Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy AA, object 1

''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and

illuminated Illuminated may refer to: * "Illuminated" (song), by Hurts * Illuminated Film Company, a British animation house * ''Illuminated'', alternative title of Black Sheep (Nat & Alex Wolff album) * Illuminated manuscript See also * Illuminate (disambi ...

by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul''. Blake was also a painter before the creation of ''Songs of Innocence and Experience'' and had painted such subjects as

Oberon Oberon () is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fairi ...

, Titania, and Puck dancing with fairies. "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 Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

: childhood is a state of protected innocence rather than original sin, but not immune to the fallen world and its institutions. 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 signalled 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 Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

''Songs of Innocence''

''Songs of Innocence'' was originally a complete work first printed in 1789. It is a conceptual collection of 19 poems, engraved with artwork. This collection mainly shows happy, innocent perception in pastoral harmony, but at times, such as in "

The Chimney Sweeper "The Chimney Sweeper" is the title of a poem by William Blake, published in two parts in '' Songs of Innocence'' in 1789 and ''Songs of Experience'' in 1794. The poem "The Chimney Sweeper" is set against the dark background of child labour that ...

" and " The Little Black Boy", subtly shows the dangers of this naïve and vulnerable state. The poems are each listed below: * Introduction * The Shepherd * The Echoing Green * The Lamb *

The Tyger "The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his '' Songs of Experience'' collection and rising to prominence in the romantic period. The poem is one of the most anthologised in the English literary can ...

* The Little Black Boy * The Blossom *

* The Little Boy Lost *

The Little Boy Found "The Little Boy Found" is a poem by William Blake first published in the collection ''Songs of Innocence'' in 1789. ''Songs of Innocence'' was printed using illuminated printing, a style Blake created. By integrating the images with the poems ...

* Laughing Song * A Cradle Song * The Divine Image *

Holy Thursday Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday (also known as Great and Holy Thursday, Holy and Great Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Sheer Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, among other names) is the day during Holy Week that commemorates the Washing of the ...

Night Night (also described as night time, unconventionally spelled as "nite") is the period of ambient darkness from sunset to sunrise during each 24-hour day, when the Sun is below the horizon. The exact time when night begins and ends depends ...

* Spring *

Nurse's Song ''Nurse's Song'' is the name of two related poems by William Blake, published in ''Songs of Innocence ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copi ...

Infant Joy "Infant Joy" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was first published as part of his collection ''Songs of Innocence'' in 1789 and is the counterpart to "Infant Sorrow", which was published at a later date in '' Songs of Experi ...

* A Dream *

On Another's Sorrow "On Another's Sorrow" is a poem by the English poet William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figu ...

''Songs of Experience''

''Songs of Experience'' is a poetry collection of 26 poems forming the second part of

's ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience''. The poems were published in 1794 (see

1794 in poetry Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France). Events *June – English poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey first meet, in Oxford while Coleridge is ''en ...

). 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.See the various extent editions republished in their original publication order
at the

William Blake Archive The William Blake Archive is a digital humanities project started in 1994, a first version of the website was launched in 1996.{{cite journal, last1=Crawford, first1=Kendal, last2=Levy, first2=Michelle, journal=RIDE: A Review Journal for Digital E ...

. The poems are listed below: * Introduction *

Earth's Answer Earth's Answer is a poem by William Blake within his larger collection called ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' (published 1794). It is the response to the previous poem in The Songs of Experience-- ''Introduction (Blake, 1794)''. In the ...

* The Clod and the Pebble *

The Little Girl Lost The Little Girl Lost is a 1794 poem published by William Blake in his collection ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience''. According to scholar, Grevel Lindop, this poem represents Blake's pattern of the transition between "the spontaneous, i ...

The Little Girl Found "The Little Girl Found" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection '' Songs of Experience'' in 1794. In the poem, the parents of a seven-year-old girl, called Lyca, are looking desperately for ...

The Sick Rose "The Sick Rose" is a poem by William Blake, originally published in ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' as the 39th plate; the incipit of the poem is O Rose thou art sick. Blake composed the poem sometime after 1789, and presented it with a ...

* The Fly * The Angel *

* My Pretty Rose Tree * Ah! Sun-flower * The Lilly * The Garden of Love * The Little Vagabond *

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

* The Human Abstract * Infant Sorrow * A Poison Tree * A Little Boy Lost *

A Little Girl Lost "A Little Girl Lost" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was first published as part of his collection ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' in 1794. The poem is written as a clear authorial commentary from Blake, focus ...

* To Tirzah * The School Boy * The Voice of the Ancient Bard

Musical settings

Poems from both books have been set to music by many composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Joseph Holbrooke, John Frandsen, Per Drud Nielsen, Sven-David Sandström,

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

, and

Jacob ter Veldhuis Jacob ter Veldhuis (born 14 November 1951), also known as Jacob TV, is a Dutch avant-garde classical composer, born in Westerlee. Ter Veldhuis favors tonal, melodic compositions: ‘I pepper my music with sugar,’ he says. Many of his works bu ...

