Bing Out the Mystified Elements in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. 

Answer

Bing out the mystified elements in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. 

Or, Discuss William Blake as a mystic  poet with reference to “Songs of Innocence and Experience.”

William Blake (1757-1827) is considered a mystic poet and seminal figure in the history of poetry of the Romantic Age. His major poems involve religious mysticism, as there are a lot of mystic elements in them. He has flaunted his spiritual or mystic qualities in his acclaimed poetry collection, “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (1789).

Mysticism: Mysticism is a religious practice that aims at the “union with the Absolute or God” through secret prayer or meditation.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, The term mysticism means a person who tries to become united with God through prayer and meditation and so understand important things that are beyond normal human understanding”.

Blake as a Mystic Poet: To evaluate William Blake as a mystic poet, we should match the concept of mysticism with the poems of William Blake. Here is the analysis of “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” which is as follows.

Poem of “Introduction”: The first and foremost poem of “Songs of Innocence,” published in 1789, is “Introduction,” in which a very mystic concept is found when the poet talks about a child.

On a cloud I saw a child,

And he laughing said to me,

Pipe a song about a lamb.

The above lines are the indicator of Blake’s mysticism as the critics are in accord that the child is not simple but Jesus Christ himself. The same title poem of “Songs of Experience,” published in 1794, bears mysticism as it was also written in a vision poem.

“The Lamb and The Tyger”: These two poems are contradictory as they depict the two opposite states of God’s quality. The former one limns naïve and mild nature of God, and the latter one flaunts the harshness of the Almighty. The representation of the subject matter of these poems is so mystic that the critics are to evaluate Blake as a mystic.

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

A person who has a union with the Omnipotent can understand and feel by heart such quality of the Creator.

“The Chimney Sweeper”: The most illustrated mystic poem is “The Chimney Sweeper” of “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” This is one of the visionary poems of William Blake, which proves his very deep mysticism because of the message of the poem.

And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,

He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.

Thus, Blake clarifies his union with God by conveying that a pious person seeks God’s satisfaction and gets satisfied when he gets God as his guardian.

The Little Black Boy: This is one of the mystic poems of “Songs of Innocence.” This is basically a poem of consolation for the people of the world who are deprived of materialistic facilities; that’s why the poet asserts that children will one day gather around God’s golden tent and will rejoice like a lamb.

…. Come out from the grove, My love and care,

And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.

From this quotation, it is clear that the poet is not only a mystic, but he has tried to make all the deprived human beings of the world mystic.

Miscellaneous: Basically, almost all of Blake’s poems bear the concept of mysticism. The most illustrated poems of “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” which are pregnant with mystic elements, are “The Divine Image, The Little Boy Lost, The Little Boy Found. The Little Girl Lost, The Little Girl Found,” etc.

In termination, Blake is a luminary figure in the history of English poetry for his mystic and symbolic qualities. His prophecy proves him a pious one because he is the first one in English literature who satires authority in support of common people.