The Poetic Imagination in William Blake's Early Poetry

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2007 년

서강대학교 대학원

영어영문 학과

오 은 영

The Poetic Imagination in William Blake's Early Poetry

지도교수 박 상 기

이 논문을 영문학석사 학위논문으로 제출함

2008 년 7 월

서강대학교 대학원

영어영문 학과

오 은 영

논 문 인 준 서

오은영의 영문학석사 학위논문을 인준함

2008 년 7 월

주심 김 태 원 인

부심 박 상 기 인

부심 김 영 주 인

The Poetic Imagination in William Blake's Early Poetry

Oh, Eunyoung

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Sogang University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts

2008

Acknowledgement

First of all, I should like to express my gratitude to my thesis advisor,

Prof. Park, Sangkee. Although he was always very busy during this semester, he has spent his time advising and giving lots of valuable suggestions and comments for my thesis. I am also deeply grateful to Prof. Kim, Taewon and

Prof. Kim, Youngjoo who willingly offered their valuable comments during my defense, which was greatly helpful in the revision of my thesis. And I also thank to my family, friends and colleagues for their sincere concern and heartfelt encouragement.

July, 2008

Oh, Eunyoung

Table of Contents

국문 초록…………………………………………………………..i

Abstract……………………………………..……………………..iv

Introduction……………….…...…………...……………………….1

Chapter I ..………………………………………………………….7

Imagination as a way to Utopia

Chapter II ……………………………….………………………...30

Imagination as a Unification of the Contraries

Conclusion…………………………….…………………………..46

Works Cited………………………………….……………………51

국문초록

블레이크는 사회적 혁명의 시기에 사회 개혁을 위한 노

력으로서 급진적인 혁명 세력으로서의 참여가 아니라 상상력

통해 새로운 가치 체계를 이루고 사회를 변화시킬 수 있다고

믿었던 낭만주의 시인이었다. 순수의 상징물들이 경험의 노래

에서 파괴되어 가는 사회적 현실을 그대로 반영하였으며 그러

한 현실을 극복하고 이상세계로 갈 수 있는 출구는 물리적 혁

명이 아니라 개인의 상상력에 있다고 믿었다. 그에게 있어서

상상력은 그가 추구하였던 이상세계로 갈 수 있는 통로일 뿐

아니라, 순수와 경험, 사랑과 미움, 선과 악 등의 대립의 갈등

을 넘어서 초월적인 자유를 누릴 수 있게 하는 것이었다.

블레이크는 하나의 작은 상징물들에도 무한한 의미를

불어넣음으로써 독자에게도 상상의 공간을 점차 넓혀나가도록

하였다. 그의 시에 등장하는 상징물들은 자연에서 쉽게 마주

칠 수 있는 흐르는 물, 양떼들, 조약돌, 꽃, 호랑이, 양 등의

아주 흔한 것들이지만, 블레이크의 독특한 시적 기법에 의해

서 그 의미들이 확장되어 나가면서 구체적인 진실들을 드러내

게 된다. 블레이크 시의 특징은 하나의 상징물이 한 편의 시

안에 고정 되어 있지 않고 다른 시에도 반복적으로 등장하면

서 다른 상징물들과의 관계를 통해서 새로운 의미들을 창조해

내는 것인데, 특히 순수와 경험의 대립된 영역을 넘나들면서

전혀 다른 본질의 상징물로 변화되고 그 의미들이 충돌할 때

역동적인 상상력을 불러일으키게 된다. 그 뿐만 아니라 시에

서의 상징물들이 다시 그의 판화에서도 새로운 양상으로 변화

해 가면서 혹은 시와 그림이 전혀 다른 양상을 띄면서 새로운

아이러니를 또다시 창조해낸다. 그의 시와 그림은 서로의 상

호 작용 속에서 그 의미들이 새롭게 확장되어가고 그 확장된

의미들 속에 블레이크의 세계관이 구체적 의미로 다가오게 된

다.

제 1 장에서는 혁명과 변화의 시기였지만 어두운 사회적

현실을 그대로 그려냄으로써 물리적 혁명에 대한 회의감과 밤,

어둠, 잠, 지하세계로 상징되는 감각과 인식이 마비된 세계를

극복할 수 있을 때 현실의 모순을 극복 할 수 있음을 보여준

다. 그것은 결국 부분적이고 일시적인 개혁을 통해서가 아닌

개인의 창조적 상상력을 통하여 이성과 대립되는 개념의 욕망

과 에너지를 가두는 마음의 감옥에서 스스로 벗어났을 때 가

능한 것이라는 것을 보여준다.

제 2 장에서는 순수와 경험의 세계를 넘나드는 상징물들을

통하여 대립된 것들의 경계를 무너뜨림으로써 어떻게 대립의

긴장을 해소시키고 있는지를 보여준다. 전형적인 목가적인 풍

경을 뒤집으면서 선과 악의 경계가 사라지게 되고, 시에 등장

하는 사랑과 미움, 파괴성과 두려움의 갈등은 그의 그림에서

해소되고 무한한 상상의 세계에서 대립을 넘어선 초월적인 자

유를 느끼게 한다.

iii

Abstract

William Blake is an English Romantic poet who believes that

the world will be changed and the ideal world will be built when the

new value system is created through the Imagination in the individual

mind not through the radical Revolution. He reflects the social reality,

portraying the symbols of Innocence destroyed by Experience and

suggests that the ideal Utopia will be realized and the dark side of

reality will be overcome through the personal Imagination and self-

awakening rather than temporal physical reformation. For him, the

Imagination is a gateway to Utopia and what gives a transcendental

freedom by unifying the conflicts between the contraries such as

Innocence & Experience, Love & Hatred and Good & Evil.

Blake tries to expand the readers’ Imagination by inspiring infinite meanings to the smallest symbols such as running water, lambs, pebble, clay, flower and tiger which can be easily encountered in nature.

Through Blake’s unique poetic technique, their meanings expand and reveal some concrete truth. The most significant feature in Blake’s poetic symbols is the symbols are not stationary in one poem but reappear in other poems repeatedly and create new meanings through

the relation with other symbols. Especially, when the symbols move across the Innocence and Experience, they change their nature as completely different ones and arouse the dynamic Imagination.

Moreover, when the symbols change their nature in the engravings and the images of the poems and their engravings show totally different aspects, the sensational irony is created. In this way, the poems and the engravings interact with each other expanding the meaning and finally reveal Blake’s world view through the irony.

Chapter I will deal with the dark side of the reality of the age of

Revolution and Blake’s skepticism toward the physical Revolution. In

Blake’s poetry, such images of “night,” “darkness,” “sleeping” and

“underground world” symbolize the word of Experience where the

“five senses ” and cognitive power are closed and paralyzed. When the world of “Urizen, ” the opposite meaning of the Desire and Energy, and the “mind forge ’d manacle ” which imprison one ’s own self are broken down through the individual Imagination, the contradiction of the reality is overcome.

