Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience was written between 1788 and 1801. "Songs of Innocence" is a collection of nineteen individual poems, including an introductory poem. "Songs of Experience," which also begins with an introduction, is a collection of twenty-seven poems. "Songs of Experience" initially contained twenty-three poems. Between 1794 and 1801, Blake added four poems to "Songs of Experience" (Kazin, p. 118).

Poetry is often defined as a language that says more than the words describe (Perrine and Arp, p. 3). This is because the language of poetry is symbolic -- the words transcend their ordinary meaning. At the very least, a poem contains a whole idea; its theme is presented to the audience in such a way the sentiment is accessible.

The Innocence collection describes the world through the eyes of a child. For example, "The Little Boy Lost" tells of a little boy who loses his father in the dark:

Father! Father! Where are you going?

The night was dark, no father was there;

In "The Little Boy Found" the child is rescued by God and returned to his weeping mother: