Infants and William Blake

            The poet William Blake focuses on the themes of innocence and experience in the poems “Infant Joy” and “Infant Sorrow”. His analysis of these two contrasting poems reveals the tragedy of innocence and experience and its similarity to Grendel. Blake first depicts the tragedy of innocence in “Infant Joy”. He first starts out with a loving conversation between mother and baby. Positive diction such as “sweet joy” (6) and “pretty joy” (8) elevate the baby as pure and innocent. However, the tragedy of innocence is quickly emphasized when the mother states “sweet joy but two days old” (8). It can be inferred that the mother is expressing her idea that her baby is too young and naïve to understand the world. She further ominously foreshadows the tragedy by stating “sweet joy befall thee!” (12). The verb “befall” (12) connotes a negative feeling supporting the foreshadowing of the fall of innocence. Meanwhile, Blake also depicts the tragedy of experience in “Infant Sorrow”. First, the title “Infant Sorrow” connotes a negative feeling because of the word “sorrow”. Sorrow is usually associated with sadness, oppression, death and disappointment. Second, the poem is now narrated only by the baby who has transformed into an experienced individual. The baby is aware of “the dangerous world” and describes himself as a “fined [hiding] in a cloud” (4). He realizes that the world is a cruel, dangerous place capable of making innocent people butter and possibly evil. Furthermore, the baby’s hopeless feelings towards his parents delineate his shift into experience. He “struggles in [his] father’s hands” and “sulk[s] upon [his] mother’s breast” because he wants to escape the constraint of reality (5 and 8). His parents represent reality due to their groaning and weeping (refers to line 1) about the realization that they are obligated to raise their son in a responsible manner. Blake hopes to bring into light the prevalence of losing innocence and achieving experience. Because Blake stresses the theme of innocence and experience, the novel Grendel is closely relatable to it. Grendel also struggles with the aspect of innocence and experience throughout his whole life. Like Blake, he does not view innocent or experience as superior over the other. He rather believes that innocence and experience brings him to tragedy. For instance, Grendel’s curiosity towards the world and his identity leads him to lose his innocence and realize the meaninglessness of life. Through his experience (reaching enlightenment), Grendel becomes a bitter and lonely individual who often exclaims “I am alone” (56). Furthermore, Grendel’s interaction with humans broadens his experience but also deprives him of happiness. Humans label Grendel as a “brute existent” and continuously ostracize him (74). Therefore, Grendel is driven to believe that his death will be a blessing because he will not need to wonder about the meaninglessness of life. For Grendel and Blake, innocence and experience serve as a tragedy but also as an important aspect of life. Without innocence and experience, people will be deprived of reminiscence, wisdom and insight.