Chapter II shows the way the tension of the contraries is dissolved through the symbols ’ bold shift across the contraries breaking down the barrier of the contraries. When the typical pastoral images are

overturned, the border of Good and Evil disappears. The conflicts of between Love and Hatred and Destructiveness and Fear are dissolved in the peaceful visual images of the Engravings. Through the infinite imagination Blake gives the transcendental freedom beyond the contraries.

Introduction

William Blake (1757-1827), a visionary English Romantic poet, painter and engraver, who lived in the turbulent period of French

Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, sublimed his dynamic imagination into his poetic system. Actually many romantic poets were advocators of the Revolution and especially Blake’s and Shelley’s poetic works are regarded as representative political forces of those times of

Romanticism (Eagleton 20). Like Shelly, who portrays his radical anarchism affected by Godwin in Prometheus Unbound , Blake reflects his revolutionary outlook to build the Utopia through imagination which is inspired by the conflicts of the contraries. He regards what oppresses the desire and freedom as the “Urizen,” which frames the moral order and conventional social system. He embodied his ideal Utopia in his poetry by the struggle between the two contraries of Innocence and Experience and

Reason and Energy, which is inspired by the creative imagination.

Blake published the Songs of Innocence in 1789, after five years he wrote the Songs of Experience and bound up the two Songs and published as the Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), subtitled with

“Sewing the Two Contrary states of the Human Soul,” which makes the basic axis in his essential ideas of contrary. In the two Songs, Blake’s world view is reflected in nature’s smallest symbols and the contradiction between the contraries satire both the Innocence and Experience and at the same time the contradiction itself gives dynamic inspiration to the readers.

As Blake inspires infinite imagination to the symbols, the symbolic meanings are inconsistent and leave room for controversial and diverse interpretation, which is one of the most typical elements in Blake’s symbolic techniques. Therefore, although he is now considered as one of the most primary Romantic poets in English Literature and recognized as a genius whose poetic works are approached and reinterpreted again by many current critics in diverse aspects of such as feministic, religious and psychological criticism, he was ridiculed as a madman by his contemporaries. Even William Wordsworth said that “there was no doubt that this poor man was mad” (Bently 536). His poetic works was not appreciated properly by his contemporaries because of the ambiguity of his symbols and mystic ideas. Moreover, he was regarded as to be insane because he emphasized the Energy as an “Eternal Delight” in the period of

“Reason.”

However, he had a belief that his poetic works would open the

gateway to release the imprisoned Energy and Desire, by which he could build the “Golden Age,” as he wrote in Milton : “I will not cease from mental fight; Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,; Till we have built

Jerusalem.” He devoted his poetic works to progressive change, liberating the body and soul through expanding the intuition and imagination rather than radical Revolution.

In about 1788, Blake first employed the printing method and he himself started to engrave the plates for all his illuminated works. His visual art has a great artistic value as much as his poetry and has to be approached along with the poems. He employed the specific method by melting the surface and expressed his way of printing metaphorically: “by printing in / the infernal method by corrosive, which in Hell are / salutary and medicinal” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell . As melting away the surface means to reveal the concealed from the appearance, he also tries to show in his engravings the hidden truth from the lines of poems. In this thesis, some poems whose images are portrayed in their engravings will also be discussed together with his poetry because the ironical relations between the engraved visual images and the poem themselves amply arouse the imagination.

In Blake’s poetry, the most special feature is that the symbols are

not stationary in one poem but dynamically moving to other poems changing their nature, creating and adding new meanings on them. Some symbols even appear in their engravings as a transformed nature. The discordance which lies in one symbol adds its meanings conflicting between the gaps and expanding imagination.

The two contraries, which are suggested as “Attraction &

Repulsion, Reason & Energy, Love & Hate, are necessary to Human

Existence” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell are not static but dynamic in interacting with each other. In the Songs of Innocence , there is not only

Innocence itself but always the shadow of Experience which will break into Innocence at any moment, which makes ominous tension. In the

Songs of Experience , some symbols of Innocence change into a destructive aspect. Although the Innocence and Experience are juxtaposed separately, they are moving into each province. In addition, the images of the symbols appear in the paintings as a different feature. The discordance triggers the dynamic imagination, by which harmonizes the contraries creating new meanings reflected Blake’s world view. This thesis will focus on what the nature of Blake’s imagination as a way to Utopia in the age of

Revolution based on his early poetry and engravings and how the imagination expands through contraries and finally completes and

harmonizes the discordance.

Chapter I will deal with the nature of Blake’s poetic imagination as a way to Utopia and its value in the context of periodical background and how Blake liberates individual cognitive power through the imagination as a way to ideal world. Even though he was a visionary and mystic dreamer, his poetic world is not separated from the dark side of the reality of the age of Revolution. He regarded the world of Urizen as restrictions on human desire and natural energy while devoting his poetic works to the liberation of the oppressed desire through the imagination beyond the body and soul to reach the transcendental freedom.

He portrays the reality of the social weak classes and attempts to awaken them from the death like a sleep which is suggested as the images of night, darkness, and an underground world within the imagination. His world view to build Utopia in his poetic system will be discussed in the historical and social context.

Chapter II will discuss how Blake’s dynamic imagination embodies through the conflicts of the contraries, especially focusing on the expansion of the contradictions caused by the disharmony and discordance. The conflicts between Innocence and Experience are juxtaposed and contradict each other. They reconstruct and recreate the

symbolic meanings. However, the contraries are unified in the course of expansion of their symbolic meaning. In Blake’s poetic system, the most specific feature is the symbols’ shift from one poem to other poems or engravings changing their nature, by which the symbolic meanings are added and expanded. One of the remarkable features of his poetry is to inspire the infinite imagination into nature’s smallest symbols giving them special value. By this unique poetic technique, one smallest symbol gets their infinity through the intuition and imagination.

As Blake wrote “The Eye sees more than the Heart knows” in the opening of Visions of the Daughters of Albion , he tries to see the world not with the bodily eyes but another vision through his intuition and imagination. Moreover, he believed that “Every Eye sees differently As the Eye – Such the Object,” (E645) in which Blake shows the importance of individual intuition rather than organized judgment based on the Reason.

For him, the source of truth lies in the imagination aroused in personal mind and spirit. All through his life, as a poor artist without getting proper reputation, he pursued the spiritual richness and expected the new age to come by overcoming the dark side of Experience through liberating the oppressed desire and enriching spiritual imagination.

Chapter I

Imagination as a Way to Utopia

Blake’s endeavor to arouse and expand the imaginative power in his poetry comes from his disappointment about the French Revolution

(1789-1799). Blake once was one of the enthusiastic advocators of the

French Revolution which was based on the ideology of liberalism and equalitarian. However, Blake was disappointed to see the Revolution going too violently as tens of thousands of people lost their lives under the

Reign of Terror (1793-1794) and was disillusioned with the transition into dictatorship in the end. In addition, although the English society acquired an abundance of material through the Industrial Revolution, the appearance of the socially weak classes such as working-class and child abuse makes another aspect of the dark side of the English society.

