William Wordsworth and William Blake: On Childhood

As Romantic poets, both William Wordsworth and William Blake idealize the innocence of very young children. For these poets, a child represents all that is good about humanity before its inevitable corruption by the evil and brutality of the adult world. They also believe that childlike innocence, a state in which emotion and sensation are elevated above reason and logic, is essential for literary and artistic creativity.

However, Blake and Wordsworth do differ somewhat in their perspectives on childhood. Wordsworth remembers childhood as a time of glorious, almost divine communion with nature. Blake's vision is darker; for Blake, although children are born into innocence, they lose it very quickly as they are subjected to the harsh and sorrowful experiences typical of everyday life. What follows is an imaginary dialogue between Blake and Wordsworth as they discuss their own childhoods and their perspectives on the child's state of innocence.

Wordsworth:

My happiest memories of childhood are of my long, rambling walks in the countryside. During those walks, I cultivated the love of nature that would later serve as the inspiration for the best of my lyrical poetry. When we are children, we are still one with nature, and we should strive to maintain the wonder and awe that a child feels in the presence of the beauty of nature. As I wrote in my poem "My Heart Leaps Up":

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

I aspire to maintain, even now as an adult, the excitement that fills a child at the sight of a rainbow. I owe all my poetic artistry and creativity to my ability to tap into those early experiences and relive the oneness with nature that I enjoyed as an infant. Losing the ability to recall those early feelings and memories would be a spiritual and creative death worse than the death of the physical body.

Blake:

I agree with you that the state of innocence we are born into as children is a blissful one. I wrote about that state in my poem "Infant Joy" in which a two-day old baby knows nothing but happiness, not even her own name:

'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!

But that state of pure joy is so fleeting, that I doubt any of us can truly remember what it felt like. As soon as we are old enough to know our names, experience begins to take its toll. Childhood is not all about rambling through nature. I, for one, was born in the city of London where my father worked as a hosier, and I did not go to school. Two of my siblings died when they were still babies. Even the youngest children are subjected to sorrows and trials that destroy their innocence. Take, for an example, the title character of my poem "The Chimney Sweeper" who was sold by his own father to work as a chimney sweep practically before he learned to talk:

When my mother died I was very young

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"

So your chimneys I sweep, & in soot I sleep.

Wordsworth:

I understand your point that children experience suffering in this world. But even those children are born into this world in a state of grace. I believe that they come straight from heaven and remember something of where they came from. The answer to this suffering is to try to recapture that divine state by returning to nature, rejecting logic, and exalting nature's beauty over cold, cruel reason. As I wrote in "The Tables Turned":

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--

We murder to dissect.

Blake:

I understand your desire to recapture the innocence of early childhood. But once we enter experience and leave our innocence behind, there is no going back. Poverty and death cannot be erased by a frolic in the daffodils. It is also important to remember that not all emotions are worthy of being elevated over reason. Remember my poem "A Poison Tree" in which the narrator is prey to anger, envy, and vengeance. These emotions are as natural to humankind as delight and joy. And, yes, nature is filled with many beautiful things. But it is also the backdrop for scenes of violence and horror. The innocent Little Lamb is part of nature, but the Tyger with his "fearful symmetry" is part of nature as well, and he was made with a "dread hand."

Both Wordsworth and Blake hold firm convictions about childhood forged from their own youthful experiences, and each view has something to recommend it. There is much value in appreciating nature and trying to reclaim the wonder and joy that small children experience as they explore the world. However, as much as we may wish to believe, along with Wordsworth, that it is possible to reclaim our childlike innocence, it seems that Blake's views are more realistic and perhaps more relevant to today's society which still faces many of the same problems that plagued late eighteenth-century London.