Songs of Innocence and of Experience

This article is about William Blake's poems. For albums by this name, see Songs of Innocence and of Experience (disambiguation).
Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul title page

Songs of Innocence and of Experience[1] 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.[2]

Songs of Innocence

"Songs of Innocence" redirects here. For other uses, see Songs of Innocence (disambiguation).

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 and The Little Black Boy, subtly shows the dangers of this naive and vulnerable state.

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" redirects here. For other uses, see Songs of Experience (disambiguation).
Blake's title plate (No.29) for 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 (see 1794 in poetry). 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.[note 1]

The poems are listed below:

Introduction
Earth's Answer
The Clod and the Pebble
Holy Thursday
The Little Girl Lost
The Little Girl Found
A Dream
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

Blake's inspiration and aim

Blake uses the simple structure of short, lyrical poems to subtly question and criticise the practices of his society. In The Chimney Sweeper and The Little Black Boy, Blake attacks the negative treatment of racial minorities and the suffering caused by child labour. Most interestingly, Blake uses much of Experience to highlight the negative influence of the Church, which he saw as corrupt and repressive. This can be seen especially in The Garden of Love and A Little Boy Lost.

For Blake, we need to break the "mind-forg'd manacles" (London) caused by repressive religion, and embrace natural and physical pleasures as harmonious and essential for healthy development of content adulthood. As seen in The Little Girl Lost, The Little Girl Found and A Little Girl Lost, Blake holds hope for the future, that society will reject the flawed doctrine and embrace a pastoral life with a combination of the good of innocent and experienced perception.

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[3] 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 (1970).[4]

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 (classical).[5]

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[6] 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.

Popular rock group U2 released an album called "Songs of Innocence" in 2014. They plan to follow up with a "Songs of Experience" album in the near future.

Karl Jenkins' Motets includes a setting of The Shepherd.

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.

Notes

  1. ↑ See the various extent editions republished in their original publication order at the William Blake Archive.

References

  1. ↑ "Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy C, 1789, 1794 (Library of Congress): electronic edition". www.blakearchive.org. Retrieved 2015-11-05. line feed character in |title= at position 47 (help)
  2. ↑ The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Age of Romanticism. Broadview Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-55111-404-0.
  3. ↑ "Greg Brown Discography". Gregbrown.org. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
  4. ↑ "PennSound: Ginsberg/Blake". writing.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
  5. ↑ http://www.music.umich.edu/about/BolcomGrammy.pdf
  6. ↑ http://www.davidunger.n.nu

External links

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