Movimiento Envolvente

English poet and artist William Blake‘s Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) are his best-known works of poetry and have had a lasting influence on children‘s literature. Some

Songs, such as the ―Introduction‖ and ―The Lamb,‖ explore the innocence of children‘s

understanding of God and the natural world. Others, such as ―The Chimney Sweeper‖ and ―The Garden of Love,‖ reveal the hardships both children and adults must confront in the unsheltered world of ―experience.‖ American-born English poet and critic T. S. Eliot wrote that Blake‘s poetry in

Songs of Experience and other writings contained ―an honesty against which the whole world

conspires because it is unpleasant.‖

From Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul

By William Blake

Introduction

Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child,

And he laughing said to me: 'Pipe a song about a Lamb.' So I piped with merry chear. 'Piper pipe that song again—' So I piped, he wept to hear. 'Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe, Sing thy songs of happy chear.' So I sung the same again While he wept with joy to hear. 'Piper sit thee down and write In a book that all may read—' So he vanish'd from my sight. And I pluck'd a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear.

The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice: Little Lamb who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

Little Lamb I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.

The Chimney Sweeper

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.

The Tyger

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And Thou shalt not writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore, And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I waterd it in fears,

Night & morning with my tears: And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night. Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine. And into my garden stole.

When the night had veild the pole; In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

Source: Blake, William. Blake’s Poetry and Designs. Johnson, Mary Lynn and John E. Grant, eds. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979.

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————————————————————————————————————— The signs of this newer feeling, which resulted in romanticism, can be traced in the poetry of William Cowper and of Thomas Gray. The cultivation of a pensive and melancholy sensibility and the interruption of the rule of the heroic couplet, as in Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751), hint at the period to come, as does Gray's interest in medieval, nonclassical literature. New interests are even more obvious in the highly original

poetry of the self-educated artist and engraver William Blake. His work consists in part of simple, almost childlike lyrics (Songs of Innocence, 1789), as well as of powerful but lengthy and obscure declarations of a new mythological vision of life (The Book of Thel, 1789). All Blake's poetry expresses a revolt against the ideal of reason (which he considered destructive to life) and advocates the life of feeling—but in a more vital and assertive sense than is the case with the other previously mentioned preromantics. Similarly robust and passionate are the lyrics of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, which are characterized by his use of regional Scottish vernacular. The simplicity, forcefulness, and powerful emotion of the ancient ballads of the Scottish-English border region, as revealed in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), by Bishop Thomas Percy, were likewise influential in the development of romanticism.

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