrary seems to speak to the way that Western thinking separates the world into opposing ideals e.g. dark and light, good and evil, heaven and hell, etcetera. Along with dualistic thought patterns, the tendency for Western thought is to choose one perceived side over the other, choosing one side and calling it good while rejecting the other side as wrong. Literary critics, including Keith Sagar, make the point that “poetry is a non-dualistic language, which is why poetry is invariably metaphorical, and the poet is the connector” (2002). Taking this view, we can see that Blake is tying together these ‘contrary states’ and that we aren’t being told to choose between innocence and experience because it isn’t possible to do so. There are joys of innocence, but also a lack of knowledge. As we grow and learn, we gain experience and may lose the bliss of innocence, but we gain understanding, which is a
CMLT-C205
3/19/12
A Comparison of Blake’s Poems “The Divine Image” and “The Human Abstract”
William Blake (1757-1827, London) is considered the first of the great English Romantic poets; he was also a master engraver, a printer, and a painter. Blake was not widely known during his life and it wasn’t until some time after his death that his poetic works became widely read. Two of his best-known works “Songs of Innocence” (SoI) and “Songs of Experience” (SoE) contain the poems that I will compare here. These collections of poems are companions, but it should be noted that SoE was written about 4-5 years after SoI. The poems are best read by seeing them in their original print form with the accompanying engravings. Many of the poems in SoE can be seen as responses to particular poems in SoI. “The Divine Image” and “The Human Abstract” are a perfect example of one poem being written as a response to another. Blake described innocence and experience as “Showing the two contrary states of the human soul” (Blake’s subtitle). The use of the word contrary seems to speak to the way that Western thinking separates the world into opposing ideals e.g. dark and light, good and evil, heaven and hell, etcetera. Along with dualistic thought patterns, the tendency for Western thought is to choose one perceived side over the other, choosing one side and calling it good while rejecting the other side as wrong. Literary critics, including Keith Sagar, make the point that “poetry is a non-dualistic language, which is why poetry is invariably metaphorical, and the poet is the connector” (2002). Taking this view, we can see that Blake is tying together these ‘contrary states’ and that we aren’t being told to choose between innocence and experience because it isn’t possible to do so. There are joys of innocence, but also a lack of knowledge. As we grow and learn, we gain experience and may lose the bliss of innocence, but we gain understanding, which is a
Cited: Blake, William. Selected Poems. London, England. Penguin Classics. 2005. Brecht, Bertolt. The Good Woman of Setzuan. Translated by Eric Bentley. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press. 1999. Sagar, Keith. (2002) Innocence and Experience. Reading William Blake. Retrieved 3/19/2012. http://www.keithsagar.co.uk/Blake/index.html