SOURCE: Glen, Heather. “Blake's Criticism of Moral Thinking in Songs of Innocence and of Experience.” In Interpreting Blake, edited by Michael Phillips, pp. 32-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

In the following excerpt, Glen discusses Blake's treatment of social problems, particularly those involving moral and ethical issues, in the Songs.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience are mostly concerned with what would usually be described as moral questions. Many of them—especially of Songs of Innocence—seem, at least superficially, to belong to the recognizable eighteenth-century genre of moral songs for children; and Songs of Experience contain several poems which look like poems of social protest. But a close reading of the poems suggests that Blake's attitude towards late eighteenth-century habits of moral judgement and instruction is by no means a simple one. Although the Songs display an awareness of many of the issues raised in contemporary ethical discussion...