Songs of Innocence and Experience Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Songs of Innocence and Experience - Essay Example producing the twenty seven plates of his poems Songs of Innocence and Experience dated 1789, the artist-poet developed the laborious method of etching both poem and design in relief on a copper plate. This initiated his now famous series of Illuminated Books (Blake: 11). William Blake’s volume of poetry titled Songs of Innocence and Experience reflects his belief that innocence and experience were two diverging states of the human soul, and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Some of the Songs of Innocence which mostly pertain to children, have an equivalent in the contrasting Songs of Experience (IntArch, 2008). The poems with illustrations are a unique feature of Blake’s works from 1788, including the Songs of Innocence and Experience. The illustrations help readers to understand the poems, while exhibiting the works in their original forms. The designs intensify and raise the meaning of the written word to greater heights. The poet felt impelled to produce his poems in this form partly because of his â€Å"cast of mind, whereby the life of the imagination was more real to him than the material world† (Blake: 11). His lyrical poems were valuable on their own, but he did not wish that they should be read in plain written form. For words and symbols to re-inforce each other, Blake identified ideas which could be translated into visual images. The poet Blake used his work to express his principles regarding various aspects of human life, speaking out from within his mind and heart. Rising above the ordinary world of common experience, the poems formed an embodiment of the imaginative vision of the poet. His poems reflect the fact that he was an independent and rebellious thinker, who intensely disliked pretension and falsity in others (Blake: 11). The Songs of Innocence were products of a mind in a state of chaste goodness, the poems showed an imagination that was unspoiled by worldliness. William Blake’s increasing awareness of the