Joseph Wicksteed's 1928 reading of "The School Boy" classifies it as a "song of prophecy" which he considers "beautifully tender and convincing." Wicksteed discusses the placement of the poem at the end of most copies of Songs as Blake's statement about the necessity of returning: "The School Boy" reiterates the themes of the beginning poems. Wicksteed also classifies "The School Boy" as a "passage song," an illustration of the passage from innocence to experience, citing as evidence Blake's transference of the poem from Songs of Innocence to Songs of Experience.
Mark Schorer (1946) discusses "The School Boy" in the context of the group of poems in Songs of Experience (including "Infant Sorrow" and "The Little Vagabond") in which children from Songs of Innocence have become "captives who cry for liberty, and, denied it, suffer a deterioration of natural virtue."
S. Foster Damon's 1947 treatment of the poem focuses on Blake's own experience with the type of self-education alluded to in the poem. Damon notes that "Blake's attitude towards schools, far from being ridiculous, is entirely modern." Damon considers the illustration to be a depiction of Blake's own concept of the "ideal education": sitting outside and reading.
Like Wicksteed, E.D. Hirsch (1964) argues that Blake's placement of "The School Boy" (along with "The Voice of the Ancient Bard") at the end of Songs of Experience is a result of the poem's "mediation between Innocence and Experience." Hirsch reads the "stirrings of resistance and rebellion" in the speaker as an expression of Blake's own "growing resentment of repressive customs and institutions." Hirsch believes that the poem reflects Blake's "incipient naturalism" pointing out that the imagery of the poem is much more naturalistic than that of Blake's "canonical poems." Like Damon, Hirsch believes the poem is autobiographical and cites a couplet found in the Rossetti Manuscript: "Thank God, I never was sent to school / To be Flog'd into following the Style of a Fool."
Arguing against Wicksteed's positive appraisal of "The School Boy," Hazard Adams' 1963 treatment of "The School Boy" in conjunction with "The Little Vagabond" suggests that although the poems are not successful, "By examining them briefly we may increase our admiration for Blake's greater success elsewhere in making simplicity rise above insipidity."
D.G. Gillham (1966) offers a more positive appraisal of "The School Boy" in his discussion of it as a poem of Experience, a distinction Gillham makes based on the essentially experienced voice of an ostensibly innocent speaker.
Geoffrey Keynes (1967) also offers a brief, positive reading of "The School Boy" referring to it as a "lovely poem." Keynes also points out the similarities between its illustration and that of the "Introduction to Innocence."
Eben Bass (1970) also briefly discusses the illustration noting that the "O"-shaped "S," which turns inward into itself, can be seen as a visual dramatization of Blake's "'Two Contrary States,' and perhaps also their resolution."
Once again addressing the issue of Blake's transferring "The School Boy" from Songs of Innocence to Songs of Experience, Michael Tolley (1973) suggests that the song actually fits into neither group but is instead an "intermediate between the alternatives of a return to Innocence . . . or a confirmation in Experience." Tolley cites the season of the setting as evidence of this theme of intermediation, pointing out that summer is the season of "ripening toward fruition."
D.G. Gillham (1973) also discusses the transference of the poem from Songs of Innocence to Songs of Experience. Gillham expands his 1966 argument that speaker is essentially experienced and concludes that the speaker is an "experienced and rather sentimental sympathizer with Innocence."
Zachary Leader's 1981 reading of the poem further addresses the issue of the experienced voice of the speaker and concludes that it is as a voice of calculated and "affected innocence." Leader cites the "disquieting similarities" between the speaker in "The School Boy" and those of "The Little Vagabond" and "A Little Boy Lost." He also points out that the speaker's "overt social concern is unmitigated by the sort of sympathy and insight the [truly] innocent 'Chimney Sweeper' and 'Holy Thursday' . . . show for victimizers as well as victims."
Stanley Gardner's 1986 reading also interprets the voice of the speaker as essentially experienced and acknowledges the difficulty of placing the poem firmly in either Innocence or Experience.
However, Harold Bloom(1987) discusses "The School Boy" as a poem of Innocence noting that it addresses questions (which result from the "bafflement of instinct") that cannot be answered by Experience.
David Lindsay (1989) offers a brief discussion of criticism of "The School Boy" up to 1986 and suggests that the speaker's voice renders "The School Boy" a "transitional poem," neither completely innocent nor completely experienced.
Lydia Whitt (December 1995)
Works Cited
Adams, Hazard. William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems. Seattle: U Washington P, 1963.
Bass, Eben. "Songs of Innocence and Experience: The Thrust of Design." Blake's Visionary Forms Dramatic. Eds. David V. Erdman and John E. Grant. Princeton: UP, 1970.
Bloom, Harold, Ed. William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Damon, S. Foster. William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols. New York: Peter Smith, 1947.
Gardner, Stanley. Blake's Innocence and Experience Retraced. London: Athlone, 1986.
Gillham, D.G. Blake's Contrary States: The Songs of Innocence and of Experience as Dramatic Poems. Cambridge: UP, 1966.
Gillham, D.G.William Blake. Cambridge: UP, 1973.
Hirsch, E.D. Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to William Blake. Chicago: UP, 1964.
Keynes, Geoffrey. Commentary. Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. By William Blake. 1789,1794. New York: Orion, 1967.
Leader, Zachary. Reading Blake's Songs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981.
Lindsay, David W. Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, Int., 1989.
Schorer, Mark. William Blake: The Politics of Vision. New York: Henry Hold, 1946. 237-38. Rpt. as "Experience" in William Blake: Essays in Honour of Sir Geoffrey Keynes. Eds. Morton Paley and Michael Phillips. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973.
Tolley, Michael J. "Blake's Songs of Spring." William Blake: Essays in Honor of Sir Geoffrey Keynes. Eds. Morton D. Paley and Michael Phillips. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973. 96-128.
Wicksteed, Joseph H. Blake's Innocence and Experience. London: J.M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1928.