Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience PDF
Preview Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience
THE CRITICS DEBATE General Editor: Michael Scott The Critics Debate General Editor: Michael Scott Published titles: Sons and Lovers Geoffrey Harvey Bleak House Jeremy Hawthorn The Canterbury Tales Alcuin Blamires Tess of the d'Urbervilles Terence Wright Hamlet Michael Hattaway The Waste Land and Ash Wednesday Arnold PoHinchliffe Paradise Lost Margarita Stocker King Lear Ann Thompson Othello Peter Davison Gulliver's Travels Brian Tippett The Winter's Tale Bill Overton Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience David Wo Lindsay Measure for Measure T F Wharton 0 0 BLAKE: SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE David W. Lindsay M MACMILLAN © David W. Lindsay 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 978-0-333-44434-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 {as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1989 Published by MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG2l 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Lindsay, David W. Songs of innocence and experience. - (The Critics debate). I. Poetry in English. Blake, William, 1757- 1827. Songs of innocence & Songs of experience - Critical studies I. Title II. Blake, William, 1757-1827. Songs of innocence & Songs of experience 821'.7 ISBN 978-0-333-44435-1 ISBN 978-1-349-20005-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20005-4 For Cora 7 Contents General Editor's Preface 9 Author's Preface 10 Introduction 11 Part One: Survey 17 Defining the text 17 Antecedents of Innocence 21 Reading the designs 25 Voices of Innocence 29 'The Chimney Sweeper' 34 Transition and system 38 Counterparts 43 Voices of Experience 47 A trilogy 52 Part Two: Appraisal 57 Novitiate: 'Holy Thursday' 57 Eden: 'The Ecchoing Green' 61 Generation: 'The Little Girl Lost' and 'The Little Girl Found' 66 Prophecy: 'The Tyger' and 'The Fly' 71 Scripture: 'The Human Abstract' 76 Redemption: 'To Tirzah' 80 References 85 Index to Poems 89 Index to Critics 91 9 General Editor's Preface Over the last few years the practice of literary cntiCISm has become hotly debated. Methods developed earlier in the century and before have been attacked and the word 'crisis' has been drawn upon to describe the present condition of English Studies. That such a debate is taking place is a sign of the subject disci pline's health. Some would hold that the situation necessitates a radical alternative approach which naturally implies a 'crisis situation'. Others would respond that to employ such terms is to precipitate or construct a false position. The debate continues but it is not the first. 'New Criticism' acquired its title because it attempted something fresh, calling into question certain practices of the past. Yet the practices it attacked were not entirely lost or negated by the new critics. One factor becomes clear: English Studies is a pluralistic discipline. What are students coming to advanced work in English for the first time to make of all this debate and controversy? They are in danger of being overwhelmed by the cross-currents of critical approaches as they take up their study of literature. The purpose of this series is to help delineate various critical approaches to specific literary texts. Its authors are from a variety of critical schools and have approached their task in a flexible manner. Their aim is to help the reader come to terms with the variety of criticism and to introduce him or her to further reading on the subject and to a fuller evaluation of a particular text by illustrating the way it has been approached in a number of contexts. In the first part of the book a critical survey is given of some of the major ways the text has been appraised. This is done sometimes in a thematic manner, sometimes according to various 'schools' or 'approaches'. In the second part the authors provide their own appraisals of the text from their stated critical standpoint, allowing the reader the knowledge of their own particular approaches from which their views may in tum be evaluated. The series therein hopes to introduce and to elucidate criticism of authors and texts being studied and to encourage participation as the critics debate. Michael Scott 10 Author's Preface The structural principles governing this survey of Blake criticism should be clear from the table of contents; but some further explanation may be found helpful. The Introduction describes how a Blakean engraved book was created, and considers the implications of this process. The first section ofPart One assesses the advantages and disadvantages of the various printed texts. The next four sections of Part One examine a range of critical approaches, with particular reference to Songs qf Innocence. The last four sections of Part One examine a further range of critical approaches, with particular reference to Songs qf Experience. Part Two traces the evolution of Songs of Innocence and Experience in the context of Blake's other writings, and gives closer attention to eight poems. The list of references identifies the critical works mentioned, and offers suggestions for further reading. Alan BeHringer, Tony Brown, Tom Corns, John Eadie, Peter Field, Ian Gregson, Chris Jones, Margaret Locherbie-Cameron, Brian Mastin, Mark Sinfield and Bill Tydeman have assisted me in a variety of ways. I am also grateful to Pat Pritchard andJoyce Williams, who typed the manuscript, and to the library staff of the University College of North Wales. My greatest debt, as always, is to my wife. Bangor 1988 David W. Lindsay 11 Introduction Works of literature assume many forms, in consequence of the various modes of literary production which are promoted by technical and socioeconomic conditions. The form in which we encounter a work may be very different from the form in which it was created, and critical analysis must take account of the original form and of the historical context implicit in it. A proper understanding of the Child ballads becomes possible only if we take account of the musical and narrative techniques which are encouraged by oral transmission. A play written for performance in the Globe Theatre has to be interpreted in the light of what we know about acting and stagecraft in Shakespeare's London. A monthly-part novel by Dickens should be read with some appreciation of the artistic techniques associated with monthly publication. In these cases and in many others, the reader of a modern printed text has to be aware that this form is entirely different from that in which the work was created. The first step towards intelligent understanding is to envisage the work in its original form, which in most cases can be seen as the form in which it was most truly itself. The work that we know as Songs of Innocence and Experience was in its earliest complete form a Blakean engraved book, and in seeking to interpret it we must recognise the artistic consequences of the unusual manner in which such a book was produced and distributed. Although Blake is now internationally celebrated as a writer and an artist, he was little known in those capacities during his lifetime. He was trained as an engraver, and for most of his life he earned a rather modest living by engraving illustrations for the published texts of other people's writings. None of his important literary works was printed and published in the then customary fashion, and some of them remained in manuscript until long after his death. Many of them were produced and distributed by the author himself, with the aid of
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