Author: Wendon Blake

1Songs of Innocence and Experience

By William Blake

William Blake’s volume of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience is the embodiment of his belief that innocence and experience were “the two contrary states of the human soul,” and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Songs of Innocence contains poems either written from the perspective of children or written about them. Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience, with quite a different perspective of the world.<br /><br />The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the despair found in Songs of Experience. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. He did not, however, believe that children should be kept from becoming experienced entirely. In truth, he believed that children should indeed become experienced but through their own discoveries, which is reflected in a number of these poems.<br /> (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Annie Coleman)

2Voice of the Ancient Bard

By William Blake

LibriVox volunteers bring you six different readings of <em>The Voice of the Ancient Bard</em>, by William Blake. This is a weekly poetry project. (Summary by Annie Coleman)

LibriVox volunteers bring you twelve different recordings of <em>The Tiger</em>, by William Blake. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of December 3rd, 2006.

<i>Milton: a Poem</i> is an epic poem by William Blake, written and illustrated between 1804 and 1810. Its hero is John Milton, who returns from heaven and unites with Blake to explore the relationship between living writers and their predecessors. While on earth, Milton also unites with his feminine aspect, Ololon. The poem describes progress toward the apocalyptic union of living and dead, internal and external reality, and male and female. (Summary from Wikipedia).

5Poems of William Blake

By William Blake

Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul are two books of poetry by the English poet and painter, William Blake. Although Songs of Innocence was first published by itself in 1789, it is believed that Songs of Experience has always been published in conjunction with Innocence since its completion in 1794.<br><br>Songs of Innocence mainly consists of poems describing the innocence and joy of the natural world, advocating free love and a closer relationship with God, and most famously including Blake's poem The Lamb. Its poems have a generally light, upbeat and pastoral feel and are typically written from the perspective of children or written about them.<br><br>Directly contrasting this, Songs of Experience instead deals with the loss of innocence after exposure to the material world and all of its mortal sin during adult life, including works such as The Tyger. Poems here are darker, concentrating on more political and serious themes. Throughout both books, many poems fall into pairs, so that a similar situation or theme can be seen in both Innocence and Experience. Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience with opposing perspectives of the world. The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the volume's sense of despair. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. He did not, however, believe that children should be kept from becoming experienced entirely. In truth, he believed that children should indeed become experienced but through their own discoveries, which is reflected in a number of these poems. Blake believed that innocence and experience were "the two contrary states of the human soul", and that true innocence was impossible without experience.<br><br> The Book of Thel is a poem by William Blake, dated 1789 and probably worked on in the period 1788 to 1790. It is illustrated by his own plates, and is relatively short and easy to understand, compared to his later prophetic books. The metre is a fourteen-syllable line. It was preceded by Tiriel, which Blake left in manuscript. A few lines from Tiriel were incorporated into The Book of Thel. This book consists of eight plates executed in illuminated printing. 15 copies of original print of 1789-1793 are known. Two copies have watermark of 1815, which are more elaborately colored than the others. (Summary from Wikipedia)

The Book of Urizen is one of the major prophetic books of the English poet William Blake, illustrated by Blake's own plates. It was originally published as The First Book of Urizen in 1794. Later editions dropped the word "first".<br /><br /> The book takes its name from the character Urizen in Blake's mythology, who represents alienated reason as the source of oppression. The book describes Urizen as the "primeaval priest", and describes how he became separated from the other Eternals to create his own alienated and enslaving realm of religious dogma. Los and Enitharmon create a space within Urizen's fallen universe to give birth to their son Orc, the spirit of revolution and freedom.<br /><br /> Urizen's first four sons are Thiriel, Utha, Grodna and Fuzon (respectively elemental Air, Water, Earth, Fire, according to Chapter VIII). The last of these plays a major role in The Book of Ahania, published the following year. (Summary from Wikipedia)

LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 recordings of <em>Jerusalem</em> by William Blake. This was the fortnightly poetry project for November 30th, 2008.

