A Thematic Study Of Songs Of Innocence And Experience In The Perspective Of Figure-ground Theory

William Blake (1757-1827), one of the forerunners of EnglishRomanticism, is a prolific author both in writing and painting. Songs ofInnocence and Experience was written at his early stage. The formerconsisting of 19 poems including an Introduction was finished in 1789, thencooperatively co-edited with the former five years later and subheaded as“shewing the two contrary states of the human soul”with an addition ofanother 28 poems. Some poems in the latter share the same titles with theformer, such as Nurse’s Song and The Chimney Sweeper, therefore, mostreaders agree that the state of innocence and the state of experience are thetwo contraries in human’s heart, as stated in the subtitle. And scholarsanalyze them through kinds of critical theories, and have broughtachievements. But among those results, the research at home has beenemphasizing too much on the analysis of the status of innocence andexperience by enumerating details from the text. Or they just lay stress onthe contrariness of the two. But the inner reason that why that contrastcomes about is not explained though the impact from society and religionare referred in some papers.Thus, this thesis tries to interpret the collection of Songs of Innocenceand Experience in the perspective of figure-ground theory in the domain ofcognitive poetics by the way of close-reading the text. It explores the waythe poet expresses his ideal pursuit in his poetry. And finally, a conclusion isdrawn that the real change from innocence to experience is mainly presentedon the images of God, nature and man, all of which are the figures withrelative grounds. The reversal and their dynamic movements of the figureson the image of God, nature and man and their corresponding grounds clearly illustrate the reason for this change. By this way, the analysisthrough figure-ground theory verifies that the poet’s cognitive changes onthe three relationships between God and man, man and nature, man and mantransform the change of the theme from innocence to experience. Besidesthat, due to the realistic state of the development of figure-ground theory,and it is still in its rudiment and is not mature enough for critical analysis,this thesis is a trail and a test for the feasibility of figure-ground in practicaltextual analysis.Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin was the first to set up figure-groundtheory in 1983, and his face/vase image explains figure and groundcomprehensively. In man’s cognition, there are two cognitive domains:figure and ground. The figure is the salient part and the focus of attentionand the ground is relatively the less salient and static part. These twocomplementary to each other and the ground is to stand out the figure, sothese two can not be perceived simultaneously. Only the figure is the focusin man’s cognition. So some standards in the perspectives of psychology,linguistics and poetics are put forward to distinguish the figure from theground, such as the Pragnanz law in Gestalt psychology, which means thatthe smallest and the simplest should be the figure. All in all, the figure is themost salient one which is dynamic, detailed and bright, or in other words,the spotlight or the focus is the figure. So the figure is actually the reader’scognition and understanding about the text and the author. Thus,figure-ground theory supplies an approach to read the inner heart of theauthor, which means though a reasonable way to know more clearly aboutthe perceptual meaning perceived about the theme in the text.Then for the research on theme, literature always provides as the bestway to express relationships between God and man, nature and man, manand man. In the perspective of figure-ground theory, the images of thesethree appear at a high frequency and are all salient ones in those poems of Songs of Innocence and Experience,, and therefore, they are the figures inthat collection. By highlighting them at different degrees and interactingthem with each other dynamically, the poet stresses three themes: therelationship between God and man, that between man and nature and thatamong men, which are based not only on these three ideals, but also on theresearcher’s individual understanding on William Blake along with theauthor’s perception during the reading process. Some acknowledged storieshappened in Blake’s life time supplement proofs that it is the poet’s differentviews on religion, nature and society that affect his cognition towards theworld, which is unconsciously projected in his writing. Thus, with thereasonable analysis of figure-ground theory, the perceptual research on thetheme is given a reasonable and dialectical feature.During the process of analyzing, the writer mainly concerns Blake’sviews on religion, nature and the society at different time to meditate thepoet’s inner heart. First, Blake’s cognition on religion is influenced byseveral aspects, but in this thesis, it mainly refers to the traditional doctrineand Swedenborgianism. Through the analysis of the figures and grounds inSongs of Innocence and Experience in the perspective of figure-groundtheory, firstly, the image of God is presented as“the creator”,“the father”and“the protector”, then changes to be an image of selfishness, cruelty andeven a destroyer of man with different figures and grounds due to the doubtabout God. So finally, man in that collection can only pins his idealGod-man relationship on his spiritual world. Secondly, the nature is muchmore than itself for Blake’s sensitive awareness on spirit, and“the blossom”then lives supernaturally as man, and some natural beings are personified asman to figure out that theme. Meanwhile in the real natural world, thechildren play happily on the green and form into a unity with the nature.Similarly，the deficiency in belief and the fetters in reality hinder humanenjoyment in nature and therefore, man can only realize his dream the supernatural world. Therefore, two natures are perceived cognitively: aphysical nature and a man-made nature. And due to different features of thenature, the relationship between man and nature presents differently: man inthe physical nature lives harmoniously with the nature with holy love fromGod, and the physical nature is given the supernatural power to be more likeman. But the man-made nature is corrupted, so finally the physical nature inman’s supernatural world becomes a corrupted one as well for man aresuffering from poverty, starvation and hunger. What’s more, the charactersin those poems are mostly the image of child. England was overthrown byrationalism at that time, during which a rational world view on the mechanicrunning of brain is formed so that a mechanic, harsh and estranged relationsappears among men. And accordingly, man becomes much eager forfreedom, equality, and democracy by molding the image of innocent andoptimistic children, but with the change for his ideas on the reality of thesuffering in the society, the relationship changes and man does not love eachother as before but treats others with indifference and selfishness.There are five years passed from innocence to experience throughfigure-ground theory, a conclusion can be drawn that: it is feasible toanalyze the theme through the theory of figure and ground, which means ascientific way to read the sensibility that the poem expresses, and to provideas a new way to understand the collection, and meanwhile, it also helps thereader to know more about himself/herself with the analysis of the figure ofthe focus the reader perceives in the texts during the reading process. Butthrough detailed analysis with figure-ground theory, the limitations are alsoexposed due to the influence from time and space.