SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTION TO SONGS OF INNOCENCE

SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF "INTRODUCTION" (SONGS OF INNOCENCE)

Summary

Following poetic convention, Blake sets the scene for his collection during this first poem. He envisions himself as a shepherd “Piping down the valleys wild,” who encounters a toddler “On a cloud” (line 3) who encourages him to play a song “about a Lamb.” After hearing the music, the kid asks the shepherd to drop his pipe and sing the words to the song. After enjoying the lyrics, the kid tells the shepherd to “write/In a book that each one may read” the songs he has created. So he sits down, makes a pen from the materials at hand, and begins to put in writing “my happy songs,/Every child may joy to listen to.”

Analysis

This poem consists of 5 quatrains, a number of which follow the quatrain form. The rhyme scheme of the “Introduction” varies depending upon the stanza. Stanzas 1 and 4 follow the standard ABAB pattern, while stanzas 2, 3, and 5 use an ABCB pattern. the primary and fourth stanzas begin with “Piping” and therefore the noun form “Piper,” juxtaposing the musical nature of the speaker with the foremost musical rhymes of the poem.

The poet sees a baby within the sky, upon a cloud. This child is both an embodiment of innocence, as he's young, and therefore the inspiration behind poetry, as he charges the shepherd to play, sing, and write. That the kid charges the shepherd to play the song specifically about “a Lamb” indicates one in all the most important foci of Blake’s work, the portrayal of Jesus because the innocent, spotless Lamb of Christianity. Ostensibly, the intended audience for this collection is additionally innocent, because the poet writes, “Every child may joy to listen to.” it's not only children, however, but also the childlike inside who will appreciate his works.

Using the reed for a pen and stained water for the ink connects even the act of creation to nature. The easily acceptable tools provided by nature serve to emphasize both the spontaneity of the works that follow and their place as responses to the bounty and wonder of nature. His subject material will (allegedly) be “happy cheer” throughout, although several poems of the Songs of Innocence belie this suggestion.

The shepherd's progression from piping to singing, and at last to writing parallels the poet's own progression from inspiration, the music, to the initial composition of the poem, the lyrics, and at last the creative act of putting the words on paper. The poem wishes “that all may read,” a phrasing that means the prevalence of the word over the recited word within the former's ability to achieve a wider audience and to exist aside from the author. Blake's own vocations as printer and engraver are therefore vindicated over that of the performer