Infant Joy

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William Blake
'Infant Joy'

"I have no name;
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!

'Infant Joy' was published in 1789 in 'Songs of Innocence' and is the counterpart to "Infant Sorrow" which was published at a later date in 'Songs of Experience' in 1794.
Probably the most famous poems in these two books are 'The Tyger in 'Songs of Experience' and it's counterpart 'The Lamb' in 'Songs of Innocence'.
Both 'Infant Joy' and 'Infant Sorrow' use two stanzas, however, ‘Infant Sorrow’ uses a regular AABB rhyme scheme for both stanzas; whereas, ‘Infant Joy’ uses ABCDAC for the first stanza, and ABCDDC for the second. The most marked pattern in ‘Infant Joy’ is the double rhyme repeated in lines three, six, nine, and twelve, this pattern contrasts with the more insistent rhymes found in ‘Infant Sorrow, and gives the poem a more tentative quality. It could be argued that this tentative air suggests the idea that although the speaker wishes the child a joyful life, he or she knows that this is unlikely to happen. This would suggest that the adult’s naming of the child is a tentative wish, rather than manipulation.

The adult shows enthusiasm and remorse for the child, it shows the characterisitic of human nature that hopes but yet that hope is shrouded in doubt and therefore is more likely to fail. The most noticeable difference between ‘Infant Joy’ and ‘Infant Sorrow’ is the narrative viewpoint. ‘Infant Sorrow’ is narrated from a child’s standpoint, beginning with the lines “my mother groaned, my father wept!/Into the dangerous world I leapt”, this continues throughout the poem, as the child tells us about its experiences. ‘Infant Joy’, by contrast, uses a mimetic technique; the poem is a reported dialogue between the child and an adult. This is seen in the first three lines: “‘I have no name;/I am but two days old.’/What shall I call thee?” The different viewpoints reveal differing attitudes to childbirth. The child describing its own birth in ‘Infant Sorrow’ describes a traumatic experience, using words such as ‘groaned’, ‘wept’, ‘helpless’, and ‘naked’. It is worth noting that none of these are particularly unusual events when a child is born, however, the effect of Blake’s using the child’s viewpoint draws attention to the unfamiliarity of the world to the child, suggesting that what seems natural and joyful to an adult is traumatic and painful to the child. The language used in ‘Infant Joy’ is more joyful; the word ‘joy’, and the phrases ‘sweet joy’, and ‘pretty joy’ are repeated throughout. Although this poem is in the form of dialogue, it is the adult who does most of the talking, two-day old children can’t actually talk, and it is the adult who says “sweet joy I call thee” (l.9). Willmott suggests that this represents an attempt by an adult to manipulate innocence, as represented by the child. It is noticeable that neither poem relies heavily on figurative language. ‘Infant Sorrow’ uses the simile “like a fiend hid in a cloud” (l.4); Willmott asks what this image suggests about the child’s energy, and whether it is better to ‘struggle’, or to ‘sulk’. It is would not be unusual for an exhausted parent to describe an overactive child as ‘fiendish’, is it likely however that a child would refer to itself in this way? There is possibly a discrepancy at this point between the narrator’s voice and the poet’s. ‘Infant Joy’ uses no figurative language, although the lines in which the infant speaks could be seen as a metaphor. The general avoidance of metaphors in both poems seems to suit the childlike simplicity of the subjects. In addition to the differences in viewpoint, and language, there are structural differences between the two poems. Both poems use two stanzas, however, ‘Infant Sorrow’ uses a regular AABB rhyme scheme for both stanzas; whereas, ‘Infant Joy’ uses ABCDAC for the first stanza, and ABCDDC for the second. The most marked pattern in ‘Infant Joy’ is the double rhyme repeated in lines three, six, nine, and twelve, this pattern contrasts with the more insistent rhymes found in ‘Infant Sorrow, and gives the poem a more tentative quality. It could be argued that this tentative air suggests the idea that although the speaker wishes the child a joyful life, he or she knows that this is unlikely to happen. This would suggest that the adult’s naming of the child is a tentative wish, rather than manipulation. Differences are also apparent in the rhythms used in the two poems. ‘Infant Sorrow’ uses regular tetrameter throughout, but varies iambs with trochees. The first line is iambic, giving the line a skipping quality, which enacts the theme of the child leaping into the world. Line three, “helpless, naked, piping loud”, uses trochaic meter, which reinforces the impression of the child screaming for attention. It is worth noting that this line has the final foot curtailed, thus ending the line on an accented syllable; in fact, all of the lines in this poem finish on a strong syllable, further adding to the poem’s emphatic quality. There are three words in the poem that could be sounded with two or three syllables: ‘dangerous’ (l.2), ‘struggling’ (l.5), and ‘swaddling’ (l.6). Of these, it is ‘struggling’ that creates the most problems. If the word is pronounced with two syllables, the line settles into an easy trochaic rhythm, which echoes line three by curtailing the final foot to finish on a stressed syllable. If the word were sounded with three syllables, there are two possibilities: the line could be regarded as one trochee followed by three complete iambs; alternatively the first foot could be a tri-syllabic dactyl, followed by three trochees with the final foot curtailed. Although this is an academic point, it is worth noting that if ‘struggling’ is pronounced with three syllables, there is a tendency to rush the word, to fit it in the same time as the disyllabic feet used in the rest of the poem. Rushing the word in this way enacts the sense of the baby squirming in its father’s arms. This sense of struggle is reinforced by the repeated ‘s’ sound, in this line, and in line six, “striving against my swaddling bands”. ‘Infant Joy’ is more intriguing, metrically speaking, some of the lines, for example one and four, use duple metre; however, some lines, for example two and three, are three feet long. The pattern of stresses is ambiguous, line five “joy is my name”, could be read as iambic, continuing the established pattern; it could also be read with an initial trochee, which places the emphasis on the word ‘joy’, the most important concept in the poem. Similarly, line eight could also use an iamb or a trochee for the first foot, placing the emphasis on the words ‘sweet’, or ‘joy’, each choice offering a slightly different meaning. These metrical uncertainties add to the uncertain quality of the poem. An additional difference is the two poems, is the presence or otherwise of parents. In ‘Infant Sorrow’, the parents are mentioned immediately, whereas in ‘Infant Joy’, they are not mentioned directly at all. There are a number of possible explanations; the most simple is that it is one of the parents speaking the adults lines in infant joy; but as the child has ‘no name’, could it be an orphan? In this case, the speaker could be wishing joy upon a child in a very un-joyful situation. In mentioning the parents immediately, in a poem called ‘Infant Sorrow’, Blake could be trying to imply that it is parents who cause a child’s sorrow; against this viewpoint, it is important to remember that the poem is a child’s description of an unfamiliar situation, as adults we know that the child’s antipathy towards its parents shouldn’t last. It is at this point that a consideration of context is useful. The first point to consider is the immediate context of the poem’s publication. The engraving that accompanied the poem ‘Infant Joy’ on its initial publication shows two flowers, the smaller flower is unopened and drooping; the larger flower is open and contains a mother with a baby, and an angel watching over the two of them. This picture provides us with one of the parents absent from the text, and makes it unlikely that the child is an orphan. Willmott discusses the possibility that the two flowers represent wombs: the unopened flower barren, the opened flower fertile, and pregnant. The angel, he argues, refers to the biblical story of the annunciation, and the child is newly conceived, rather than born. This view provides an explanation for the child having no name, and fits well in the context of Blake’s Christianity. Another context to consider is Blake’s attitude to children. We know that Blake was concerned with children, and the adult world’s manipulation of their innocence, an interpretation of ‘Infant Joy’ that I discussed earlier; Glenn offers another perspective. She points out that the Songs generally are similar to books of children’s verse circulating at the time. These books were popular with the middle classes, and most contained poems of a trite, moralising nature. Blake would have been uncomfortable with this type of poem. In a discussion of ‘Infant Joy’, she pints out that the line “sweet joy befall thee” (ll.6&12) contrasts the child’s state with the adult’s expectation, and that the poem as a whole deals with the difficulties that arise when we try to label experience. This is a credible interpretation, given what we know of Blake’s antipathy toward the restrictive nature of the establishment. An examination of the formal aspects of ‘Infant Joy’, and ‘Infant Sorrow’ emphasises the uncertainty that faced a child born in the eighteenth-century. ‘Infant Sorrow’ looks at the uncertainty from the child’s point of view, whilst ‘Infant Joy’ explores the difficulties with which an adult attempts to wish joy upon a child. In the wider context, ‘Infant Joy’ was written in a world where children faced many restrictions, such as those that would try to label them, and their experiences. This uncertainty is expressed through tentativeness of the poem. The ambiguity with which Blake views this area is brought out in the line repeated at the end of each stanza, “sweet joy befall thee”, the word ‘befall’ is unusual in this setting, normally one would expect tragedy, not ‘joy’ to befall a person. The ambiguity of this line encapsulates the whole of the poem