Antecedents of Innocence

Abstract

As we have seen, Songs of Innocence and Experience grew out of Songs of Innocence, which around 1790 was a complete and self-sufficient work. Any investigation into the origins of the larger and later work, therefore, has to begin by considering the origins of the shorter and earlier one. The origins of Songs of Innocence have been much discussed by scholars and critics, the discussion taking three principal forms. First, there have been attempts to interpret the various anticipations of Songs of Innocence in Blake’s earlier writings, and in particular to determine the significance of five manuscript lyrics which were later adapted and engraved for Songs of Innocence. Second, there have been critical interpretations of Songs of Innocence and of individual poems therein as contributions to the European tradition of pastoral literature and more specifically of pastoral lyric. Third, there have been examinations of the book as a contribution to the eighteenth-century tradition of religious and didactic writing for children, especially as that tradition combined text and illustration and drew on the methods of English hymnody.