The Little Boy Found

Blake published Songs of Innocence, the volume preceding Songs of Experience, in 1789. Songs of Innocence was the volume in which “The Little Boy Found” initially appeared. This was also the year that the French Revolution began, causing social upheavals and philosophical questions about societal structure, human rights, the right to rule, and the role of the masses. Blake maintained friendships with a number of radical writers and thinkers who would have had extreme, liberal views regarding the French Revolution, political power, and individual freedom. Deemed a political radical himself, Blake would have associated with the likes of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Paine. The social turmoil at the time Songs of Innocence appeared parallels Blake's poem “The Little Boy Found.” In the poem, the idyllic nuclear family initially falls apart: Father, mother, and child are separated. The structure of the family is thrown into question, just as the hierarchy of society was under scrutiny during the French Revolution.

In the end, the speaker withholds complete closure: Readers are left seeing the mother search for her child rather than a “happy” ending. Similarly, to the suspended state of the poem, society lacked closure and clarity during the tumult of the Revolution.