Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1983)
Title
Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1983)
Original Date:
1794
Facsimile Date:
1983
Publisher:
Manchester Etching Workshop
Physical Description:
19 leaves ; 29 cm.
Background Information:
This work has a complex publication history. Songs of Innocence was composed in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794, after which the two were often combined, sometimes with an additional, unified title page. The order of poems within the combined publication varies considerably, as does the number of poems selected for it (and for later reproductions). Thus not all of the poems in the series are included in all versions. The coloration also varies from copy to copy.
This particular facsimile of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, produced by the Manchester Etching Workshop in an edition of 40 copies, was an attempt to reproduce Blake’s techniques as closely as possible. The Workshop used a more modern chemical method, electrotyping, to create its printing plates, but it employed techniques similar to Blake’s in mixing watercolors, and its staff colored each plate in a free-hand style in direct imitation of Blake’s copy B. Additional uncolored or even uninked pages were included in the Workshop edition to demonstrate the techniques they used. The pages are mounted in a leather-bound and stamped album, housed in a cloth-covered box. The Union College copy was purchased by the Friends of the Library.
This particular facsimile of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, produced by the Manchester Etching Workshop in an edition of 40 copies, was an attempt to reproduce Blake’s techniques as closely as possible. The Workshop used a more modern chemical method, electrotyping, to create its printing plates, but it employed techniques similar to Blake’s in mixing watercolors, and its staff colored each plate in a free-hand style in direct imitation of Blake’s copy B. Additional uncolored or even uninked pages were included in the Workshop edition to demonstrate the techniques they used. The pages are mounted in a leather-bound and stamped album, housed in a cloth-covered box. The Union College copy was purchased by the Friends of the Library.
Student Commentary:
Overview: Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a combination of two collections of Blake’s short poems, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Its subtitle emphasizes that, through this combination, Blake is “Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.” Whereas the poems collected under the title Songs of Innocence focus on pastoral themes and images, poems for Songs of Experience are much darker and contain messages about the state of society. Each poem is on its own individual plate, with artwork surrounding the poetry. Usually the images in the artwork are related to the themes of the poem, but this is not always the case. Several of the poems within Songs of Innocence have companion pieces in Songs of Experience; when the two collections are contained in one book, as they are here, they allow you to see the maturation of the themes and the scope of Blake’s observations and philosophical outlook. – Jessica Rosenthal ‘18