Literary Analysis on Children Literature (Essay Sample)

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Literary Analysis
The early years of the eighteenth century in England were marked by a period of materialism and compromise. During this period the essence of self-interest infiltrated both Church and State. The era of Puritanism, characterized by resilient views, had given rise to an age of irreligion. This spirit of self-interest was reflected in the genre of children’s literature which was developing by then. As Walker asserts, by the mid of the 18th Century, dealing with children’s literature had become a profitable commercial activity. During this period, children were educated using various types of children’s books. Examples of such types included emblem, chapbooks, and hornbooks. Additionally, there were children moral and instructional books that aimed at educating children on the correct models of behavior in society. These books summarized societal complexities regarding religion, ethics, and social issues. Isaac Watts, a poet, and an educationalist at the time was greatly involved writing children moral and instructional books. This analysis evaluates the famous works of Isaac Watts “Divine Songs” and compares it to Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience.”
Isaac Watts’ “Divine Songs for the Use of Children” was published in 1715. It consists of a collection of moral songs intended for children. These moral songs were aimed at giving moral directions to middle-class readers. This was different from other books during that time such as chapbooks that entailed imaginative and fanciful narratives or rhymes and proverbs. As Walker asserts, Watts’ songs simplified societal complexities such as ethics and religion and packaged them into didactic instructions. The poem “The Sluggard” that will form the basis of this analysis is among the song published in Watts’ Divine Songs. It teaches children about the significance of hard work. Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” on the other hand, was published in 1794. The poems contained in this collection juxtaposes the innocent world of children against the repression and corruption observed among adults. This analysis mostly focuses on the poem “Holy Thursday” where the speaker describes a scene of children walking towards St. Paul’s Cathedral. Following discourse compares the two poet’s works as related to children’s literature.
The personal lives of both Watts and Blake greatly contributed to their works. Watts was a nonconformist divine, educationalist, a preacher, and a poet (Pinto 214). As an independent preacher, Watts inherited the Calvinist tradition characterized by morality and bibliolatry. This explains his interest in emphasizing on children morals. As a preacher, Watts believed that music played a significant role in worship. This belief was similarly reflected in his children’s education books. His moral instruction books took the form of lyrical expressions of a hymn or a psalm (Brawley 478). “The Sluggard,” for instance, is obtained from the Book of Psalms in the Bible. It is put in a lyrical form that makes it easy for children to sing and understand.
William Blake, on the other hand, was a self-educated individual who also lived in the age of Puritanism. He was brought up in a nonconformist background (Paley 158). However, Blake grew up in times when Puritanism had undergone changes and the former legalistic Calvinism was quickly fading away. By the time Blake developed into a renowned poet, the rigid morality was fading during the reign of Queen Ann. Having experienced Puritanism, Blake became dissatisfied with the state of poetry during the late 18th Century. This explains why his works rebelled against the genre of his time. In fact, Blake is associated with the early works that ushered the new era of Romanticism.
In children’s education, Watts advocates for Christian educational poetry that teaches children good morals that reflects their society. In the poem “The Sluggard,” Watts end with a lesson “love working and reading” (21). This urges children to embrace hard work and refrain from laziness. Providing a moral resolution at the end also give tone to the poem. Watts also tries to make children’s education pleasurable by combining lessons with hymns. Furthermore, watts is able to sink his literary language to levels that children can understand. This feature is evidenced in all Watts’ instructional poems meant to show children good morals. This facilitates children to actively learn lessons communicated in Watts’s poem.
Comparing “Holly Thursday” to “The Sluggard” gives an outright impression of Blake as an active rebel of the instructional genre in children’s literature. In his poems, he subverts the popular literary form used in the instructional and moral genre. For example, the last line in the third stanza of his poem indicates an outrage instead of the moral resolution used in Watts’ poem. Instead of a moral lesson, the final line of Blake’s poem advises sympathy for the poor (Pinto223). The line asks the reader to contemplate the true meaning of Cristian pity and differentiate it from hypocrisy. From the poem, it is evident that the described children are not receiving quality living conditions as it should be. In the first two stanzas of the poem, there is an implication that the children have only been cleaned because of the occasion. For instance, in the first stanza, the speaker says “Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean” (Watts 20). This line implies that since it is on a special day (Ascension Day), the children are tidied out to match the occasion. This criticism shows that Blake is against the learning environment these children are subjected to.
The use of religion is also rampant among the works of both poets. Watts regularly employs metrical salter in his poetry. This style may be linked with his background as an independent preacher. The metrical salter form made Watts’ poem easy to sing and thus easily memorized by children. Religion also features a lot in Blake’s poems. The title “Holy Thursday” is affiliated to the Christian religion. The aspect of religion played a great role in helping both poets propagate their ideas regarding children education. For instance, Watts constantly argued that providing poor children with education would make them good Christians.
There are similarities observed between Watts and Blake’s works. Both poets adopt the traditional features that signified children’s education. Features such as animals, bird poems, and flower poems are widely used in both the works of Watts and Blake. Most of such features were used in Emblem children’s books during the seventeenth and the eighteenth century. For example, in Blake’s poem, he uses the term “lambs” and “flowers” to describe the group of children (Pinto 223). Another similarity is that both Watts and Blake showed concern about the relations