Songs of Innocence and of Experience

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This article is about William Blake's poems. For David Axelrod's album see Song of Innocence.
Blake's frontispiece for Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Blake's frontispiece for Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul are two books of poetry by the English poet and painter, William Blake. Although Songs of Innocence was first published by itself in 1789, it is believed that Songs of Experience has always been published in conjunction with Innocence since its completion in 1794.

Songs of Innocence mainly consists of poems describing the innocence and joy of the natural world, advocating free love and a closer relationship with God, and most famously including Blake's poem The Lamb. Its poems have a generally light, upbeat and pastoral feel and are typically written from the perspective of children or written about them.

Directly contrasting this, Songs of Experience instead deals with the loss of innocence after exposure to the material world and all of its mortal sin during adult life, including works such as The Tyger. Poems here are darker, concentrating on more political and serious themes. Throughout both books, many poems fall into pairs, so that a similar situation or theme can be seen in both Innocence and Experience.

Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience with opposing perspectives of the world. The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the volume's sense of despair. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. He did not, however, believe that children should be kept from becoming experienced entirely. In truth, he believed that children should indeed become experienced but through their own discoveries, which is reflected in a number of these poems. Blake believed that innocence and experience were "the two contrary states of the human soul", and that true innocence was impossible without experience.

Contents

[edit] Songs of Innocence

Songs of Innocence contains the following poems; each is accompanied by an illuminated plate by Blake.

[edit] Songs of Experience

Blake's title plate (No.29) for Songs of Experience
Blake's title plate (No.29) for Songs of Experience

Songs of Experience is a 1794 poetry collection forming the second part of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Songs of Experience contains the following poems; each poem is accompanied by an illuminated plate.

[edit] Musical Settings

Poems from both books have been set to music by many composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten. Individual poems have also been set by, among others, John Tavener, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream. More extensive settings have been made by folk musician Greg Brown on his 1987 album Songs of Innocence and of Experience and by Finn Coren in his Blake Project. The composer William Bolcom set the entire collection of poems in 2006. His recording won 3 Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and Best Classical Album under the Naxos label.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is also the title of an album by UK funk punk band Adequate Seven, and of an album by the US indie rock band the Blake Babies.

[edit] External links

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