Songs Of Innocence In 1795 By William Blake

William Blake was born to a middle class family in London, England on the 28th of November in 1757. He had six siblings, and out of the seven of them, he was the third born (Black). Two of siblings died at birth (black). Blake did not have any formal schooling, but instead he was briefly taught at home by his mother (Black). The Blake’s were known to be “Dissenters”, and were said to have gone to a Moravian Church, which was one of the oldest protestant denominations in the world, dating back to the fifteenth century (Black). Through his church, the bible became the earliest and most profound influence on his works. His spirituality was the center of his artistic devolvement (Freeman). It was a lifetime source of inspiration that shaped his …show more content…
This collection was called the Songs of Experience. This song is coming from the perspective of an older child or youth, but not someone who has become a man (Bloom pg. 109). The experience is supposed to be about a young boy who is troubled by the perception of evil that he received from a playmate (Bloom pg.109). Through these songs, Blake was seen more mature in his illustrations of them than in the actual written part of them. Most of his songs were mature in the conception of them or the amount and volume of experience that was shown throughout the different songs (Bloom pg. 110). Some examples from this collection include, “The Tiger” (an expression of boyish wonder), “The Crystal Cabinet” (a fairy dream of every youth), and “The Golden Net” (a fine dream of adolescence) (Bloom pg. 110).Experience compared to Innocence was said to be demanding and ugly according to Blake. (Whissell pg 460). These songs were meant to show a contrast between each other, basically going from innocence to where you cannot see the world as it really is to having experience with the real world and seeing its true colors. The Songs of Experience is supposed to be a little less pleasant and less active then the Songs of Experience because it’s more about the childhood that is slowly dying (Whissell pg.461). Like previously stated, Songs of Experience also has a different appeal compared to the Songs of Innocence. It has a mean pleasantness of 1.88 and it has a mean activation value of 1.67 (Whissell pg. 462). William Blake’s life was full of ups and downs, but throughout it all he was able to still come out with some great works, both in written form and artistic form. Although his work wasn’t big during his time, over the last centuries, his work has matured, become well known, and now even imitated in other