Therefore in the turbulent historical times of Romanticism, the poetry was no more “a technical mode of writing” and gets “deep social, political and philosophical implications” and especially Blake’s imagination itself becomes “a political force” whose task is “to transform society” in the name of art(Eagleton 20). Although he was living in the

middle of the age of Revolution, the reality was far from the ideal world which Blake perused. Although Blake was a visionary poet and dreamer, he reflected the social reality and made the social, political and economical issues involved in his poetry and tried to find the way to build

Utopia through the imagination.

As Blake wrote “The nature of my work is Visionary or

Imaginative; it is an Endeavour to Restore what Ancients call’d the

Golden Age” in A Vision of Last Judgment and “Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these

Vegetable Moral Bodies are no more” in Jerusalem , he insists on keeping belief in intuition and imagination to the readers to restore the ideal world.

For Blake, the progression lies not in the reformation of the social system by the drastic social revolution but the imagination with which Blake thought to change the world fundamentally.

He portrays the reality of the dark side of Britain strikingly in those poems of “The Chimney Sweeper,” “Holy Thursday,” “London” and so on. Especially he reveals the dark side of the Industrialization and the institutional social system which destroys children’s Innocence. Though the children show their childlike pure state of mind in some poems in the

Songs of Innocence , after going through the harsh reality, they become to show hatred, resentment and even aggressiveness in the Songs of

Experience . The situation of the children in the Songs of Experience is very described severely. They are abandoned by their parents, abused by the employer and mistreated by the church. All those cruelties come from the economical and institutional corruptions. Therefore, even though it was the period of change and reformation, portraying the human dignity and children’s Innocence get destroyed, Blake tries to suggest the readers to consider how the fundamental Revolution can be reached.

With the rush of Industrialization, many parents sold their children as chimney sweepers. These children were abused by managers for their physical labor. The chimney sweepers are not only shaved like a lamb’s back but also naked in order to work more easily. They are exposed to the mean world where even the smallest dignity as a human being is neglected.

They were generally physically small children about six or seven years old who can work in the narrow space. Because they had to work in the small chimneys, they had to be naked for the clothes take the small space and obstruct their work. Almost every employer who exploits the little sweepers treated them “worse than animals” (Nurmi 1966, 16). The speaker ‘I’ says that his mother died and his father sold him. That is, he

loses protection from their parents. Not only the speaker but also his friends are abandoned. They are abused by even their parents and masters only for money. They “sometimes got stuck and suffocated” in the narrow chimney and finally ended up with physically disabled “with kneecaps twisted and spines and ankles deformed” (Nurmi 1966, 16-17).

Their Innocence already damaged and the children filled with the terror of being abandoned, begin to feel hatred for the grown-ups in their mind. In “The Chimney Sweeper” in the Songs of Experience , the voices of the children get much harsher. They openly blames their parents to go to the church to praise “God & his Priest & King,” the social authorities, who “clothed me in the clothes of death, / And taught me to sing the notes of woe” and “made up a heaven of our misery.” That is the reality of

Experience Blake tries to illuminate in this poem comparing the poor and weak in the dark side of Britain which had received an abundance of material through the Industrial Revolution.

On the other hand, the hypocrisy of the institutional system of the church is represented in the “Holy Thursday” in both Songs. The cheerful ceremony which is seen outwardly in the Songs of Innocence is not a happy one if the readers listen to the children’s voice carefully in the

Songs of Experience . At first glance, the scene in the “Holy Thursday” in

the Songs of Innocence seems to show they are treated with worm charity.

Their faces are clean, march in a line and sing a hymn, wearing red, blue and green clothes. This “Holy Thursday” was a real record of an actual commemoration. In the Songs of Innocence, the children are viewed as the participants on a memorial day by the observer. Every child in the church seems to be pleasant and praises the Holy Thursday delightfully. However, the truth covered in the delightful scene is revealed in the same pair of poem in the Songs of Experience . The outer look and the inner voice do not match. The children are not singing a song of joy but crying as the speaker says “Is that trembling cry a song? /Can it be a song of joy?/ And so many children poor? / It is a land of poverty!”

Likewise, the hostility and wrath grows in the children’s mind and this reality cannot be overcome only by the temporal social movement.

Moreover, Blake was disillusioned about partial reform of the social institutional system especially disappointed to see the violence of the

Revolution. The revolutionary spirit to recover the lost freedom and right eventually results in aggressiveness which was hidden in the subconscious of the human mind and draws a parallel with the process of “A Poison

Tree” which is poisoned by its revenge. The chained desire oppressed by the Experience can be burst out of wrath. The result of “unexpressed

wrath” becomes the “apple bright” which stands for the antagonism from which the narrative originated (Brenkman 190) and finally results in the destruction of the speaker himself as well as the antagonist.

When the speaker in “A Poison Tree” is angry with his friend, he expresses his wrath to his friend and then his wrath vanishes. However, when he is angry with his foe, he cannot express his wrath because of fear because their relation to one another is not equal. His foe is socially authoritative one such as the King, Father, Priest and an employer who deprive one’s possession as well as right and gives the speaker unspeakable fear. His wrath grows into a poison tree and finally bears “an apple bright.” The speaker succeeds in avenging his foe by bearing “an apple bright” by watering it in fears, day and night with his tears and sunning with smiles and with soft deceitful wiles.

The foe steals the “apple bright” as the speaker expects and the next morning, he is found “outstretched beneath the tree.” Having sought and accomplished revenge upon him the seeker is pleasured to see the foe

“outstretched beneath the tree” because the “apple bright” is poisoned by the speaker’s wrath. But what remains to the speaker? Is it the Triumph to defeat his enemy? The result is self-destruction because he turns into a

“poison tree” enduring “unexpressed wrath” and hatred in his mind. It

turns out to be fatal to him because the tree itself has become poisonous.

In the engraving, there’s no triumph to defeat the enemy and only a lifeless dark tree remains. Although the tree smiles to revenge its enemy in the poem, it is painted as “one of the coldest” (Lincoln 197) among the plates of the Songs. The branches of the tree are bent toward the rising sun and blocking the light of the morning sun. There are no leaves on the tree and the tree is almost fallen over the corpse. The corpse itself, which is naked and even has a gentle face, shows no sign of powerful force. It only recalls “the body of the child” (Lincoln 197).

The engraving of the “Holy Thursday” of the Songs of Experience , there is a child who lies outstretched on the bottom of the right side whose posture is similar to the “outstretched foe.” Unlike the image of the “foe” in the poem, Blake shows the “foe” which resembles the image of a child.

In some poems such as “The Chimney Sweeper” and the “Holy Thursday” in the Songs of Experience, the children show their hatred and aggressiveness. Therefore if there is an intentional connection between the two images of the “foe” and the child, the outstretched foe is not the “foe” that is killed to eat the poisonous apple but the children’s Innocence itself which is fatally destroyed by their own hostility. The children’s wrath, which cannot be expressed and grows poisonous as they grow up, can be read in the same context of “A Poison Tree.”

Then the foe in the engraving is the image of the child who grows up with hostility and can be interpreted as the image of the poison tree itself. Likewise, the barrier between Innocence and Experience is broken down. The tree does not defeat the enemy but destroys itself and the outstretched enemy is the destroyed Innocence. Setting the social weak classes such as the abused children, Blake stands on the side of the social weak against the social authorities, expressing the tragic reality of miserable life. However, at the same time, he satires the Innocence

because it is not awakened to the reality of the Experience, destroyed and tamed by the Experience. Revealing the danger of the Innocence without critical awareness of the Experience, Blake shows that the Innocence disappears and only the wrath toward the Experience remains as a kind of a dangerous prison of mind.

Therefore, the revenge or destruction of the enemies who deprive the individual possession and the right is not the way to change the reality.

The real change comes when the wrath of the individual mind is healed and mollified. The real freedom does not come when the revolutionary force tears down the absurd system. As revenge for restoring the speaker’s right comes back as fatal poison, the revolutionists’ “unexpressed wrath” burst out as a revolutionary spirit represented metaphorically as an “apple bright” only to be the destructive aspect.

Such disillusionment seems to be reflected in the tragic mood of

Blake’s poetry. He became skeptical about the partial reformation of the social system and came to criticize the contemporary social system and embody his idea through his poetic work for the liberation of the mind chained wrath. Therefore Blake came to pursue the fundamental revolution through the change of the personal mind and spirit. That comes from the individual mind to change the way of understanding and

recognizing the reality and escape from the spiritual prison.

In this way, through this poem along with the engraving, Blake suggests the readers to expand their imagination to find some clues to connect the symbols which appear in other poems and capture the meaning in the contradictions between the poem and engraving expanding the intuition through his imaginative poetic words. That is his strategy to arise the imagination through those kinds of discordance. Another poem which can be read in the same context is one of the most emblematic masterpieces, “The Tyger”

The magnificent feature of the Tyger is regarded as the

Revolutionary Energy which bursts out splendidly. In “The Tyger,” the fearful energy burst out as a fierce rebellion in the darkness of the forest.

The Tyger is the fierce and active force of the soul which resists

Experience. Its burning eyes make contrast to the darkness of the night. In

Blake’s poetry, the image of the night or darkness symbolize the dark side of Experience which shadows the cognitive power to the truth. And “the forest of the night” is regarded as “ignorance, repression, and superstition”

(Bowra 156). Therefore the Tyger’s burning eyes are the symbols of the wrath toward the Experience.

The feature of the Tyger is described powerfully in the poem. The

speaker feels astonished to see the dreadful figure of the Tyger which has powerful heart beating with strong sinews and dreadful shoulder, hand and feet. The Tyger’s eyes and brain are associated the image of the fire and blast furnace. This poem gives the visual and auditory images to the readers as if they see the Tyger’s dreadful feature walking in the forest of the night and hear the heart beating sound.

And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, … What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain?

This poem has been interpreted diversely. The superficial feature of the

Tyger is simply a predator and because of its violent image as a predator and generally has been regarded as an Evil creature, the opposite symbol of the Lamb. They are categorized into good and evil creatures as “the

Loving God” and “the angry God” (Damon 413). Nurmi mentioned that

Blake portrays his thought in this poem and this poem describes “an apocalypse-by definition a vast inclusive event-which occurs in a cosmos knit by interpenetrating ‘correspondence’ uniting and one event with all

others” (Nurmi 1979, 201). And many critics have agreed in interpreting this poem which touches “the images of Blake’s French Revolution”

(Erdman 21). The Tyger’s feature and movement in the darkness has been associated with the Revolutionary force and energy.

However, the feature of the Tyger is painted as a helpless and ridiculous creature which looks like just a cat rather than a magnificent Tyger. The powerfulness and fierceness which gives the vitality of life and the Energy of Revolution in the poem turns into a faint creature. The Tyger just seems to be static different from the powerful movement represented in the poem

and hardly seems to be threatening and ferocious.

Its eyes which are wide but faint and the mouth which is closed makes ridiculous look. It has no clear stripes on its body. The Tyger gives no more “impression of terror created in the Song” (Lincoln 188).

Furthermore, the tail is dragging on the ground which suggests that the

Tyger is old and has no energetic dynamic movement. The overall image shows the Tyger is old and has no energetic and dynamic movement. The fierce beast is degraded into the mere creature of the nature.

In this painting, Blake expresses his idea about the Revolutionary force paradoxically contrasting the poem and the painting drastically.

When the fierce animal which is full of energy in the darkness in the poem transformed into old and humorous animal in the clear day just prowling dejectedly, the tension also disappears. If the Tyger in the poem have been praised with its bursting energy for Revolution, this painting seems to be a satire of the Revolutionary force. He does not deny the Revolutionary spirit itself but shows his skepticism about the rashness of the Revolution and satires the Revolutionary force. Harold Bloom also pointed out that the poem and the painting are different especially regarding to the difference of the setting. In the poem the setting is a starry night but in the painting, the setting is the open world of clear vision and everything is

clear, saying “Blake uses the same irony of contrast between text and design” (Bloom 1963, 137).

In the poem of “The Tyger,” Blake tries to set the contrast the night and fire. In Blake’s poems, the darkness is regarded such as death, tomb and the gloomy side of the world. In some poems, the image of the night and darkness appears as an escapism or death. In “The Chimney

Sweeper,” the children who work in the darkness of the narrow chimney described they are “locked up in coffins of black.” In Tom’s dream, an

Angel opens the coffin and sets the chimney sweepers free. It seems that they do not want to be awakening in the coffin-like reality. They escape to sleep and dreams during the night because in the harshness of reality, they have no way to find comfort except within their dreams. However, in reality, there is no such an Angel who sets him from the hard labor and there is only a cruel and harsh reality. This makes their helplessness seem much bitterer. In the morning, though it was cold but he was happy to know that “So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.” Through this spiritual hope, they can endure the hardship. However, that is the instruction just to keep them tamed as obedient laborers. Because no matter how hard they try to keep a good boy, the realty is not going such a way.

In other poems, the escapism to the sleep and the images of the night can be noticed. The scene described in “The Echoing Green” is joyful and happy. The sun rise makes the sky happy, birds sing loud around, the bells ring merrily and the children play and laugh joyously.

However, when the sun descends, and it gets dark, their joyful sports

“have an end.” The children scatter to their home for rest. However, an ominous tension of the night shadows in the last two lines; “An sport no more seen,/On the darkening Green.”

