Infant Joy and Infant Sorrow Jacks

• Perspective — this poem adopts the 1st person perspective of a nameless child

• Religious context — this namelesness linked with the “two days old” may allude to religious conventions: custom dictated children be baptised at 3 days old — this may allude to the idea that being free from organised religious conventions allows for free and happy children

• Improper syntax —”I happy am” further emphasises the inexperienced youth of the child

• Anaphora — “sweet” — as well as repetition of the noun “joy” exemplifies these two qualities

• Semantic pattern — this creates a saccharine semantic pattern

• Sense of fleeting joy - Sweet joy befall me repeated twice, first with exclamative, second without. This shows how fast childhood enthusiasm can be lost?

Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)

• Anaphora

• Unclear rhyme scheme and rhythm — unpoetic but unbridled and free

• Parallel syntax: “My mother groand! my father wept" — this creates a limbo of authority figures that offer no consolation

• AABB rhyme scheme — shows that the child has now been subject to experience. More regimented rhyme and life.

• Asyndetic list & simile — emphasises the newfound vulnerability of the child & “cloud” is ephemeral

• Parallel syntax pt 2 & Rousseau context — again emphasises the struggle and newfound grief of the child — Rousseau says “man is born free but everywhere he is in chains”

• SF: imagery of shackles — “struggling”, “striving”, and “bound” — creates a semantic field of struggle and restriction

Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)

• Parallel syntax

• AABB rhyme scheme

• Ambiguous use of simple concepts

• Simple imagery that contrasts the complexity of the poems’ underlying themes

• Sensory/auditory imagery

• Theme of childhood innocence

• Imagery of shackles and theme of liberation

• Rousseau’s “Preface to Emile” ideology

• Conventions of children’s literature

• Blake’s attitude towards the Church and organised religion

“In this poem we witness a child directly entering the world of Experience at the point of birth and recognising in doing so that its world is associated with pain, sorrow, and resentment.”

It “captures a sense of wide-eyed, open-hearted wonder, as yet undamaged by the realities of the world.”