Blake was one of the finest craftsmen of his time, an artist for whom art and poetry were inextricably linked. He was an indepedent and rebellious thinker, who abhorred pretention and falsity in others. His Songs of Innocence are products of this innocent imagination untainted by worldliness, while the Songs of Experience resulted from his feelings of indignation and pity for the sufferings of mankind. The Songs of Innocence and Expereince, containing some of Blake's finest and best-loved poems, are presented here in the form which best satisfied the high expectations of his poetic and artistic aspirations. The fifty-four plates which Blake originallly etched and coloured by hand are faithfully reproduced with the same delicacy and dimensions as the artist created them.

Blake was one of the finest craftsmen of his time, an artist for whom art and poetry were inextricably linked. He was an indepedent and rebellious thinker, who abhorred pretention and falsity in others. His Songs of Innocence are products of this innocent imagination untainted by worldliness, while the Songs of Experience resulted from his feelings of indignation and pity for the sufferings of mankind. The Songs of Innocence and Expereince, containing some of Blake's finest and best-loved poems, are presented here in the form which best satisfied the high expectations of his poetic and artistic aspirations. The fifty-four plates which Blake originallly etched and coloured by hand are faithfully reproduced with the same delicacy and dimensions as the artist created them.

2006-05-14 William Blake? Yeah, he's pretty great

William Blake is one of the most influencial poets in history, and would make my list of top five poets ever any day of the week. 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' is his most famous and highly regarded set of poems, and rightly so too. 'Innocence and Experience' is unique in so far as there are a lot of poems with duplicate titles, but both poems will be from a completely different viewpoint, a different time in life; the poems from 'Innocence' will often reflect happiness and optimism etc, whereas the counterpart 'Expreience' poem will refelct completely the opposite, this allows Blake of course to make rather poignant comments on the corruption of innocence, as well as a lot of rather biting observations on 17th century society and in particular on the concept of organised religion, as whilst Blake himself was, and evidently from many of his poems is, a very religious man, but often makes clear statements out against the oppressiveness of the church. I would say the best poem for illustrating this is 'The Garden of Love,' which I consider one of his best poems. I would also draw attention the the 'experience' version of 'Little Boy Lost', which is as far as I'm concerned, the most powerful poem of all the one's in the collection.

But unlike someone like Milton, Blake's poetry is accessible to everyone, his style is by no means complex, and 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' is something that just about anyone can enjoy and at least get a feel for what the writer is trying to do. I urge you to buy this now.