In “A Cradle Song” in the Songs of Innocence , a mother lulls her baby to sleep singing “Sleep Sleep happy Child./ All creation slept and smile’d. Sleep sleep, happy sleep.” However, over the sleeping baby, its mother is weeping. The weeping woman makes her baby to sleep and prays an angel hovers over her happy child. In this poem, the words

“sweet” and “sleep” appears repeatedly. However, it can be noticed that the children’s sleeping is not so happy one because of the weeping mother.

It seems that the mother tries not to awaken her baby because her baby can find peace only in dreams, which cannot be found in the reality. As seen the poem, the “Night,” the sleep is a kind of escape from the pain and grief of realty.

keep them all from harm; If they see any weeping, That should have been sleeping They pour sleep on their head And sit down by their bed.

However, in Blake’s poetry, the images of the night and dream are not affirmative. In “A Little Girl Lost,” Lyca’s sleep shows a dangerous aspect of the night. She leaves her parents and loses her way “in desart wild.” When the moon arises, she lays down, close her eyes and fall asleep.

The sleeping maid is surrounded by the beasts such as “the kingly lion,”

“leopards” and “tigers” and becomes their prey which is connoted as raping images.

In Visions of the Daughters of Albion , as Oothoos says that the night enclosed her “five sense” (Plate II: 31), the night represents the world of Experience and blocks the eye to see the truth. Only with the creative cognitive power and imagination, one can see with another vision to the truth shadowed by the darkness.

They told me that the night & day were all that I could see; They told me that I had five senses to inclose me up. And they inclos'd my infinite brain into a narrow circle, And sunk my heart into the Abyss, a red round globe hot burning

Blake portrays his idea of conflict between the Reason and Desire by a tragic heroine, Oothoon who tries to realize her own longing showing the tragedy of unrealized desire. In Plate one, the daughters of Albion weep, sigh and lament. Their voice spreads in the mountains and “the vales of

Leutha” because they are in the “Enslaved” (Plate I: 5) state. The “vale” is not an open space but a closed one. The setting which is spatially closed means their soul and body are also enclosed and enslaved.

However, in Oothoon’s monologue from “The Argument,” she is in love with Theotormon, she is not ashamed of her love. Oothoon plucks the

Leutha’s flower decisively and turns her face from the enclosed vale to

“where [her] whole soul seeks.” Oothoon tries to realize her own desire and “[takes] her impetuous cours” (Plate I: 15) to Theotormon. Oothoon’s journey starts with her decisive courage to where Theotormon is with light and impulsive steps freely. She tries to be the subject of her own Desire liberating her body and soul from the traditional values putting the flower to glow in her breast symbolically. However, her impulsive course is collapsed as soon as she starts her journey by the Bromion’s brutal enforcement and sexual violence.

On the other hand, Theotormon only sheds “secret tears” (Plate II:

7) passively and does not do anything for Oothoon’s tragic situation. He

accommodates himself to the Experience as the way it is and can not resist against it. He is only a weak person who can not resist within the frame of the Reason and he can not hear Oothoon’s lamentation. That is because his cognitive limitation. His consciousness is so full of pessimistic thought that he asks if there does exist joy, asking “Tell me what is a joy? & in what gardens do joys grow?” (Plate III: 24) Unlike Oothoon, who thinks that “the night is gone that clos’d me in its deadly black” (Plate III: 29), for Theotormon, the night and the morning are the same thing. For him, after the night of sigh, the morning of tears breaks. Therefore there is nothing different between the night and morning and he does not understand Oothoon’s persuasion that she is pure like morning.

As expressed in Oothoon’s words, the Urizen is represented as the image of the night which enclosed the “five sense” (Plate II: 31) with its deadly blackness. The moral hypocrisy and fallen intelligence framed by

Urizen oppress the natural desire and spiritual sensations are paralleled with the world of Experience. As Theotormon is the typical character who enslaved by the order of Urizen, he cannot understand when Oothoon says she is pure like morning. Blake criticized the positive people like

Theotormon who is lack of the imagination and follows the Reason while oppressing the desire. Therefore, Oothoon cannot break Theotormon’s

Urizen and Oothoon ends up as tragic heroin with the echoing sigh of the

Daughters of Albion.

Even though they hears Oothoon’s agony all through this poem, they do not support her struggle and effort to overcome her situation and just “echo back her sighs” to the end of the poem repeatedly. The “Echo” in Greek myth is the heroine of tragic love, who cannot express her love for Narcissus only to repeat the other’s words. Likewise, the Daughters of

Albion like Theotormon do not say their own idea, which makes Oothoon not show herself as a victorious heroine who overcomes all the frustrations.

Oothoon accuses the Reason, which frames Theotormon’s value system, such as social authorities, such as Father and the Church rather than Teothormon’s hypocrisy directly. The whole poem is against the

“restrictive law and reason” (Nicoll 92), Blake especially tries to break down the world of “Urizen” which symbolizes “Your Reason” (Damon

419). Living in the age of “Reason,” he regarded all the social system and customary moral order which oppress the natural human desire as

“Urizen.” Unlike Locke, who wrote in Some thought concerning

Education , “children should be us’d to submit their desires, and go without their longings, even from their very cradle” and claimed that children should be instructed to suppress their desire from the moment

they were in the cradle (38-39), Blake wrote “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desire” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell .

As much he thought of the “desire” as a vital source of life.

Likewise Blake considers the Energy as a source of freedom and criticizes all the things that give tactic consent and tolerate the Reason which oppresses the Desire as well as the Reason itself. Such characters are represented not only the case of Theotormon but also the Lily and the

Cold of Clay in The Book of Thel . All those characters live according to the given moral order and regulations only to be enslaved because they live totally restraining their freedom and desire. Thel and Oothoon resist such characters’ way of obedience. As Blake shows his idea of Reason and

Energy in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell , he regarded those who restrain desire as the ones whose desire is so weak enough to be restrained.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling. (Plate 5: 3)

As Blake wrote “Energy is Eternal delight” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , the reason why Blake set the ending tragically especially in case of Oothoon who tries to realize her desire but cannot find the way out still remains an irony and criticized that he is “unsuccessful in this attempt”

(Bruder 57) and “he dismisses the idealistic portrayal of Oothoon as a utopian failure” (Nicholas 90). However, if that is Blake’s intentional ending to show the reality of Experience where the “five senses” are enclosed and there is no way out the Desire can get out of, Theotormon whose sensation is covered and enclosed with the darkness of the night is the object to be broken away.

What Blake suggests is to open the window of perception. As the ancient Bard of the Songs of Experience calls the earth, “the lapsed Soul” and awakens the Earth from the dew grass of the night in this fallen World,

Blake shows his idea through Oothoon’s solitary monologue.

