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영어

The aim of this essay is to investigate multi-dimensional meaning of some poems in William Blake's Songs of Innocence & of Experience. The primary background of this kind of investigation is what is called ‘Doctrine of the States,’ which becomes more concrete in Blake's later epics. States are stages of error, which the Divine Mercy creates so that the State, not the Individual in it, shall be blamed, and the Individual can be forgiven. Each speaker of each song is not alway Blake the poet. Blake is a kind of stage director who manages the speaker behind the scene. He does not directly represent the states of Innocence or of Experience, but tries to show “the Contrary States of Human Souls.” To understand this deliberate strategy of the prophet-poet and the various ironical and symbolic meanings behind it, the reader should cultivate his own imagination and intuition. Only then he can escape from the Newtonian vision which Blake does his best to avoid.