Songs of Innocence
The title page of the Songs of Innocence is dated 1789, yet it is almost certain that two or three of the lyrics in the Songs of Innocence collection (Holy Thursday' and 'The Little Boy Lost'), were written and engraved (in Blake's characteristic style, see Blake the Artist), earlier than 1789. As a whole the poems are linked by a common portrayal of the state of "Innocence", characterized as a pre-lapsarian state, and by the imagery of children, childish joy, and by the associations with pastoral literature and the pastoral lyric, and similarity to popular religious verse for children. This latter point is important, because the Songs of Innocence can clearly be placed within the tradition of eighteenth century religious and diactic writing for children: Isaac Watts's Divine and Moral Songs for the Use of Children (1715) and Charles Wesley's Hymns for Children (1763), works which were designed for children to combat the pernicious effects of popular literature and ballads, works which combined illustration with the principles of English hymnody. Blake's lyrics are sharper than his predecessors, yet the influences are clearly there, particularly given the fact that Blake had been called upon to engrave such works in the 1780s. Yet there are also more profound religious associations within and behind the verse, most notably the links to the vision of Christ the Lamb presented in St. John's Book of Revelations, where John speaks of those who "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth". Blake was drawing, of course, on a tradition of religious imagery that would have been almost unconsciously active for him, and for his readers. What emerges, from the Songs of Innocence as a whole is a composite portrait of Innocence in its own right, and as the counterpart to the post-lapsarian state of "Experience". We must remember also that, in reading these Songs, we are reading half of a work which was only finally published in 1794, which evolved over 5 years, and 5 years also which saw radical changes in Blake's own thinking and outlook on political, religious and social events.
"The Chimney Sweeper" (Songs of Innocence)
Songs Of Innocence and Experience