O Earth O Earth return! Arise from out the dewy grass; Night is worn, And the morn Rises from the slumberous mass,

(Introduction / Songs of Experience )

In The Book of Thel , the earth is described as a fallen world. The Matron

Clay invites Thel to her underground house. With her virgin feet, Thel takes the Matron Clay’s invitation and goes underground and confronts the darkness of the unknown world where she witnesses “the couches of the

dead, & where the fibrous roots/ Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists”. The death like tombs and corruptions reveal the tragedy of the human being. In the “Earth’s Answer” in the Songs of Experience , the

Bard calls the Earth to “raise up her head/ From the darkness dread & drear” and says that she “locks cover’d with grey despair/ Chain’d in night.” As Blake’s message is told by the voice of the Bard, the Bard claims the Earth which covers and locks the “youth and morning” into the darkness of the underground to “break this heavy chain.”

The force which binds the heavy chain is suggested as an economical, religious and social oppression in the world of Experience. In

“London,” the image of the state of English society and human condition are described realistically. In the streets of London, every man cries and every infants cries of fear, every blackening church appalls, the helpless soldiers sigh and the youthful harlots curse. There are “deceit, self-interest, absence of love, of law, repression, and hypocrisy.” (Thompson 15) and this state of Experience is “the passage through eternal death only in a negative sense, and this also is the enslavement of body” (Digby 95).

However, “the mind-forg'd manacles” are due to one’s own self.

That is why Blake tries to stimulate the revolutionary spirit through the creative imagination stirred up by his poetic work because liberating from

the chain made by own mind is the beginning of progression to his ideal world. That change can be gained through revolutionary spirit inspired by the imagination to escape from the Urizen. For Blake, “the Eternal Body of Man is The Imagination” and the imagination itself is the way to the lost paradise. Imagination enables us to see the world in different eyes and live in the eternal world.

Chapter II

Imagination as a Unification of the contraries

As a mystic who sees a vision from his childhood, Blake shows such a visionary tendency which creates the base of his poetry giving ample symbolic elements. He himself says that he sees the world through his imagination and also has confidence and pride in writing his poetic works with his creative imagination as his idea of imagination, and his self-confidence are described in his letter to Dr. Trusler, “To the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers. You certainly mistake, when you say that the visions of fancy are not to be found in this world.

To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination, & I feel flater’d when I am told so.”(E 702)

The symbols which frequently appear in Blake’s poetry are not extraordinary but merely simple ones which can be encountered easily in nature such as running water, flowers, lambs, and pebbles and so on.

However, different from the familiarity, as their meanings are expanded with bold shift from on poem to another or to the engraving, especially

when the symbols in the Songs of Innocence reappear in the Songs of

Experience as totally different nature, the symbolic meanings cause confusion to the readers. In this way, Blake tries to break down the meaning expected in the familiar words. That is the distinctive feature of

Blake’s symbolic technique in the contrary of both Songs. Such ordinary and small things can be interpreted differently in adding and expanding their meanings. As Blake wrote in the Introduction to Jerusalem , “Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit place. All are necessary to each other," his poetic words are interacting within his whole system.

Therefore, it is impossible to understand one symbolic implication to the exclusion of any other fragments because they are placed in indispensable positions to each other appearing recurrently.

Moreover, in some poems and their engravings, they show totally different images which hardly connect their meanings. The discordance triggers the reader’s imagination to connect such discordance. That is also one of the most remarkable strategies Blake uses in his poetic imagination inspired by the discordance between the poems and engravings. As he was better known as a painter rather than a poet in the late period of his life, his visual art has its own value and must be appreciated along with the poems. And there is Blake’s hidden intention to be revealed by the readers

for sure.

At the same time, using typical and conventional symbols as multivocal meaning, Blake tries to overturn the pre-existing value of meaning, which not only stays in his poetic words but also reflects his revolutionary outlook of going over the traditional value. As the meaning which the words give is what is framed by the social value, to break down the value system and get freedom from the chain of words are another significant role of Blake’s symbolic system.

His poetic words are not stationary but lively, changing their nature and inspiring the imagination. Thus expanding the meanings in the whole category of Innocence and Experience needs to open to the possibility of the diversity in interpreting the symbolic meaning. His endeavor to put into various meanings even into a small poetic word is expressed in the first stanza of “Auguries of Innocence.” He inspires the infinite imaginative meaning into his poetic words even though they are the smallest things.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

He tries to draw infinite inspiration from the smallest things in nature. As seeing the universe through one small point, he seizes a whole through one elementary particle and captures a moment as an eternity. With his creative intuition and insight, he denies putting any object within conventional frames and makes a new poetic system of his own. Therefore “the function of his art will be to display the hidden infinite, hid in the phenomenal world” (Bloom 1963, 88) and he leads the readers to involve his ambiguous poetic system.

In the whole structure of Songs of Innocence and Experience , Blake maintains his standpoint giving equal weight to each side; He neither confirms nor denies either of them. To him, the contrary is not opposite concept to each other. Juxtaposing the two contrary Songs, what he tries to reveal through the interactions of Innocence and Experience is conflict itself which basically comes from the philosophical notions of Good and

Evil. Such a conflict cannot be solved by a victory of one over the other.

Paradoxically speaking, the one is inescapable from the other. Therefore the contraries are not opposite meaning to each other or rather in Blake’s poetic system, Innocence and Experience should exist together to make progress. As the fundamental premise is the subtitle of the Songs of

Innocence and of Experience, “sewing the two contrary states of the

human soul,” which shows his intention to show the two extreme states of the inner states of human as a unified one.

Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist: But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs Exist Not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever

(Jerusalem , Chapter 1, Plate 17)

The conflict arouses struggle between the contraries. Through the symbolic meanings which underlie under the juxtaposed structure and the struggle to overcome the conflict, the dynamic imagination finally unifies the contraries. The gap and distance of the relation of the symbols and their meaning which is revealed by juxtaposing two contraries of one same symbol are completed as a whole in the end.

As discussed in Chapter I, the Tyger’s fierce image as a predator disappears in the engraving as an old and ridiculous one. The Lamb, which has been regarded as the opposite symbol of the Tyger, also loses its image of Innocence. The peaceful little Lambs in the Songs of Innocence turn into destructive creatures “with a threatening horn” in “the Lily” from the

Songs of Experience. When we consider even one symbol in Blake’s

poetry, what always should be kept in mind is he has “two visions in one place.” (Wicksteed 100) In this way, the typical symbolic meanings get distance from the conventional meaning. To reverse the conventional symbolic languages is a part of Blake’s effort to break down the typical frame of thought. Therefore, rethinking the poetic symbols by turning over and escaping from the fixed idea, a new cognitive system should be built.

How sweet is the Shepherds sweet lot, From the morn to the evening he strays: He shall follow his sheep all the day And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

First of all, the pastoral images of the Sheep and the Shepherd which are borrowed from the Bible are expressed sweetly in “the Shepherd.” In this poem, Blake’s Christian world view is reflected. The Shepherd takes care of the Sheep to make them feel comfort under his protection. The Sheep are like human beings and the good Shepherd is like God if they are interpreted based on the Biblical images. In the Bible, the shepherd who cares for his flock when his Sheep go astray represents “spiritual guidance” (Lincoln 145). The relation of the Sheep and the Shepherd is tied with mutual trust. The Shepherd hears the Lamb’s innocent call, and

he hears the ewe’s tender reply. The Sheep are in peace because they know their Shepherd is near. Moreover, in this poem, the Shepherd does not lead the flock but follows them all day long praising his Sheep with love. The

Sheep in this poem are released freely under the protection of their

Shepherd.

