William Blake: The Merging of Innocence and Experience in Faith
When a child looks at the world everything is viewed in the worldview filter of childhood innocence. Children are able to see beauty and have faith without the influence of darkness. As adults, we grow to envy the “child-like” faith and wish that we could always see the world as beautiful, but we know that so many things in this life are complex with no clear answers. We can only observe and form our own opinions based on what we learn from the world around us. Romantic poet William Blake like most of us pondered the age-old question of creation and the nature of the creator. In his Songs of Innocence Blake captures the simple faith and undoubting belief a child has of his …show more content…
Faith was important to Blake. Even as a young child, he claimed to have visions of God and to have seen “angels in trees”, “…Blake came home from Peckham Rye with the news that he had seen a tree filled with angels…” (Osbert 7). Blake was in tune to his spiritual side and it is evident through both “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” that he sought to understand the complexity of God. Blake’s passion in his beliefs influenced his poems. “As an adult, Blake did not support the restrictions and traditions of the Church of England and was a non-conformist” (Roberts 4). Being a non-conformist meant that he did not want the government to dictate his religious beliefs and he broke away from the official English …show more content…
“Little Lamb I’ll tell thee! / He is called by thy name.” (lines 12-13). Blake uses the child’s answer to exuberate a tone of excitement and adoration for the creator. The child’s faith is unwavering as he or she continues to speak to the lamb, in fact the intensity of the child’s faith seems to continue to grow as the “song” continues. The speaker reveals the creator to be Jesus, “For he calls himself a Lamb:” (line 14). In the Christian Bible, Jesus is known as the sacrificial “Lamb of God”. The creator did more than just create the lamb, for he was also God’s “Lamb”. According to the Christian Bible, Jesus came so mankind could be forgiven of their sins, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NIV). As the speaker continues to describe the creator, he is witnessing to the lamb and is in a state of innocence connecting the lamb and humanity. Editor Jay Parini supports this view, “Humanity and nature are one in God (“I a child and thou a lamb, / We are called by his name)” (Parini 37). The speaker connects as an equal with the lamb. The faith in God that the speaker shares with the lamb is beautiful in that there is no area of doubt. The faith of the child gently draws the lamb into the image of the love of Jesus. The poem ends with the child, blessing the little lamb, “Little Lamb God bless thee”
When a child looks at the world everything is viewed in the worldview filter of childhood innocence. Children are able to see beauty and have faith without the influence of darkness. As adults, we grow to envy the “child-like” faith and wish that we could always see the world as beautiful, but we know that so many things in this life are complex with no clear answers. We can only observe and form our own opinions based on what we learn from the world around us. Romantic poet William Blake like most of us pondered the age-old question of creation and the nature of the creator. In his Songs of Innocence Blake captures the simple faith and undoubting belief a child has of his …show more content…
Faith was important to Blake. Even as a young child, he claimed to have visions of God and to have seen “angels in trees”, “…Blake came home from Peckham Rye with the news that he had seen a tree filled with angels…” (Osbert 7). Blake was in tune to his spiritual side and it is evident through both “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” that he sought to understand the complexity of God. Blake’s passion in his beliefs influenced his poems. “As an adult, Blake did not support the restrictions and traditions of the Church of England and was a non-conformist” (Roberts 4). Being a non-conformist meant that he did not want the government to dictate his religious beliefs and he broke away from the official English …show more content…
“Little Lamb I’ll tell thee! / He is called by thy name.” (lines 12-13). Blake uses the child’s answer to exuberate a tone of excitement and adoration for the creator. The child’s faith is unwavering as he or she continues to speak to the lamb, in fact the intensity of the child’s faith seems to continue to grow as the “song” continues. The speaker reveals the creator to be Jesus, “For he calls himself a Lamb:” (line 14). In the Christian Bible, Jesus is known as the sacrificial “Lamb of God”. The creator did more than just create the lamb, for he was also God’s “Lamb”. According to the Christian Bible, Jesus came so mankind could be forgiven of their sins, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NIV). As the speaker continues to describe the creator, he is witnessing to the lamb and is in a state of innocence connecting the lamb and humanity. Editor Jay Parini supports this view, “Humanity and nature are one in God (“I a child and thou a lamb, / We are called by his name)” (Parini 37). The speaker connects as an equal with the lamb. The faith in God that the speaker shares with the lamb is beautiful in that there is no area of doubt. The faith of the child gently draws the lamb into the image of the love of Jesus. The poem ends with the child, blessing the little lamb, “Little Lamb God bless thee”