User:Sorrysosorry/Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Illustrations

Blake was known for his skill as an artist and print-maker in addition to his poetry, and he combined these talents when creating Songs of Innocence and Experience. Each page of Songs of Innocence and of Experience contains the text of the poem surrounded by a unique illustration. Blake individually illustrated these pages for each binding he did of the collection. Blake combined several strategies to create each unique illustration. He would create a relief-etched copper printing plate by hand, then paint each page after printing using a variety of mediums, including watercolor. This process meant that each printing of Songs of Innocence and of Experience was visually distinct from the one that came before.

Blake confessed in a letter that Songs of Innocence and Experience was an attempt to combine the "painter and the Poet." The illustrations in Songs of Innocence and of Experience do more than simply depict what is in the poem. They serve to intensify and translate the poems and are central to a full understanding of what each poem attempts to convey. The meaning of several of the poems is changed by the illustrations that accompany them, with notable examples including The Blossom and the first plate of The Little Girl Lost.

Some of Blake's illustrations have been critiqued for errors or lack of realism. Notable examples include inconsistent coloring of the rose appearing in the illustration of The Sick Rose and the appearance of the tiger in The Tyger.

Lead

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. Originally, Blake illuminated and bound Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience separately. It was only in 1795 that Blake combined the two sets of poems into a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Even after beginning to print the poems together, Blake continued to produce individual volumes for each of the two sets of poetry.

Blake was also a painter before the creation of Songs of Innocence and of Experience and he engraved, hand-printed, and colored detailed art to accompany each of the poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This unique art helps tell the story of each poem, and was part of Blake's original vision for how each poem should be understood. Blake was heavily inspired by children's literature and juvenile education in his creation of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and his analysis of childhood as a state of protected innocence rather than original sin, but not immune to the fallen world and its institutions, would soon become a hallmark of Romanticism.

Notably, there has been an abiding relationship between Songs of Innocence and of Experience and musical artists. Poems from the collection have been set to music by a variety of musicians, and band U2 titled two of their albums Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience in an homage to this volume.

Songs of Innocence

"Songs of Innocence" redirects here. For other uses, see Songs of Innocence (disambiguation).

Songs of Innocence is a collection of 23 poems and was originally a complete work first printed in 1789. Blake etched 31 plates to create the work and produced an estimated seventeen or eighteen copies.

The poems are listed below:

• Introduction
• The Shepherd
• The Echoing Green
• The Lamb
• The Little Black Boy
• The Blossom
• The Chimney-Sweeper
• The Little Boy Lost
• The Little Boy Found
• Laughing Song
• A Cradle Song
• The Divine Image
• Holy Thursday
• Night
• Spring
• Nurse’s Song
• Infant Joy
• A Dream
• On Another’s Sorrow
• The School Boy
• The Little Girl Lost
• The Little Girl Found
• The Voice of the Ancient Bard

Songs of Experience

"Songs of Experience" redirects here. For other uses, see Songs of Experience (disambiguation).

Songs of Experience is a collection of 26 poems forming the second part of Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The poems were published in 1794 (see 1794 in poetry). Some of the poems, such as "The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found", were moved by Blake to Songs of Innocence and were frequently moved between the two books.

The poems are listed below:

• Introduction
• Earth's Answer
• The Clod and the Pebble
• Holy Thursday
• The Chimney Sweeper
• Nurse's Song
• The Sick Rose
• The Fly
• The Angel
• The Tyger
• My Pretty Rose Tree
• Ah! Sun-flower
• The Lilly
• The Garden of Love
• The Little Vagabond
• London
• The Human Abstract
• Infant Sorrow
• A Poison Tree
• A Little Boy Lost
• A Little Girl Lost
• A Divine Image
• A Cradle Song
• To Tirzah
• The School Boy
• The Voice of the Ancient Bard

Addt'l Notes

Things to add:

- Find citations for music section

- Add "Illustrations" section

- Consider analysis section?

For analysis section: "Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and "Fall". Often, interpretations of this collection centre around a mythical dualism, where "Innocence" represents the "unfallen world" and "Experience" represents the "fallen world". Blake categorizes our modes of perception that tend to coordinate with a chronology that would become standard in Romanticism: childhood is

This world sometimes impinges on childhood itself, and in any event becomes known through "experience", a state of being marked by the loss of childhood vitality, by fear and inhibition, by social and political corruption and by the manifold oppression of Church, State and the ruling classes.

The volume's "Contrary States" are sometimes signaled by patently repeated or contrasted titles: in Innocence, Infant Joy, in Experience, Infant Sorrow; in Innocence, The Lamb, in Experience, The Fly and The Tyger. The stark simplicity of poems such as The Chimney Sweeper and The Little Black Boy display Blake's acute sensibility to the realities of poverty and exploitation that accompanied the "Dark Satanic Mills" of the Industrial Revolution.

The Divine Image

"The Divine Image" is a poem Songs of Innocence (1789), not to be confused with "A Divine Image" from Songs of Experience (1794). It was later included in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). In this poem (see Wikisource below) Blake pictures his view of an ideal world in which the four traditionally Christian virtues–Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love–are found in the human's heart and stand for God's support and comfort. Joy and gratitude are sentiments expressed through prayer for the caring and blessing of an infallible almighty God and are shared by all men on Earth encompassing a sense of equality and mutual respect. The title of the poem refers to the Book of Genesis Chapter 1 verse 26: 'And God said: Let us make man in our image'.(KJV) Ralph Vaughan Williams set the poem to music in his 1958 song cycle Ten Blake Songs.

In The Divine Image, the figures of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love are presented by Blake as the four virtues which are objects of prayer in moments of distress, God being praised for his lovely caring and blessing to comfort man. The four virtues are depicted by the author as essential not only in God, but also in man; as Mercy is found in the human heart and Pity in the human face. Similarly, abstract qualities like Peace and Love exist in the human form, becoming the divine form and body of man and resembling God's substantial virtues. Consequently, Blake not only introduces a similarity between the divine image of a benevolent God and the human form but also the concept of the creation of man after God's divine constituency. Regarded as inborn characteristics of humans by Blake, these essentially Christian virtues can be found in every man's soul on Earth, notwithstanding his origin or religious belief. When Blake refers to the prayer of a heathen, Jew or Turk, he exemplifies all humankind sharing God's virtues in an ideal world regardless the concept of Divinity men may have. However, his Song of Experience balances the ideals of pluralism with the image of God in humans marred by sin.