The epic poem Jerusalem was in Blake's own opinion his masterpiece. It is the last of the great prophetic books. Originally produced as an engraved book of 100 pages (only one copy of which was every fully finished in the colouring), the poem develops and unifies many of the themes Blake had been exploring in earlier works. It is a complex and powerful work, full of dramatic imagery and sublime poetry. You might think of it like a poetic version of a Wagner opera. The edition read here is the first printed version of the poem - which was impossibly hard to read in the original. This then was the first opportunity to really explore it. However in his introduction Blake implies that the way to experience this work is to read it aloud rather than in your head. I can only agree, and I can also understand why few will do it. Although, somewhat inevitably, it is hard to do justice to the original, I hope this will give a flavour of this neglected gem. (Introduction by Nick Duncan)

The work was composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period of radical foment and political conflict immediately after the French Revolution. The title is an ironic reference to Emanuel Swedenborg's theological work Heaven and Hell published in Latin 33 years earlier. Swedenborg is directly cited and criticized by Blake several places in the Marriage. Though Blake was influenced by his grand and mystical cosmic conception, Swedenborg's conventional moral structures and his Manichean view of good and evil led Blake to express a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are equally part of the divine order, hence, a marriage of heaven and hell. The book is written in prose, except for the opening "Argument" and the "Song of Liberty". The book describes the poet's visit to Hell, a device adopted by Blake from Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost. (Summary by Wikipedia)

10Garden of Love

By William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.<br /> He was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work (Summary by Wikipedia)

11Marriage of Heaven and Hell (version 2)

By William Blake

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."<br><br>The Marriage of Heaven & Hell is William Blake’s masterpiece – a piously blasphemous reimagining of the duality of good and evil as an eternal dance of equally essential polarities.<br><br>Good, in Blake’s complex cosmology, is defined by a blind deference to the external, rational order embodied by the tyrant and the priest. Evil is the chaotic and revolutionary impulse that defies all reason and authority.<br><br>While Blake’s sympathies are clearly with the Romantic revolutionary, he argues for the necessity of both sides, which create balance through their eternal opposition. (Summary by PJ Taylor)

12Jerusalem to Revelations - A Quartet of Spiritual Explorations

By Dante Alighieri, William Blake, King James Version (KJV) and Unknown

A Four Quartets for the End of Time, these works stretch from the death and rebirth of a living land, England/Albion, to the death of the world as we know it in the Book of Revelations, going by way of a journey of the soul through death into salvation in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, thence into Dante's journey into Hell, Purgatory and final union with his beloved Beatrice and his God. Herein you will find four ways to save your soul and live through death, regenerate a wasted land and, in doing so, enter the New Jerusalem. - Summary by Tony Addison

13Songs of Innocence and Experience (version 2)

By William Blake

"Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and "Fall". Blake categorizes our modes of perception that became standard in Romanticism: childhood is a state of innocence rather than original sin, but not immune to the fallen world (experience). The first part of this volume mainly shows happy, innocent perception in pastoral harmony, whereas the second part also deals with darker themes. ( Foon)

14Songs of Innocence and Experience (version 3)

By William Blake

The short, simple lines of these delicate poems resemble song lyrics, emphasizing the concrete but hinting at transcendent realities, although a few deal with abstractions directly. Many voices are heard: of children (once possibly a fetus), animals, parents, and narrators.<br><br> The two companion volumes deal with the inevitable passage from the child’s wonder and delight in the creation to the adult’s understanding of it. This transition is fraught with dangers and can result in unhealthy attitudes. Blake has little good to say about human institutions dedicated to education, but sometimes lucky children do hit upon wholesome means of passing from innocence into experience.<br><br> Interconnections between poems are vital to interpretation: not only sequential poems like "Little Boy Lost" and "Little Boy Found" but also counterparts with the same name in each volume, such as those entitled "Nurse's Song."<br><br> Other interconnections can be discovered only by examining the total work, including the drawings. For, like all of Blake's works, these little poems are composite works of art, the words being supplemented and qualified by pictorial art as in today's graphic novels. For example, "Nurse's Song" and "The Fly" in Songs of Experience are illustrated with drawings whose similarity in general form emphasizes their sharp contrast in significance, one presenting a repressive, controlling approach to education and the other a kindly, supportive approach. There are also many small figures and repeated vegetative forms that fill the corners and spaces between the lines or decorate the titles, and each of these bears upon the interpretation of the work.<br><br> Yet, although the poetry is not to be mistaken for the complete work, it can be appreciated for itself alone. - Summary by Thomas A. Copeland

15My Hundred Favorite Recipes

By Mary Blake

This is a collection of recipes all featuring Carnation Milk from soups and salads to bread and desserts. - Summary by Larry Wilson

LibriVox volunteers bring you 21 recordings of The Sky Is An Immortal Tent Built By The Sons Of Los by William Blake.<br> This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 25, 2024. <br> ------<br> William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "human existence itself". - Summary by Wikipedia