William Blake - Songs Of Innocence And Experience.pdf

Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf Editions.
Songs of Innocence
and
Songs of Experience.
William Blake.

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William Blake. Songs of Innocence and Experience.
About the author Blake's first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was published circa
1783. In 1788, at the age of thirty-one, Blake began to experiment
with "relief etching", which was the method used to produce most of
William Blake (November 28, 1757- his books of poems. Blake claimed the method was revealed to him in
August 12, 1827) was an English poet, a vision of his dead brother, Robert. The process is also referred to as
mystic, painter and printmaker, or "Au- "illuminated printing," and final products as "illuminated books" or
thor & Printer," as he signed many of "prints." Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems
his books. on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant me-
dium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of
earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the plates in acid in
order to dissolve away the untreated copper and leave the design
standing. The pages printed from these plates then had to be hand-
Blake was born at 28 Broad Street, Golden Square, London, En- colored in water colors and stiched together to make up a volume.
gland into a middle-class family. His artistic talent was noticed and Blake used illuminated printing for four of his works: the Songs of
encouraged from an early age. At ten years old, he began engraving Innocence and Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven
copies of drawings of Greek antiquities, a practice that was then and Hell, and Jerusalem. Each of his illuminated books was thus a
preferred to real-life drawing. Four years later he became apprenticed unique work of art and a radical break with not only tra