블레이크의 『순수와 경험의 노래』와 타자의 윤리

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that Emmanuel Levinas’s Ethics of the Other helps explain Blake’s ethical attitude in Songs of Innocence and Experience. As a poet with social and political vision, Blake dreams of an ideal society where every person enjoys equality and freedom. To achieve this ideal society, his poetic imagination needs to be guided by ethics. In his poems, Blake shows a strong but covert support for the Ethics of the Other. Levinas's Ethics of the Other suggests the subject should recognize the Other's otherness and infinity and obey his facial demand to show hospitality and not to kill. When the subject responds to the Other’s face and places himself lower than the Other, an ethical relationship is established and the true equality and freedom of a society can be achieved. In Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake shows the possibility of this ethical relationship in the form of dialogue which makes it possible to make a true communication. Through monologue and rhetoric, he also shows the danger that the subject appropriates and categorizes the Other. In this case, the subject regards the Other as a means of reinforcing his own ego. The pattern and function of dialogue, monologue and rhetoric in Blake’s poems appear to be corresponding to those defined by Levinas. This paper is triggered by “your chimneys,” the speaker’s calling to the readers, in “The Chimney Sweeper” from Innocence. When responding to this calling, the reader establishes an ethical relationship by meeting with the chimney sweeper face to face and taking responsibility for the chimney sweeper. This ethical relationship can lead the reader to mobilize energy and ability to act for an ideal society where freedom and equality are enjoyed by everyone.