Monday, February 11, 2013
Songs of Innocence and Irony
While reading these poems it made me think of how ironic in the Songs of Innocence a poem about a child working in miserable conditions as a chimney sweeper would be in this set of poems meant as an ode to the innocent ways of children. To me this was a deliberant way of shocking the audience with the hopelessness situation the child was in, and bringing awareness of the plight that these children were suffering. The hopeful way the boy describes life after their work, either death or a imaginary world where their all safe and happy shows the resilience that the narrator has that his life and those of his friends gives the reader, or atleast myself a sense of cynical hopefullness.
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I agree that innocence is ironic. Is innocence any more than a lack of experience? Experience is something that we are forever obtaining and we are constantly engaged in while innocence can also be expressed in an active sense; ignorance, or being naive of pride or danger is often times attributed to being innocence. Innocence is only defined as an after thought of the experienced because they perceive something to be greater or existing upon a greater plane. I think that Blake's juxtapositions show innocence as a pure form of thought while experience has lead us to be more cynical as adjustment for a cruel world. Innocence is what we need to be reminded of and maybe that is why Blake only allowed Songs of Innocence to standalone.
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