Features of Romanticism in Blake’s Songs of Innocence And Songs of Experience

William Blake, the son of a London hosiery tradesman, was a strange, imaginative child. His soul was at home with books, flowers, and fairies than with the crowd of the city streets. 

Romanticism seeds had been sewn into Blake’s nature much earlier than Romanticism was officially proclaimed by the publication of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 by Wordsworth and Coleridge. 

If the Romantic poetry of the early nineteenth century was prevailing in contrast with the poetry of the neo-classical period, Blake was a great romantic poet because his poetry is richer in romanticism than in the classical elements. It is assumable that he has minor classical qualities in his poetry and his poems, which can perhaps equal the poems of the Romantic poets in many aspects.

Blake Redefined Romanticism in The Eighteenth Century

Romanticism stresses imagination, nature worship, humanitarianism, liberty, mysticism, and symbolism. The exploitation of all kinds- social, religious, and political, and by introducing a new poetic diction in theme and style as opposed to the reasoned, logical, and superficial poetry of the eighteenth century. 

If one reads the poems, the ‘Songs of Innocence’ and the ‘Songs of Experience’ attentively, they will accept that most qualities of Romanticism are available in Blake’s poems. For this, perhaps, he has been rightly called the ‘Precursor of Romanticism.’ It is the poetry of Blake that proclaims the down of Romanticism in the eighteenth century.

Speaking historically, Romanticism began with Blake as he broke away from the so-called Augustan age’s literary tradition and poetic diction for the first time. 

The Romantics believed in the freedom of art in their creations. The poetry of the preceding period suffered from an excessive adherence to rules and monotony of heroic couplets. All the branches of literature were confined to the four walls of classical norms. Nonetheless, Blake refused to adhere. 

Blake said, 

“We do not want either Greek or Roman models if we are but just and true to our own imaginations.” 

William Blake, English Poet.

Blake Introduces A New Style of Diction

In diction, Blake introduces a new style. The themes and styles of the ‘Songs of Innocence’ and the ‘Songs of Experience’ are simple and easy. The common man’s sons and daughters who work in the mills and factories, live in orphanages, and become the victims of social oppression, are taken as the poem’s subject matter. 

In short, in poems like ‘The Chimney Sweepers’ and ‘The Echoing Green,’ the joys and sufferings of poor children have found expression before Wordsworth.

Imagination is the most vital characteristic of Romanticism coupled with intuition, and imagination plays a dominant role in Blake’s poetry. The poetic creed of Blake is based on imagination. According to him, 

“Mental things are alone real.” 

William Blake, English Poet.

Blake’s Vision of Restoring Poetry’s Golden Age

Blake is a visionary and imaginative poet. He wants to restore ‘the golden age’ of poetry. He displayed his imaginative faculty in his concept of God in the poem, the ‘Divine Image.’ Here, he asserts that God is the creative and spiritual power in man:

“And all must love human form,

In heathen, Turk or Jew

Where mercy, love and pity dwell,

There God is dwelling too.“

William Blake, Divine Image. 

Blake Pours Nature into His Poetry to Sympathize with Human Heart

Nature was not an essential factor in the poetry of the Neo-classical period. However, love or worship, or in other words, ‘The deep interest in nature,’ is one of the salient features of Romantic poetry. In Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience,’ nature is associated with human activities. 

In the spring, the sound of the bell, the merry voices of thrush, and the sparrows do co-operation with the songs of children. In the poem ‘The Echoing Green,’ nature echoes the happiness of children:

“The sun does arise,

And make happy the skies

The merry bells ring

To welcome the spring.“

William Blake, The Echoing Green. 

Therefore, nature is a part of the human universe, and it sympathizes with the human heart in Blake’s view. The pastoral setting in his poetry gives an added spiritual color and conforms to the innocence of the children. 

In describing the scenes of beauty, Blake is skillful as Spenser. The poem ‘The Laughing Song’ provides an example. It is a vibrant scene. Nature in ‘Songs of Innocence’ smells of Eden where sin is absent in man’s conscience. It is full of romantic joy. 

Blake Symbolizes Spiritual Significance with Nature

There is another aspect of nature in Blake’s poem. It has symbolical undertones in the ‘Garden of Love’ in the ‘Songs of Experience.’ Meeting the child in the valley who inspires at the beginning of the ‘Songs of Innocence,’ the poet asserts a spiritual significance.

Blake was the poet of revolt, and he thundered, like Shelley in the ‘Queen Mab,’ at kings and priests in his ‘Songs.’ He mercilessly attacked priestcraft and hackneyed conventions of the contemporary church. He considered them to be the greatest obstacle to human progress. 

The poem, ‘The Little Bay Lost,’ is a direct blow at the cruelty of religion which seeks to replace natural love with the authority of Priests.

Blake has used symbols to express his ideas like Shelley. ‘The Little Black Boy’ and ‘Clod and The Pebble’ are symbolical. The symbolic use of natural objects says that Brooke is fascinating and imaginative. The sun, the moon, the stars, mountains, streams, and flowers are loaded with spiritual meaning.

EndNote

Blake had a small readership in a mechanical age like the eighteenth century as very few readers could appreciate his genius. However, later on, he was placed among the top poets considered the ‘precursors of Romanticism.’

Blake rang the bell of the parting century to herald a new age in English poetry through his effort, later known as the Romantic revival.