A Commentary on William Blake's Introduction to Songs of Experience

William Blake is a poet in the Romantic era. Introduction to Songs of Experience is the first poem in the Songs of Experience poetry set in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poem is organized in four stanzas, where each of them contains five lines. The third and fourth lines of each stanza have less beats than any other lines in the verse. The rhyme in every stanza is consistent, which is in ABAAB form. In this poem the tone is criticizing. In William Blake’s Introduction to Songs of Experience, the poet uses auditory imagery, diction of detachment, imagery of darkness and light, and diction of renewal in order to portray the speaker or author’s intention to spread the call to salvation to the corrupt society.

William Blake uses auditory imagery in order to represent the need to communicate the ‘Holy’ message to other people. This auditory imagery is built diction of sound such as ‘hear’, ‘voice’, ‘calling’ and ‘weeping’. These choices of word are located in the first and second stanza. In the first stanza, the Bard, who might be Blake himself, hears the ‘Holy Word’; therefore he might be a messenger from God. In the second verse ‘the Bard’ is calling people, ‘lapsed Soul’, weeping and spreading the message of salvation. In both stanzas, auditory imagery is used to indicate the importance of conveyance of the ‘Holy’ message.

The next technique that Blake uses is diction of detachment. ‘Fallen’ is repeated twice and consecutively on the last line in the second stanza and this emphasizes the depth of spiritual degradation that people experience. Likewise, in the forth stanza, ‘turn away’ is repeated two times in order to stress that people move further away from God. This technique of repeating the diction of detachment, such as ‘fallen’ and ‘turn away’ are used to demonstrate the increasing gap between God and mankind.

The third literary technique that is employed by William Blake is the imagery of darkness and light. The purpose of this technique is to convey that people are profane, but there is still hope to be saved. The imagery of darkness is found in the second and third stanza: ‘the evening’, ‘the night’. This imagery of darkness has a figurative meaning of immorality. On the other hand, the poet also uses imagery of light, such as ‘starry pole’, ‘light’, ‘the morn rises’ and ‘starry floor’. These images of light are an extended metaphor of goodness. Therefore these words are used in order to delineate that repentance opens the possibility of coming back to the right path in terms of religious belief since by repenting, people change their way of living from wrongful to virtuous. These contrasting images of darkness and light put an emphasis on the doings that is wrong or moral from a religious perspective.

Lastly, William Blake employs diction of renewal in Introduction to Songs of Experience in order to indicate the signal to salvation. These words, ‘return’, ‘arise’, ‘rises’, ‘renew’ and ‘break of day’ are found in all stanza except the first one. The exclusion of these words in the first stanza is to show that the state where people are at that time is sinful. ‘Break of day’ implies a new day or beginning. The ‘morn ‘rises’ from the slumberous mass’ signifies that people need a new way of living, the right one. This diction of renewal suggests that people are told to change their corrupt manners to be worthy.

To conclude, in Introduction to Songs of Experience by William Blake, auditory imagery, diction of detachment, imagery of darkness and light, and diction of renewal in order to depict the poet’s intention to propagate the idea of salvation to the society of depraved people. In comparison to Introduction to Songs of Innocence, this poem has a more realistic view and is darker in tone. This poem portrays the original situation in the society at that time. The Bard in this poem is experienced and criticizing the society, while in Introduction to Songs of Innocence, the Piper is joyous and innocent. In a bigger context, the poems in Songs of Innocence are in a child’s point of view where the world is not as complicated and cruel as it is described in Songs of Experience, where the poems are viewed from an adult’s perspective.