A Derndean Reading Of William Blake’s Songs Of Innocence And Songs Of Experience

William Blake, a famous English poet and printmaker, is mostly known for hisearly two illustrated collections–Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience,which show his early view about the world and the human soul.With the application of Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionism, this thesispurports to argue that William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experiencebear within themselves the necessity of their own critique, which means thatinnocence and experience are not two definite opposites but two states that to someextent overlap and transform into each other, so as to conclude that binaryoppositions make little sense and that human soul is too undecidable to be fullycomprehended.Structurally, this thesis is composed of three parts. The first part is introductionwhich embraces Literature Review and the thesis statement of this paper. The secondpart of this paper includes four body chapters. Chapter one is devoted to examiningthose “pair songs”, songs that share the same title or sharply opposed titles. Chaptertwo focuses on exposing the self-critique which each of those binary oppositionsfound in chapter one bears within itself. Chapter three is to find the binaryoppositions existing in some individual poems in Songs of Innocence and Songs ofExperience and Chapter four is dedicated to deconstructing the oppositions withinthose individual poems. The last part of this paper is the conclusion which is toreveal that innocence and experience are not two definite opposites, that binaryoppositions make little sense, and that human soul is too undecidable to be ultimatelyattained.