ABSTRACT
The impetus for discussion of Blake's depiction of maternity derives from the work of social historians and cultural literary critics who document the emergence, in the late eighteenth century, of a domestic ideology that idealizes the mother as self-sacrificing savior of hearth and home. A re-examination of the Songs of Innocence with the issue of idealized maternity in mind reveals some surprises. A more probing exploration of the positive manifestations of idealized maternity unsettles the sense of comfort their presence seems to provide. A purely quantitative argument against the visibility of benign mothers in Songs of Innocence makes a limited kind of case, yet the material presence of protective nurturers occupies a smaller space than the lingering impression of idealized maternity. Perhaps the most evident instance of disruption occurs in the appropriately titled lyric "A Dream," where the surprising inversion of a popular narrative of idealized maternity pointedly suggests the domestic ideology is nothing more than a fantasy of Generation.
