The Romantic Child and Blake...

This week’s section is entitled The Romantic Child, and what better subject to talk about than William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. I just have some random thoughts and connections that I think I picked up on that I’m going to ramble about. First off, I am not very educated in examining or interpreting art but I will take a stab at it while looking at the frontpieces and title pages of this book and how they relate to some selected poems from the work. The frontpeice (http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/images/songsie.b.p2.300.jpg) shows a child angel flying above a man. The man is looking up at the angel and holding a recorder or some similar instrument. They are in a natural setting and the man seems to be leading a flock of sheep.  The first connection that jumps to my head is the angel and the lamb from the poem “The Lamb”. (http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/transcription.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.16). This little poem is about a child being asked and then told where he or she came from. The child is called a lamb in the poem just as Jesus himself is referred to as the Lamb of God in the Bible. Blake is making the case that children are heavenly gifts as Jesus was sent down from heaven in the human form. I see a similarity in how he represents the child in the frontpiece as an angel and the child as a lamb. Both are symbols of innocent and heavenly creations. Throughout the Songs of Innocence Blake keeps the children pure, innocent and angle like. Even in The Chimney Sweeper he has the child dream of an angel taking the dead children to heaven where the sweeper knows the children will be better off.

            Another thought that came to me was I saw a connection between Locke and Rousseau’s ideas that it is important to play and experience nature. The poems “The School Boy”(http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/transcription.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.20&java=yes) and “Nurses Song” (http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/transcription.xq?objectid=songsie.b.illbk.13&java=yes) both are about children and how they feel about being in nature rather than inside somewhere.  In both of these poems Blake puts importance on the children being in nature and not stuck in some dreary classroom or house. “The School Boy” reminds me of my own yearning to be outdoors on a beautiful day. I found it hard to pay attention to any book or school direction when I knew that there were experiences to be had outside. “Nurses Song” reminds me of those innocent summer nights of playing in the neighborhood. When thinking about it now not only was I playing but learning different aspects of life such as nature while catching bugs or just socialization by getting along with other children while learning and playing games. To Locke these would be just as or more important than anything learned in a book or a boring old school house.