However, such a peaceful and pastoral image cannot be found in the engraving. The peaceful scene in this poem seems to be the world of

Innocence itself which can be found generally in the images of the Bible.

However, in the engraving, the Sheep are not released freely nor does the

Shepherd follow them. They stand stationary just doing their duties; the

Sheep are crowded eating the grass and the Shepherd is seen staring down the flock. There’s no sign of love and care in the look of the Shepherd. The difference between the poem and the engraving suggests that the images of the poem are not a perfect situation one even though it is seemingly peaceful.

The Sheep seem to be merely live stocks which stand in narrow space to eat the grass and to be easily controlled by the Shepherd and raised as a value of meat and wool. They show no sign of liveliness.

Except the one which is on the left side, all the flock just keep their head down as if they have to be haste to eat their food because there a too many

Sheep in contrast with the narrow field. They stand so cramped for comfort and suffocated because they are too close to one another. The birds which fly in the sky rather seem to be freer than the Sheep. Different from the poem, the Sheep are not the fine images praised by their

Shepherd. The Shepherd does not keep his eye on the Sheep and seems to just supervise the flock. He does not seem to care for them with a stern look on his face grasping a crook in his hand.

Therefore, the Shepherd in the poem is not just represented as God.

He is rather reminded as the Grey beadle of the church who walks with the

“wands as white as snow” in the “Holy Thursday” in the Songs of

Innocence . The children in the church who seem to be protected with the church’s charity singing happily and wearing colorful clothes but in reality are abused in advertising the false charity of the church without love and mercy on a memorial day, the Sheep are just raised under the Shepherd’s observation for being used as a material value. In this way, just using the two symbols of the Sheep and the Shepherd, Blake overturns successfully the symbolic meaning and reveals a way of dividing Good and Evil and the hypocrisy of the institutional church as false ones. Moreover, breaking the Biblical images of the Sheep and the Shepherd and the walls of the fixed meaning are enough to rouse a sensation.

Likewise, the difference between the poem and the engraving makes another contradiction through which dynamic imagination arises and making the meaning more deep and finally the distance get narrowed.

Through the Biblical image of the Shepherd which changes from the Good to the Evil, the barrier of Good and Evil is broken down by both the poem and the engraving and the fine image of the Sheep is also transformed as a destructive one in some poems such as “the Lily” from the Songs of

Experience and The Book of Thel which destroys the Lily’s leaf and flowers.

Therefore both the Sheep and the Shepherd show the ambivalent nature within themselves. The Lamb is represented as a destructive creature in “the Lily.” Unlike the mild image in the Songs of Innocence , the Lamb grows into the Sheep which have their destructive horns.

However, that is the providence of nature, which means that the

Experience is also inescapable nature itself. In The Book of Thel , even though the Lily shows her sacrifice “wipping his [sheep’s] mild and meekin mouth from all contagious taints” (I: 2:7), the Sheep tramples the flowers of the Lily down. The fine images of fine Lamb are degenerated, and they also are not only humble creatures. They appear again in the engraving of “The Clod & the Pebble” of the Songs of Experience.

In the poem of “The Clod & the Pebble” of the Songs of Experience , the Clod appears as a similar image of the Clod of Clay of Visions of the

Daughters of Alvion , who humbles herself as “the meanest thing, and so I am indeed” (IV:3:11) and admires the Cloud because she thinks that he loves such a low woman like herself. The Clod of Clay’s self-respect is lowered as a slave of the Cloud’s hypocrisy. In “The Clod & the Pebble,” the Clod sings her song of sacrifice although she is “Trodden with the cattle’s feet.” She sacrifices herself to give love to the others. Although the Clod of Clay humbles herself and seems to be satisfied to love the

Cloud, the tragic reality is revealed in “The Clod & the Pebble” as

“Heaven in Hell’s despair.”

On the other hand, the Pebble in this poem is represented as a selfish love which seek love “only Self to please,/To bind another to Its delight: Joys in another’s loss of ease.” Likewise both the Clod and the

Pebble shows different kind of love. However, the love pursued by both of them is described as “a Heaven in Hell’s despair.” They are covered in the water and do not show their features in the engraving.

The title of the engraving is “The Clod & the Pebble.” However, the Clod and the Pebble are not shown in the painting. There are only the Sheep and the Cattle which are drinking water from the brook in the middle of the painting. In the poem, the Clod’s sacrifice for love and the Pebbles’ selfish love make main theme. However, the main symbols of the poem do not appear and only the peaceful and pastoral images of the Sheep and the

Cattle are painted. Lincoln describes this scene: “The sheep at the left is clearly standing in the water: no doubt these animals tread the clay as they drink, and their feet may be vulnerable to the pebble” (175).

In this engraving, the Good and Evil get obscured. Even though the

Clay’s tragedy is described in this poem with just several lines, her situation is shown in detail in The Book of Thel . The Clay is an emblem of tragic love. The Sheep and the Cattle stands on the Clay heartlessly just to fill their thirst. On the other hand, their feet get hurt by the Pebble’s selfishness or sadism to feel pleasure taking other’s ease. Under the running water, there’s sharp tension between each of the symbols.

However, ironically, they are covered with the peaceful scene where two frogs play joyfully, and a worm creeps between the two frogs and one duck swims without any disturbance.

Through this irony, one’s poetic imagination gets excited and one’s

imagination reconstructs and unifies the meanings which underlie in the connection of the poem and the engraving. Another poem which can be approached in the same context is “The Fly.” As there’s no Clod and the

Pebble in their engraving, in “The Fly,” there’s no Fly which are destroyed by the speaker’s hand in the visual image and only exists a peaceful family.

In the poem, the speaker, “I” thoughtlessly brush away the little fly and also brushed by some other blind hand. “I” can be the destroyer who takes away the humble fly’s wings playing in the seasons of summer.

Likewise, the speaker’s wings can be also destroyed by some blind hands while drinking and dancing like the fly of summer. The “little Fly” playing in the seasons of summer, brings the image of the children laughing and playing cheerfully on the “Echoing Green.” As the darkness falls in the

“Echoing Green,” the children’s “sport no more seen,” the shadow of darkness is the uncontrollable provision of nature and symbolic setting, which threatens the Innocence. Like the happy children playing on the

“Echoing Green” until “the sun does descend,” the “little Fly” enjoys the season until the speaker’s thoughtless hand “unconcerned about the fate of fly” (Grant 37) destroys the wing. The fragility of the wings both of the fly and the speaker, are destroyed fatally just by the simple act of brushing. As the wing reveals the vitality of the Fly, when the speaker expresses “my

wing” is brushed, it means his fatal death because he lost his vital power.

