Songs of Innocence: With Original Illustrations

By William Blake

Songs of Experience is the second part of Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (first published in 1794), an expansion of Blake's first illuminated book Songs of Innocence. The poems and artwork were reproduced by copperplate engraving and colored with washes by hand. Blake republished Songs of Innocence and Experience several times, often changing the number and order of the plates. The spellings, punctuation and capitalizations are those of the original Blake manuscripts. William Blake (1757 – 1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. CONTENT: 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 Tiger 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 A Divine Image A Cradle Song The Schoolboy To Tirzah

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: May 25, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547000853

William Blake

William Blake was born in London in 1757. He was apprenticed to a master engraver and then studied at the Royal Academy under the guidance of Joshua Reynolds. In 1789 he engraved and published Songs of Innocence and the contrasting Songs of Experience came later in 1794. A poet, painter and printmaker of great originality and imagination, his work was largely unrecognized during his lifetime and he struggled to make a living. Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. He died in 1827.

Book preview

William Blake

Songs of Innocence

With Original Illustrations

EAN 8596547000853

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Shepherd

Infant Joy

On Another's Sorrow

The School Boy

Holy Thursday

Nurse's Song

Laughing Song

The Little Black Boy

The Voice of the Ancient Bard

Ecchoing Green

The Chimney Sweeper

The Divine Image

A Dream

The Little Girl Lost

The Little Girl Found

The Little Boy Lost

The Little Boy Found

A Cradle Song

Spring

The Blossom

The Lamb

Night

Songs of Innocence was the first of Blake's illuminated books published in 1789. The poems and artwork were reproduced by copperplate engraving and colored with washes by hand. In 1794 he expanded the book to include Songs of Experience. The spellings, punctuation and capitalizations are those of the original Blake manuscripts.

Introduction

Introduction

Table of Contents

Piping down the valleys wild,

Piping songs of pleasant glee,

On a cloud I saw a child,

And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about