Creation and Religion

I am going to expound on "The Garden of Love", but first I feel the need to backtrack a little to "The Lamb". When our professor, Dr. Jones, was discussing this poem, he pointed out that Blake unifies the Creator aspect of the Trinity with Christ the Lamb. Dr. Jones felt this did not fully fit with Trinitarian doctrine; however, I disagree. I didn't realize this until I was looking at this icon I got for Christmas. It clearly shows Christ in the Creator aspect. In Orthodox Christianity, which happens to be my particular brand, Christ is the Creator, the Lamb, everything. The Trinity is fully united from before the beginning of time.
Now, "The Garden of Love" symbolizes the movement from innocence to experience. Blake not only continues with the Eden theme, but also the movement from childhood to adulthood, and the confinement that society forces upon adults. He uses religion to illustrate this. The area where the children played has now been replaced by a chapel, with "Thou shalt not" written on the lintel. The innocent carefree play of childhood has been replaced by the demands to conformity within societal bounds. Attempting to turn away from these demands, and return to innocence, symbolized by the simplistic beauty of nature, the speaker looks for the flowers that used to grow in the garden. Instead, he finds death, which is the ultimate end to all those who allow their innocence of perception to be distorted by the experienced perception of others. The priests in the poem serve this role of imposing their perception of the world on the speaker, by denying him his happiness with their regulations. The briars, along with the image below the line, can also refer to Christ's crown of thorns. This is where I get slightly confused on Blake's perception of Christianity. It may be because he is coming out of some sort of dissenting Protestantism, which generally has Calvinistic veins of happiness equating with sin. In my understanding of Christianity, it does not exist to damn you for your joy, but instead seeks to magnify your joy through the love of God and joyfulness in all of creation. The canons of the religion confine human desire, but only those desires that ulitmately lead to unhappiness. Even though Blake is focused on the individuality of perception and reality, he cannot be advocating pure hedonism, because the Dionysisian demands of humanity would take precedence over the stewardship of nature. Without some sort of agreed upon societal perception of right and wrong, each individual would merely be chasing their own desires, regardless of the harm to fellow man or nature, and all innocence would be lost.

Blake's Nudity

William Blake's illustrations for "The Lamb", "The Little Girl Lost", and "The Little Girl Found" all involve humans in various states of dress. The boy in "The Lamb" is naked, as are the children and adult frolicking at the end of "The Little Girl Found". However, Lyca and her mother are clothed in "The Little Girl Lost" and the first illustration of "The Little Girl Found". Blake's use of nudity seems to imply a state of innocence, purity, and natural being. Hence, Lyca's mother is clothed because she has lost her innocence in the transition to motherhood, and will soon experience the sorrow this transformation so often carries with it. Lyca also is clothed, but the lioness releases her of the clothing that binds her to the human world, the world of experience and pain, before carrying her off to reunite her with the natural world. At the end of the poem, which I always perceived as Lyca's parents joining her in death, all are depicted in a natural state of nudity, having returned to an innocent, painless, carefree state.
Modern American society has an extremely different view of nudity. It does not represent innocence or purity, and is most certainly not natural. In Columbia, South Carolina, where I used to live, there was a news story a few months ago about a mother who was told by Wal-Mart employees to stop breastfeeding her child in a public area of the store. Several comments on the story pointed out that Wal-Mart is a "family store" and young children might be exposed to the indecency of a bare breast. Breastfeeding is a completely natural action; humans have evolved to feed their young this way. However, Americans have come to understand all nudity as having a sexual bent. If a child sees a women breastfeeding and is told to look away, the child grasps that something is "naughty" about nakedness. That child eventually has to confront their own nakedness (it can't be escaped) and may wonder what is so wrong about them, about their body. This is why a majority of Americans have body image and self-esteem problems. From a young age, they are exposed to the idea that their natural state is something shameful, to be hidden away. Although, since most people can't quite figure out why they have this uneasy feeling about their naked appearance, they start to think it's because their hips are too big, or their waist is not proportionate, and endeavor to somehow change this. Thus, the plastic surgery and diet businesses boom, but people still don't quite seem happy with themselves.

Blake

It may be because I read Blake's Songs of Experience first, many years ago, but every time I read poems from Songs of Innocence a sense of foreboding comes through the words. As I read, I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, the innocence to be shattered and become experience. This feeling is similar to the sense of inevitability felt by those of us who frequent isolated alleys at night. However, the sense of anticipation in Blake's words are not merely based on some intuitive sense dropping lead into a dull pit of the stomach, but can be read and heard in his tangible words.
For instance, the "Introduction" seems light-hearted enough, full of merriment and mirth. Nonetheless, there is weeping mentioned. The second reference is clearly to tears of happiness ("wept with joy"); yet, the first is somewhat ambiguous. Here, before the book is even fully begun, is an intermingling of sorrow and joy. Likewise, "The Shepherd" has a joyful existence, full of wandering and sweet lambs. Then Blake throws in the word "watchful", implying there are things threatening enough to be watched for beyond this blithe herd. Finally, "The Ecchoing Green" ends with the day and the "darkening Green". The children's play is over; the darkness now descends.