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Children in Blake's poems and illustrations from Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake issued his Songs of Innocence in 1789 and five years later in 1794, he reissued it with the addition of Songs of Experience, which he then merged into a single book. Both were produced in the manner of illuminated printing. The poems deal with the portrayal of children and the childlike spirit, how it manifests through characteristics of innocence and how it is destroyed through experience. Innocence denotes a state in which one observes the world through joy, naivety, safety, and emotional warmth. Experience, on the other hand, is a state of hopelessness, cynicism, loneliness, and cruelty fuelled by the harsh realities of the world. At first sight, it might seem one of these states is undesired and should be avoided, but the lesson the Songs teach the reader is that both are part of existence, and being human means incorporating both of these states within ourselves. How this childlike spirit (and its destruction) is depicted, both in words and in the visual arts, and what it expresses using the motif of a child will be systemized in this thesis. The poems are categorized based on their primary themes. Firstly, divine inspiration and spirituality. In 'Introduction', Blake portrays innocence as a metaphor for divine inspiration in the form of a child on a cloud. Turning away from our childlike creative forces severs our connection to God and redirects our attention to false values. 'The Lamb' symbolizes Jesus and the divine but also portrays innocence as fragile and naive. 'Infant Joy' explores the beauty of pure innocence untouched by experience in a dialogue between a mother and her child. The second category inspects exploitation by the State and society, beginning with 'The Chimney Sweeper' where the issue of child labour is addressed through the subject of young chimney sweepers whose inessentiality and small size were used for cramming them in narrow spaces to scrape and clean soot, often causing injuries, fractures, suffocations, and asphyxiations. 'London' is a critique of the English society addressing everyday people and their misery. The third category deals with exploitation by the Church, exemplified by 'Holy Thursday' which brings up the subject of child mistreatment through the work of Charity Schools, and 'Infant Sorrow' which questions the restrictions imposed on human life since birth. The final category condemns slavery through the poem 'The Little Black Boy', in which a mother tells her child a lovely story to soften the reality of slave treatment.

William Blake, English Romanticism, Songs of Innocence and Experience, children

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