Paper Summary:

This paper argues that William Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience' criticize the church with its antiquarianism, the law and its boundaries and its deception of society. The writer's analysis of several of the poems and some of the recurring themes in this collection shows that the main issues portrayed by Blake are the loss of innocence, the Old Testament, the law, society and the deception of the church, and that these are incorporated into his poetry so that he may speak out against them.

From the Paper:

"This poem echoes 'The Sick Rose' as the title suggests; the 'Rose' symbolizes a woman and her virginity, but more widely suggests of societies constraints. The opening line demonstrates sickness, diseases and the restraints of society on women. The narrator tells the woman that 'thou art sick' but we do not know if the personification of the woman is ill. The contamination of society may have made the woman bed ridden and confined to her room. The poem indicates strong sexual imagery that is forced upon the rose. The intruder is seen as an 'invisible worm' that 'flies in the night' seeking to make her his own. Blake may be indicating here that events such as these occur because of the laws of the land and the church's idea of celibacy."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law - by Michael Scrivener. New York: The New Press, 1993.
• Literary Theory: An Anthology by Rivkin and Ryan | Chapter 3 Witness Against the Beast by E.P. Thompson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
• Dangerous Enthusiasm: William Blake and the Culture of Radicalism in the 1790s by Jon Mee. Oxford University Press, USA, 1992.
• The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau, eText at http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

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