Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Blake's illustrated collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Blake's collection of illustrated poems "Songs of Innocence and of Experience." He published Songs of Innocence first in 1789 with five hand-coloured copies and, five years later, with additional Songs of Experience poems and the explanatory phrase "Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul." Blake drew on the street ballads and improving children's rhymes of the time, exploring the open and optimistic outlook of early childhood with the darker and more cynical outlook of adult life, in which symbols such as the Lamb belong to innocence and the Tyger to experience.
With
Sir Jonathan Bate
Provost of Worcester College, University of Oxford
Sarah Haggarty
Lecturer at the Faculty of English and Fellow of Queens' College, University of Cambridge
And
Jon Mee
Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Last on
How much do you know about the poet's influence on music?
Clip
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What is the rose in 鈥淥 Rose thou art sick鈥
Duration: 01:59
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
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READING LIST:
Peter Ackroyd, Blake (Vintage, 1996)
Morris Eaves (ed.), A Cambridge Companion to William Blake (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Heather Glen, Vision and Disenchantment: Blake鈥檚 Songs and Wordsworth鈥檚 Lyrical Ballads (Cambridge University Press, 1983)
Sarah Haggarty and Jon Mee, William Blake: Songs of Innocence and of Experience - A Reader鈥檚 Guide to Essential Criticism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
Zachary Leader, Reading Blake鈥檚 Songs (Routledge & Kegan Paul Books, 1981)
Saree Makdisi, Reading William Blake (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Michael Phillips, William Blake and the Creation of the Songs: From Manuscript to Illuminated Printing (The British Library, 2000)
E. P. Thompson, Witness against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
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Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Presenter | Melvyn Bragg |
Interviewed Guest | Jonathan Bate |
Interviewed Guest | Sarah Haggarty |
Interviewed Guest | Jon Mee |
Producer | Simon Tillotson |
Broadcasts
- Thu 23 Jun 2016 09:00成人快手 Radio 4
- Thu 23 Jun 2016 21:30成人快手 Radio 4
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