When writing this seminal piece, William Blake took into account an immensely popular book at the time, Milton's epical Paradise Lost. Songs of Innocence and of Experience Inspired by Milton Right: William Blake - Introduction, 1828. Left: William Blake - Songs of Innocence and of Experience, 1828. The captivating images that accompany both editions are also relevant proofs of Blake's technical and visual ingenuity and stand proudly in line with some of his other, more iconic works. The first few first copies of the poetry book were printed and illuminated by the artist himself in 1789, and another series of these poems, followed by several new ones, was published five years later, a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.

When it first appeared, the Songs of Innocence and of Experience collection was published in two phases. Both a painter and a poet, he has created a complex and rather symbolic body of work that had its resonance with the Pre-Raphaelites and even with the Surrealist movement. The canonical poem was, in fact, part of Songs of Innocence and Experience Blake wrote and illustrated in 1789.īy that time, he was a developed English intellectual who stood at the forefront of Romanticism. Although times have passed, Tyger became sort of an iconic lullaby embedded in British culture.

They were part of a short poem that questioned Christianity. The lines Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night written by William Blake, were immensely popular back in the late 18th century.

Songs of experience william blake