Virtue Versus Corruption Anonymous College

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience exemplifies his ideas on the nature of creation. They demonstrate the innocent and bucolic world of childhood, versus an adult world of depravity and repression.

Blake stands outside innocence and experience, in a place where he finds invalidity in both. The Songs of Innocence emphasize children’s’ naive hopes, fears, curiosities and their transformation to adulthood. They draw attention to the positive aspects of life before the distortion and corruption of experience. The Songs of Experience state the difficult experiences of adult life and how they destroy one’s innocence. Poem, “The Lamb”, represents fragility and virtue, whereas its’ twinned poem, “The Tyger”, displays the contrary: evil forces. Though Blake does not identify himself fully with either view, the poems investigate his opposing perspectives on the world, one through a lens of innocence and another through experience.

The poem, “The Lamb” is in the form of a question and answer. The overall question, “who made thee?” at first, seems very simple, but the child is tapping into profound questions about the nature of his own creation. This poem contributes to the innocence of children, as the situation of a...