cence and Experience not as satirical or ironical, but as sincere and distinct expressions of the poet's understanding of the imaginative (innocent) and analytical (experiential). Still, the question remains open with respect to the attitude of Blake toward his material and the spiritual development of human beings.
With respect to Donne's poems, on the other hand, there is no sign that he is anything but straightforward. There is no irony in Donne's---or the poems' speaker's---relationship with his God. This does not mean that the critics are entirely aligned in their analysis of the poems, however. J.B. Leishman writes, for example, that, with respect to the Holy Sonnets, Donne's restless intellect, forever re-examining and leading him to doubt the premises which his faith has accepted, hinders that complete self-surrender and perfect union with Christ for which he longs (Leishman 88).
The commentator in the Norton Anthology, however, writes that Donne in the Holy Sonnets is "voicing total repentance and devotion to God" (Donne 1080).
These differences in the critical comments on Donne, however, do not suggest the kind of irony or satire which some critics detect in Blake. The audience Blake aims at is one which the poet feels requires education as to the nature of human development. Blake purports to teach his reader the significance of the changes humans go through as they move from childhood to adulthood, and as they navigate the turbulent waters between imagination and analysis, or innocence and experience. Donne, on the other hand, aims at the audience who has left behind such Blakeian concerns and now struggles with faith and doubt, or self and God. Donne does not worry or wonder about the subjects covered by Blake. Donne has arrived at the door of God and is only concerned with figuring out how to increase his faith and surrender and leave behind doubt and self-centeredness.
This is not to say that Donne does n...