MINUTE PARTICULAR Blake’s “Infant Joy”: An Explanation of Age Walter S. Minot Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 25, Issue 2, Fall 1991, p. 78 78 BLAKE/ANILLUSTRA TED QUARTER! Y Fall 1991 1 5 The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor What I refer to as Burnet's "book" was 6 The Theory of the Earth Contain ing an Coleridge, ed. Kathleen Coburn (New originally published in Latin in two parts, Account of the Original of the Earth and York: Pantheon Books, 1957) 1: no. 6l. each of which was Englished by Burnet 2 of all the General Changes Which it hath See M. H. Abrams, Natural Super- himself, as follows: Part I in Latin, 1681, in already undergone, or is to undergo Till naturalism: Tradition and Revolution in English 1684; Part II in Latin 1689, in the Consummation of all Tilings. 3rd. ed. Romantic Literature (New York: W. W. English 1690. See M. C. Jacob and W. A. 2 vols. (London, 1697). Subsequent refer- Norton, 1973 U9711) 99-106. Lockwood, "Political Millennialism and ences are to this edition, cited by volume 3 See Kenneth Neill Cameron, The Burnet's Sacred Theory" Science Studies 2 and page numbers. Young Shelley: Genesis of a Radical (New (1972): 265-79. The printed title pages of 7 See Nicolas O. Warner. "Blake's Moon- York: Collier Books, 1962 [1950]) 428n54. the first three editions omit the word 4 Ark Symbolism." Blake 14 (1980-81): 44- Words of Eternity: Blake and the Poetics "Sacred," which does, however, appear in 59. of the Sublime (Princeton: Princeton UP, the engraved frontispieces. 1991) 155-56,157,158,162-63,191. Blake's "Infant Joy": but he suggests that the two days may be But a look at the longer manuscript of two days of joy for the parents since the "Infant Sorrow" suggests the connec- An Explanation of Age pregnancy has been established (55). tion with baptism even more strongly, I propose a simpler reading. When for the speaker in the poem says (lines Walter S. Minot the first speaker in "Infant Joy" says it 19-21): "But a Priest with holy look / is "but two days old," there is no rea- In his hand a holy book / Pronounced son not to take that literally to mean curses on his head" (E 797). If we lake's "Infant Joy," in The Songs of that the child was born two days ago. accept the manuscript emendation of BInnocence, is not a major poem in The fact that "I have no name" can be "my" for "his" (E 799), then the speaker the collection, but it has been a explained by the ancient custom of in "Infant Sorrow" may be saying that troublesome poem to interpret for a baptising (or christening) children on baptism was an occasion on which the number of reasons, among them the the third day after birth. For example, priest "Pronounced curses on my head," significance of the infant's age as "two the birthdate of William Shakespeare an ironic Blakean view of the Christian days old" rather than as some other has been accepted (not without some rite of baptism. specific number. The crucial lines in doubts) as April 23rd because he was My reading of the opening stanza of the poem are the first stanza: baptised on April 26th and, according "Infant Joy" seems to make ordinary to Sidney Lee, "it was a common prac- sense of the opening two lines of the I have no name tice to baptise a child three days after poem, and, while it may not identify I am but two days old. — birth" (8), a point that is also confirmed the respondent to the speaker—who What shall I call thee? by Adams (21nl). Thus, the child is I happy am could be the mother, the piper men- Joy is my name, — happy because it is completely inno- tioned in the "Introduction" to Songs of Sweet joy befall thee. (E 16) cent (in the Blakean sense) since it is Innocence Us suggested by Gleckner, free from all experience—all human 298-99nl) or some unnamed speaker— The first and second lines and the institutions and limitations. Nor should it seems to simplify the context as well. fourth and fifth lines seem to belong to line five, "Joy is my name," be taken to mean that the child is a girl with die the infant speaker, while the third and Works Cited sixth lines (as well as the whole second actual given name "Joy," for as F. W. stanza) belong to another voice, a re- Bateson reminds us in his note on the Adams, Joseph Quincy. A Life of William poem in his edition of Blake's works, Shakespeare Student's ed. Boston: Hough- spondent. Since babies of two days old ton Mifflin, 1923. "in the eighteenth century, girls were are realistically too young to speak, Bateson, F. W., ed. Selected Poems of Wil- various critics have offered a number not often, in fact, called Joy then" (115). liam Blake. New York: Macmillan, 1957. of interpretations of these lines. Wick- In sum, the infant at "two days old" Blake, William. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Newly rev. ed. steed is the one critic who specifically is completely innocent, free, and joyful for probably the last time in its life, for David V. Erdman, ed. Commentary by explains why the infant is "two days Harold Bloom. New York: Anchor, 1988. after that (according to Blake's view of old." He identifies the infant's joy with Gleckner, Robert F. The Piper & The God's creation of heaven as described the world) the infant will be christened, Bard. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1959. in Genesis on the second day (123). or named, thus limited by repressive Lee, Sidney. A Life of William Shake- speare. New ed. London: Smith, Elder, Wicksteed suggests that the infant may human institutions such as the church. 1915. be only two days past conception Certainly the companion piece to this poem, "Infant Sorrow" in Songs of Ex- Margoliouth, H. M. William Blake. Lon- rather than birth, thus making the joy don: Oxford UP, 1951. perience (E 28), shows the restraint of the joy of generation (123; 124n). Mar- Wicksteed, Joseph H. Blake's Innocence an infant "Striving against my swadling goliouth finds Wicksteed's explana- and Experience. London: J. M. Dent, 1928. bands," or the repressions of society. tion of the second day "far-fetched," .