Songs of Innocence and of Experience is an illustrated collection of poems by William
Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William
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 Showing the Two Contrary States
of the Human Soul. "Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions
of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and the "Fall." Blake's
categories are modes of perception that tend to coordinate with a chronology that would
become standard in Romanticism: 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.
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. The poems are each 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 Songs of Experience
Songs of Experience is a poetry collection of 26 poems forming the second part of William
Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The poems were published in 1794. 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.
Introduction Earth's Answer
The Clod and the Pebble Holy Thursday
The Little Girl Lost The Little Girl Found
The Chimney Sweeper Nurse's Song
The Sick Rose The Fly
The Angel The Tyger
My Pretty Rose Tree Ah! Sunflower
The Lily The Garden of Love
The Little Vagabond London
The Human Abstract Infant Sorrow
A Poison Tree A Little Boy Lost
A Little Girl Lost To Tirzah
The Schoolboy 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, and Jacob ter Veldhuis. Individual poems have also been set by, among others,
John Tavener, Victoria Poleva, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Jeff Johnson, and Daniel
Amos. 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
and by Finn Coren in his Blake Project. In 2011 Victor Vertunni released a new music
album on songs of Innocence and of Experience, another stepping stone in the long tradition.
The poet Allen Ginsberg 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. The composer William Bolcom completed a setting
of the entire collection of poems in 1984. In 2005, a recording of Bolcom's work by Leonard
Slatkin, 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.
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. The Swedish composer David Unger completed
"Night songs op. 24", a setting of five poems from Songs of Innocence for solo voice and
piano in 2013. It was first performed by baritone Anthony Schneider and pianist Rosemary Barnes
in Vienna, Austria the same year. Popular group Tangerine Dream, based their
album 'Tyger' on lyrics by William Blake. Facsimile edition
The Huntington Library and Art Gallery 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.
References ^ The Broadview Anthology of British Literature:
The Age of Romanticism. Broadview Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-55111-404-0.
^ "Greg Brown Discography". Gregbrown.org. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
^ "PennSound: Ginsberg/Blake". Writing.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
^ [1] External links
Multiple digital copies of Blake's illustrated versions of the Songs of Innocence and of
Experience at the William Blake Archive Songs of Innocence and of Experience, from
Rare Book Room Songs of Innocence and of Experience, from
Rare Book Room Link to Ginsberg recordings of the poems