Virtue in Simplicity: A Close Reading of "Infant Joy" Anonymous College

“Infant Joy” describes the feeling of a mother emotionally overwhelmed by the beauty, sweetness, and innocence of her newborn baby; she cannot think or feel anything but joy. The poem belongs to William Blake’s collection Songs of Innocence and celebrates infancy as a precious phase of life as well as the joyful nature of procreation. The poem takes the form of an imaginative dialogue between a mother and her child, whose words are spoken by the mother’s stream of consciousness since he is only a voiceless two-day old infant. The very simple language of the poem reflects the simplicity of the scene: a mother, who has given birth to a baby, is staring at him while imaging his happiness and joy. The repetition of the word joy, which occurs six times in the twelve-line poem, aims to portray the nature of infancy, whose emblem is indeed joy itself.

I have no name

I am but two days old. —

What shall I call thee?

I happy am

Joy is my name, —

Sweet joy befall thee! (Blake)

In the first six-line stanza, the poem takes the form of an explicit dialogue between the mother and the baby. Almost every line makes a direct reference to the state of joy, although the first line “I have no name” does not appear to do so at first glance. However,...