In this collection of poetry, Blake shows his readers the pains of growing up disguised by the beauty of his poetry. Throughout the collection, there is a clear aging of the subject of the poetry. Starting out as a young, “innocent” child moving through life, learning of the temptations and darkness that one must face in reality. Songs of Innocence shows more idealized images of beautiful open fields, where seemingly, no harm could come to the subject of the poetry. The children are clothed in light and white and there is a clear religious element running throughout the poems.
However, in Songs of Experience, there is more of a lovesickness. It is painful, while also unavoidable, which is perhaps the message Blake is conveying to his reader. “The Sick Rose,” “The Little Girl Lost” and “The Little Girl Found” all describe female virginity and purity. Women in these poems are marked by their lack of intimate moments and then their sudden introduction to those moments. Blake displays the images of fear that surround these moments for every woman. Not to say that I believe these are in a fully progressively feminist/womanist form, but in ways that sexuality may have not been discussed by men at this time. in “The Sick Rose,” while he describes an illness brought on the girl as she enters into her sexuality (her loss of purity=sickness). He does show her sexual desire “Of crimson joy” (Line 6). She is both hurt and fulfilled by this exposure and she is given narrative to her sexual experiences. Instead of the solely male perspective on the encounter.
Romanticism Blog 