FREE ESSAY ON HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

William Blake
Man, born free, is everywhere in chains. (Pg. 328) This was the basis for William Blake's
poetry. Blake may have written dreams of sunny days, angels, wise guardians, songs of
pleasant glee, little ones leaping, shouting, and laughing, but to Blake these were all
Songs of Innocence. To Blake, one had not experienced enough to know that life was
dreadful, dreary, cruel, and merciless. The reason behind writing Songs of Innocence,
then Songs of Experience, was to illustrate that when one is naive, they may think that
life is greater than it really seems to be. 
Blake is intelligent for being able to articulate two versions of the same poem and,
while only changing it slightly, change the whole meaning of the poem altogether.
Starting with Introduction, in Songs of Innocence, William Blake had written of a small
child asking to play a song that is cheerful, then sing happily and finish by writing it
all in a book so that all who will read it may enjoy the happy songs. While this song may
be a joyous melodious poem that is not the real case in the wishes of Blake. Readers will
find this out in the second book Songs of Experience, in which a second form of
Introduction is exhibited. This second poem sounds much like the first except that it has
a depressing tone that the first did not. Instead of Piping a song about a lamb, the line
is replaced with Calling the lapsed Soul And weeping in the evening dew. So clearly the
second poem is written by Blake to show that life is not the happy place that it may
seem.
Blake wrote many poems with two versions to them such as The Chimney Sweeper. The first
version was one that had a fictitious tone and real tone. The fictitious tone was idea of
the children doing such a cancer-inducing and filthy job. While one child cries because
of the bad situation, the speaking child says to him that he mustn't think of the bad
because he has dreams of an Angel who sets thousands of sweepers free from their coffins,
meaning their forced job as a chimney sweep. In the end Tom feels ready to work because
his dream has shown him that there is a light after his days in danger. But the real tone
is that although there is a light, it still is dark at that time in his life. The Tom is
working dangerously as a chimney sweep, and although Tom is happy, he is on the edge of
life and death. With the use of white and black soot, and black coffins and Angels
setting them free to be naked and white, Blake uses this light and dark comparison to
create a good and evil of chimney sweeping. That although a chimneysweeper's life is bad,
there will be days in a better place. This better place may also be when the sweeper is
dead but still thinking that anything is better than being a chimney sweep. In the second
Chimney Sweeper, the second line begins Crying 'weep! weep' in notes of woe! and the
fourth, They are both gone up to the church to pray. This means that this is after these
poor chimneysweepers have died and the parents are mourning the loss of their sons who
have gone to praise God & his Priest & King. They mean that they have gone to meet God
after going to heaven.
Although not directly titled the same, The Lamb of Songs of Innocence is the harmonious
poem compared to The Tyger of Songs of Experience. While The Lamb seems like a naive
animal that is pure like its Softest clothing, wooly, bright, and how it has a tender
voice. The Lamb was asked if it knew who had created it. Because it was so meek and mild.
All are characteristics of a good and innocent animal. But in The Tyger characteristics
such as the immortal hand or eye hands that seize the fire. Blake meant for both these
animals to contrast each other. And he puts in strong details such as the dread hand and
dread feet and strong ironclad objects such as the hammer and the chain. While asking the
same question: who had created you, it was put in such a way that the Tyger was so much
more strong and knowledgeable than the Lamb. 
Another poetic duo in Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, are Infant Joy
and Infant Sorrow. In Songs of Innocence, Infant Joy is the joyous occasion of
childbirth. The joy of creating life and life creating joy is the heart of this poem.
Being two days old the child still does not have a name, but he chooses to name himself
Joy halfway through the poem but in the end he says he will sing as he waits for joy to
let him down. In Infant Sorrow, birth is depicted, as a painful lesson one must learn. My
mother groaned! My father wept, says the first line.
For Blake, he must've had a great time creating poems with two sides to them. With the
Divine Image from Songs of Innocence, life and church society are said to be peaceful,
loving, and merciful. All Pray in their distress And to these virtues of delight Return
their thankfulness. This last part of the first stanza states that all will pray when
they are in a rut and be returned with kindness. Life in Divine Image of Songs of
Experience is very different. The human heart is filled with cruelty, jealousy, terror,
and secrecy all very deep, dark. The second poem although shorter has a very dark
demeanor to it. Speaking upon the troubles that humans may have at times. 
Blake writes with the mind set that he will bring joy to a crashing halt. He first
creates an ideal. Blake makes a poem that was completely happy and heartfelt that evoked
warm feelings and then wrote a dark sinister double to it. It was very creative to be
able to create the separate meanings in the different poems as Blake had done. Although
the poems had the same title, it was a whole different message intended.