Student's Guide to Blake

Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface

Page 2
SONGS OF INNOCENCE

Introduction
The Shepherd
The Ecchoing Green
The Lamb
The Little Black Boy
The Chimney Sweeper
The Little Boy Lost
The Little Boy Found
The Divine Image
Holy Thursday
Infant Joy
The Blossom
Laughing Song
A Cradle Song
Night
A Dream
Nurses Song
Spring

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SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
Introduction
Earth’s Answer
The Clod and The Pebble
Holy Thursday
The Chimney Sweeper
The Little Girl Lost
The Little Girl Found
The Sick Rose
The Garden of Love
The Tyger
London
The Human Abstract
Infant Sorrow
Nurse’s Song
The Fly
The Angel
A Poison Tree
A Little Boy Lost
A Little Girl Lost
The School-Boy
My Pretty Rose Tree/Ah! Sunflower/The Lilly
To Tirzah
The Little Vagabond
The Voice of the Ancient Bard
Useful Web Sites
Past Exam Questions on Blake

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Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake

NOTES FOR A LEVEL STUDENTS
PREFACE
Being the two contrary states of the human soul
This little note is the key to the reading of the text because Blake is not praising innocence and
damning experience, but is stating that both have to lead somewhere – eventually to wisdom.
‘Unorganizd Innocence, An Impossibility’ Blake wrote in one of the margins of his later poems.
‘Innocence dwells with Wisdom but never with Ignorance.’
Without contraries there is no progression
This suggests clearly that innocence without experience (or vice versa) would lead to stagnation
and to fixity – a state...