Rhythmical Patterns in William Blakes Infant Sorrow...

Rhythmical Patterns of Infant Sorrow in William Blakes Songs of Innocence and of Experience In Songs of Innocence and of Experience, by William Blake, we come to the realization that although innocence and experience are dichotomies it’s common for a reader of songs to detect experience in a poem about innocence and vice versa. To fully understand Infant Sorrow a look at the definition of innocence and its relationship to experience is needed. According to the American Heritage Dictionary innocence is defined as uncorrupted by evil, malice, without wrongdoing, sinless, and not experienced. Experience, however, is the activity or practice through which knowledge or skill is derived. If this is the case why are both in the†¦show more content†¦my father wept. It is important to know that in stress verse one will never find two beats together. In addition to knowing where off beats and beats are placed it is also useful to identify whether a poem is iambic or trochaic, to help in reading and understanding the textual meaning. Iambic verse starts with an offbeat (x) and ends with a beat (_/ or _x), while trochaic verse starts with a beat and ends with an offbeat. x _/ x _/ x _/ x _/ My mother groand! my father wept. x_ x x _/ x x _/ x _/ [x] Into the dangerous world I leapt: _/ x _/ x _/ x _/ [x] Helpless, naked, piping loud: _/ x _/ / _x x _/ [x] Like a fiend hid in a cloud. _/ x _x x _/ x _/ [x] Struggling in my fathers hands: _/ x x _/ x _/ x _/ Striving against my swadling bands: _/ x _/ x _x x _/ Bound and weary I thought best x _/ x _/ x _/ x _/ To sulk upon my mothers breast. Knowing and understanding the rhythmical pattern will now help us analyze Infant Sorrow. We can classify Infant Sorrow as an iambic poem. Although both iambic and trochaic lines are of equal portion in Infant Sorrow, iambic is the most dominant because the poem starts and ends with an iambic meter. Iambic verse resembles human speech. In iambic verse