An analysis of a selection of poems by William Blake; a consideration of the songs of the contrasting states of innocence and experience.

William Blake was born on November 28th in the year 1757; he became one of England’s greatest poets. He wrote many famous poems, including “Tyger” and “Jerusalem”. Many poems are categorized into either Songs of innocence or Songs of experience. This is a little volume of illuminated pages. Blake believed the innocence of childhood is contrasted with the experience and corruption of the adult world. He married Catherine Boucher in 1782 and enjoyed a happy marriage. He was a poet of imagination and rebelled against the church. Blake died in 1827.

Songs of Innocence and Experience are a series of poems on how we see the world at different stages of our lives. They are, as Blake says himself, "Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul". Both collections sometimes share the same name for poems, such as The Chimney Sweeper, but one glance at these two poems reveals the contrast between the small boy from Songs of Innocence and the more worldly wise soul in Songs of Expe...