The speaker’s inner conflict shows that he can be both as a destructive power to the fly and a victim of the more powerful force. The force has a relative meaning according to which case it takes its position.

Therefore, the Experience has its meaning according to which direction it is angled. The force of “Blind hand” which stays in the highest position of chain in this poem, according to Grant, what the “Blind hand” does imply is “philosophic generalizations about authority, science, and a corrupted church of Christian God”(40).

Although the cruelty of “the Blind hand” gives off horror, the speaker says passively as if he were indifferent or accommodative to the immortality in the last stanza, “Then am I/ A happy fly / If I live, / Or if I die.” In the immortal cycle of being which is entangled like chain of being, the speaker’s happiness as in a happy fly is “the stupid happiness” that is

“a fool’s paradise” (Grant 42). Of course, it must be a paradox because

Blake’s direction is surely not “a fool’s paradise.”

Actually, Blake once wrote in the manuscript of the Four Zoas about “Unorganized Innocence: An Impossibility. Innocence dwells with

Wisdom but never with Ignorance.” The Innocence, which has a passive nature, is not affirmative to Blake. According to Damrosch, “the very

etymology of innocence is significant: it derives from the Latin in-nocere and implies a negative concept, the innocent seen as that which is not harmful” (227). Therefore, Blake does not keep the side of Innocence because of the negative connotation of Innocence.

However, in the painting, there is neither a playful Fly nor the drunken speaker. A girl is playing without a partner, a child stands with her arms stretched upward, and her mother grasps her daughter’s arm as if she tries to teach her daughter to toddle. In the child’s face, there is no look of discomfort or fear. The setting reminds the reader of “The Echoing

Green.” The field is green and the blue sky is covered with white clouds. It is a middle of the day and there’s no tension of the shadow of night.

This peaceful painting covers the destructiveness of Experience and conflict in social, philosophical and political issues of the poem as well as the fear and self-reflection of the speaker, like the running water that covers the Clod and Pebble’s pain and selfishness. Both poems of

“The Clod and the Pebble” and “The Fly” are recreated in their engravings and the dark side of Experience which makes the main theme of the two poems disappears beyond the peaceful visual images and even arouses the longing for lost Innocence.

Likewise, Blake’s endeavor to link the two contraries is not represented only in his poetry but also in his engravings. The relation between the symbols also reveals that Blake tries to make conflict between the two contraries triggering dynamic imagination by which the barrier of the opposite sides collapse and finally unified as a whole harmonized vision making the readers enjoy the transcendental spiritual freedom beyond the Innocence and Experience.

Conclusion

Blake, who lived in the age of Revolution, devoted his works to changing the world through his imagination. He portrays the reality of the social weak classes in his poetry strikingly. He especially focuses on the abused children who are regarded as a typical emblem of Innocence. He also shows the way they lose their Innocence and get poisonous with wrath like “A Poison Tree” and reveals the dangerous poison which grows in children’s mind painting similar visual images in the “Holy Thursday” and “A Poison Tree.”

For him, the reality of the world is corrupted by economical, political and social institutional system. However, he did not believe that the real progress would be realized by the physical Revolution. And he expresses his skepticism about the French Revolution as a ridiculed feature of the Tyger which has been regarded as an Energy of Revolution and warns the violence of the Revolution may result in the self- destructive poison.

He regards the image of the night as Experience which covers the eyes to see the truth and the dreams as escapism from the harsh reality. He

criticizes not only the world of Urizen which covers “five senses” and oppress the Desire and Energy but also the ones who oppress themselves and enslave themselves living under the given order of system and escaping to the darkness of the underground world without creative mind and self-awareness. He urges them to wake up from the death like darkness with the voice of the “Bard.”

He believed in the spiritual Revolution through the imagination would build the ideal world and restore the “Golden Age.” As he wrote that “I must Create a System, or be enslave’d by another Man’s. I’ll not

Reason & Compare: my business is to Create” in Jerusalem, he attempted to build his own poetic system as a way to ideal world through his own unique imagination. With such a sense of duty as a Romantic poet, he tries to inspire the readers with his dynamic imagination to liberate them from their “mind forg’d manacle.”

Blake’s poetic technique to inspire his imagination to his readers is to give infinite meaning to the smallest symbols which can be encountered in nature by reflecting the conflicts between the Good & Evil and Love &

Hatred into such small symbols. Blake places such symbols in different poems and engravings. In this way the symbols get other meanings again and again according to their position. Therefore each symbol does not

keep their meaning statistically but keep changing with the relations to the other symbols. Likewise, he makes his symbolic meanings expand within his poetic system as if he sees the world and Universe in “a grain of sand.”

Another poetic technique is to paint the visual images in the engraving drastically different from the poem, which can be noticed especially in “The Clod & the Pebble” and “The Fly.” The picture and the text do not match at all. However, finding the hidden meanings and filling the gap between the two different images, the poetic truth Blake tries to represent is revealed. Such process also arouses the creative imagination amply.

Moreover, as the symbols frequently cross to each contrary, the conflicts trigger the dynamic imagination and finally break down the barriers. He tries to show it not only through the whole contrary structure named as the Songs of Innocence and Experience but also through the poetic symbols interacting again in each system. The two contrary states, which constitute a symmetrical structure of Innocence and Experience, are defective ones without each other and they make up the essential parts of

Blake’s world view. In the light of Experience the Innocence is so weak and vulnerable and in the light of Innocence, the Experience is so cruel and violent.

Considering the Innocence described in both Songs, the Innocence does not have positive nature. The Experience breaks down the whole balance with its destructive power and the Innocence seems to have no place to go. The Experience, even though it has destructive power over the

Innocence, has its positive nature criticizing and hardening the Innocence.

The most serious danger is to accept the circumstances framed by the

Experience without awareness as described in the children’s aggressiveness in both Songs, the obedience of Lily and the Clod of Clay in The Book of Thel , the pessimism of daughters of Albion and

Theoteormon in Visions of the Daughters of Albion . They are the social victims and obstruct the way to overcome the reality of Experience.

The reason Blake gives the value to the Experience is that he believes that we can get to the ideal world through facing and going through Experience. As Bowra mentioned about the value of Experience that “to reach a higher state, man must be tested by experience and suffering. This is the link between two sections of Blake’s book.

Experience is not only of fact; it is necessary stage in the cycle of being”

(Bowra 1961, 146-147). Experience is the object not to be denied or avoided but to be faced and overcome.

When we reach the higher state of mind, we can enjoy the

transcendental freedom spiritually beyond Innocence and Experience. And the ideal world he pursues is not the world of Innocence but the world of unification of the Innocence and Experience beyond the contraries and can be realized by the creative imagination because for Blake, the world of imagination is infinite and eternal world.

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