William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience," combined in this little volume, are both filled with amazing poetry. In "Songs of Innocence," Blake reveals the true innocent and peaceful ways of a person's childhood. While most people remember William Blake for "Tyger, tyger, burning bright" and "Little Lamb, who made thee?" his other poems are wonderful as well. The point of the poems doesn't seem to be that aging brings experience, but that experience changes innocence, to some degree. For instance, the "Chimney Sweep" is about children who work as chimney sweeps but dream of heaven. Many of the poems have symbolic and religious meanings. The imagery is beautiful and poignant. One of William Blake's most famous poems, "The Lamb," tells the story of a young boy asking an innocent lamb, "Who made thee?" "The Lamb" is religious and very pleasant to read. "Songs of Experience" is a book filled with deceitful and cruel poems. The book's poems are based on the hardships of the "real" world. "The Tyger," a famous poem from "Songs of Experience," is a contrary poem to "The Lamb." Though "The Tyger" speaks of God the Creator of all things, the poem has a dark theme and setting unlike "The Lamb." William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" are two enjoyable works to read, highly recommended for anyone who appreciates meaning and depth in poetry.

About the Author :
William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language." His visual artistry has led one British art journalist to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced." Although he lived in London his entire life except for three years spent in Felpham he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God," or "Human existence itself." Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterized as part of both the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic," for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Bohme and Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th century scholar William Rossetti characterised Blake as a "glorious luminary," and as "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors." Historian Peter Marshall has classified Blake as one of the forerunners of modern anarchism, along with Blake's contemporary William Godwin.