[little one]

basically theres loads of pages on this stuff - but ill type up the summary at the end - i know theres sooo many mistakes - i tried to be as quick as poss!

we have looked at nine poems in our exploration of nature as a theme in the songs of innicence and experience. we have discovered a great deal about blakes poetrty, and develeoped our insight into varities of perception and the concetpt of 'vision '. the present conclusions, however concern the theme of nature itself, and attempt to summarise what we have learned.

1. we have met various natural lanscapes. first there is a general agricultural lanscape of 'mead', 'stream' and 'vales', 'green fields and happy groves'. in the design for 'the lamb', an agricultural building like a byre or a cottage stands in the background, and an oak tree adds security. there are birds, trees, 'bud and blossom', but no forsets in this lanscape. This is the landscape of the world of innocence. Secondly, we have met a contrasting landscape of 'forests of the night' of 'the tyger'. In this dark forst are wild beasts hungry for their prey. Two other landscapesseem to be alternative expressions of nature as percieved from experience: there is the 'lonely fen' and 'lonely vale' where 'the mire was deep' which is soaked in dew; and there is the 'desert wild' with 'pathless ways' and 'valleys deep' through which lyca's parents search for their lost daughter.The 'desert' is also the home of lions, tigers and wolves.

2. these landscapes are believable and natural: they are viable perceptions of nature in the songs, and each kind of environment has an undeniable truth: the childs gentle setting, in 'the lamb' is his true experience of life; while the 'lonely fen' from which an illusion of God rescues the lost boy are also symbolic of these states of mind innocence and experience. they are true perceptions of nature, but they are not nature itself.

3. these subjective perceptions of nature suffer transformations within the poems. in particular, in 'the little girl lost' and 'the little girl found' we see that they are restricted to the eyes of the different characters. so, lyca is in a 'southern clime' where summer endures permenantly, surrounded by 'wild birds' and lying beneath a tree. her parents are in the same landscape, but they see a 'desart wild' will become a 'garden mild'. so, the two contrasting landscapes exist simultaneously in the same place. Vision, or the lack of it, rules how we see nature.

4. Wild beastsappear in several of the poems. Blake does not mitigate their wildness, but he does criticise human fear of natural energy. when lyca's parents meet the lion, their natural senses percieve the beast accurately: they percieve his power and size, the magnificance of his mane, and they see that he walks around them and sniffs. In the same way, at the end of the poem, lions still 'growl' and wolves still 'howl' as it is their nature. However, the 'vision' and which is not done with the 'senses' can understand and percieve the essence of nature. We looked at the moment of 'vision' when lyca's parents see both a (physical) lion and a (visionary) 'spirit arm'd in gold'.

5. An effect of Blake's focus on subjective perceptions of nature is that nature is that nature itself is enigmatic. We cannot draw conclusions about nature's unherent goodness or evil, gentleness or violence, benevolence or malevolence. In these poems, nature itslef simply it: it exists but does not have moral or emotional characteristics. This is a paradoxical effect, since all observers project intentions and emotions onto nature, intensively and constantly.

6. people also have a 'nature': natural emotions and desires implies that these should be followed and expressed. We have met the onstruction, represstion and distortion of desire in the poem 'the angel'. the outcome is lies, hostility and a wasted life. We aslo witnessed the tyranny of distorted and selfish feeling, when lyca's parents attempt to impose their own fear and misery on thei daughter, using emotional blackmail.

7. The distortion of healthy feelings into negative ones - typically demands for pity, and defensive hostility - often focuses on emotions about sexuality. For example, we noticed that lyca's parents are terrified into submission by they lions display of masulinity, while their daughters uninhibited natural development is accentuated when the lioness 'loos'd her slender dress'. the poem 'a little girl lost' in experience explicitly examines puritan fear and jealousy of sex, and its tragic consequences; but 'the angel' which we have studied also presents a potential love-relationship, destroyed by emotional dishonesty.