. Individual poems have also been set by, among others,

John Tavener Sir John Kenneth Tavener (28 January 1944 – 12 November 2013) was an English composer, known for his extensive output of choral religious works. Among his best known works are '' The Lamb'' (1982), ''The Protecting Veil'' (1988), and '' Song ...

, Victoria Poleva,

Jah Wobble John Joseph Wardle (born 11 August 1958), known by the stage name Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; ...

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...

, Jeff Johnson, and

Daniel Amos Daniel Amos (aka D. A., Dä) is an American Christian rock band formed in 1974 by Terry Scott Taylor on guitars and vocals, Marty Dieckmeyer on bass guitar, Steve Baxter on guitars and Jerry Chamberlain on lead guitars. The band currently c ...

. A modified version of the poem "The Little Black Boy" was set to music in the song "My Mother Bore Me" from Maury Yeston's musical Phantom. The folk musician Greg Brown recorded sixteen of the poems on his 1987 album ''

Songs of Innocence and of Experience ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...

'' and by Finn Coren in his ''Blake Project''. The poet

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

believed the poems were originally intended to be sung, and that through study of the rhyme and metre of the works, a Blakean performance could be approximately replicated. In 1969, he conceived, arranged, directed, sang on, and played piano and harmonium for an album of songs entitled '' Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, tuned by Allen Ginsberg'' (1970). American composer and producer David Axelrod produced two solo albums, Song of Innocence (1968) and Songs of Experience (1969) which were homages to the mystical poetry and paintings of William Blake. The composer

William Bolcom William Elden Bolcom (born May 26, 1938) is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy Award, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. He ...

completed a setting of the entire collection of poems in 1984. In 2005, a recording of Bolcom's work by

Leonard Slatkin Leonard Edward Slatkin (born September 1, 1944) is an American conductor, author and composer. Early life and education Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a Jewish musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His fat ...

, the Michigan State Children's Choir, and the University of Michigan on the Naxos label won four Grammy Awards: Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Producer of the Year (classical). The composer Victoria Poleva completed "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" in 2002, a chamber cycle on the verses by Blake for soprano, clarinet and accordion. It was first performed by the ensemble Accroche-Note of France. Popular group

based their album '' Tyger'' on lyrics by William Blake. Popular rock group U2 released an album called ''

Songs of Innocence ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...

'' in 2014, and followed it in 2017 with '' Songs of Experience''.

Karl Jenkins Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins (born 17 February 1944) is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer. His best known works include the song " Adiemus" and the ''Adiemus'' album series; '' Palladio''; ''The Armed Man''; and his ''Requiem''. J ...

' Motets includes a setting of The Shepherd. The fictional rock band Infant Sorrow, as featured in the 2008 film ''

Forgetting Sarah Marshall ''Forgetting Sarah Marshall'' is a 2008 American comedy film directed by Nicholas Stoller and starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis and Russell Brand. The film, which was written by Segel and co-produced by Judd Apatow, was released b ...

'', appears to be named after the Blake poem.

Facsimile editions

The

Huntington Library and Art Gallery The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...

in San Marino, California, published a small facsimile edition in 1975 that included sixteen plates reproduced from two copies of ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' in their collection, with an introduction by James Thorpe. The songs reproduced were ''Introduction'', ''Infant Joy'', ''The Lamb'', ''Laughing Song'' and ''Nurse's Song'' from ''Songs of Innocence'', and ''Introduction'', ''The Clod & the Pebble'', ''The Tyger'', ''The Sick Rose'', ''Nurses Song'' and ''Infant Sorrow'' from ''Songs of Experience''. Tate Publishing, in collaboration with The William Blake Trust, produced a folio edition containing all of the songs of Innocence and Experience in 2006. A colour plate of each poem is accompanied by a literal transcription, and the volume is introduced by critic and historian Richard Holmes. William Blake, ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' edited with an introduction and notes by Andrew Lincoln, and select plates from other copies. Blake's Illuminated Books, vol. 2. William Blake Trust / Princeton University Press, 1991. Based on King's College, Cambridge, copy, 1825 or later. ''Songs of Innocence'' Dover Publications, 1971. Based on copy of Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress, Copy B, ca. 1790. ''Songs of Experience'' Dover Publications, 1984. Based on "a rare 1826 etched edition," per back cover.

Notes

References

External links

Multiple digital copies of Blake's illustrated versions of the ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience''
at the

''Songs of Innocence and of Experience''
(1794), from

Rare Book Room Rare Book Room is an educational website for the repository of digitally scanned rare books made freely available to the public. Story Starting around 1996 the California-based company Octavo began scanning rare and important books from librarie ...

''Songs of Innocence and of Experience''
(1826), from

Link to Ginsberg recordings of the poems
* {{Authority control English poetry collections Artists' books English art Self-published books 1789 poetry books 1794 poetry books 18th-century illuminated manuscripts Books about cats