Abstract:
The poet and artist William Blake is described as a man of genius
who devoted his entire life and imagination to express his bold original ideas.
His poems in “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience” explore the
real nature of the poor people during the Industrial Revolution in England.
Even though his poems deal with a range of topical issues of poverty, child
labour, political and social revolution, industrial revolution, and the church,
they specifically focus on child abuse. Through these poems Blake perceives
about the abuse of children in the eighteenth century England. While
reading Blake’s poems, from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience the
inner sufferings of affected children of post war Jaffna District seems to
surface. During the conflict in Sri Lanka many children were orphaned,
disabled, and abused. The statistical report of the District Child
Development Committee of the Jaffna District Secretariat can be interpreted
into Blake’s poems. This will lead to the conclusion that child abuse is as
vibrant in the post war Jaffna as it was in Blake’s contemporary society of the
industrial revolution era.
