William Blake not only did pioneering work in artistic design (poem interleaved with illustrations) but also introduced eighteen century children readers to the true picture book Songs of Innocence. As Blake developed and produced his work he functioned as writer, designer and printer. However, author-illustrator-printer Blake as he became more involved in his product was more concerned with perfecting the etching process in the printing of the book itself.
Coupled with addressing other wider issues of morality and deplorable social conditions of his times, Blake did not fully develop the songs into a complete book of songs exclusively for children. Several other factors were directly responsible: plagued by poverty Blake did not have the financial resources to mass-produce his book Song of Innocence; his technique was for hand coloring and single-page printing, a laborious process resulting in all pages being different; and an elaborate meticulous time-consuming operation that was managed by only a husband-and-wife team further complicated matters. As the work progresses Blake experimented with colors, mainly to evoke various moods within his text which resulted in distinct variations throughout the work. In addition, limited availability of the finished product itself prevented the necessary exposure required for innovative developing literature to take a hold on the reading public.
With these notions in mind, it is now necessary to examine in detail Blake’s artistic skill and poetic technique in order to determine to what extent the Songs of Innocence, whether in whole or in part, could be labeled a book for children.
Blake’s development as a poet and illustrator was a result of his deep concern for the state of corruption in his times, particularly the treatment of children, which he saw as an early loss of innocence. Bingham and Scholt in Fifteen Centuries of Children’s Literature write:
Treatment of children in the eighteenth century differed only slightly from earlier times, except that those who dealt directly with them became keenly aware for the first time in history, not as autonomous individuals, but as objects to be molded systematically according to prescribed goals. (90).
Blake abhorred the exploitation of children for economic reasons. A rather imaginative child, and like other children of the times, Blake was sent off to boarding school at ten, and apprenticed soon after to an illustrator, did realize that he had an unusual gift as a creative artist. Soon after his apprenticeship period he began his early work exclusively as an illustrator for other writers’ works. With regards to Blake’s early development as an illustrator, which attested to his skills, David Bindham, in William Blake His Art and Times points out that:
One of Blake’s attempts as illustrator for poems was done for Joseph Ritson in A Select Collection of English Songs, edited by Joseph Ritson 1783 which is “typical of much of the work Blake did after Stothard – small book illustrations for popular publications in the Rococo style.” (90)
Some of these are apparent in his many and varied pastoral scenes in Songs of Innocence.
However, it soon became apparent that Blake was not satisfied with the technique of writing and illustrating where “text and illustration had to be conceived separately, with the design [illustration] acting as head- or tailpiece” (Bindam, 90). Blake sent out to expand on his earlier training and experience as an illustrator in an innovative way. Indeed, Blake had been at the forefront in pioneering designing techniques from the very start of his career. Anne Kostelanetz Mellow in the introduction to Blake’s Human Form Divine affirms this in her comment:
When Blake published his first illuminated poetry in 1789 with the hope of achieving commercial success as a book maker, he adopted for his purpose both the example of medieval illuminated manuscripts and the popular book illustrating style of Thomas Stothard. (XVI).
Thus, Blake, taking the medieval marginal style, combined with Rococo pastoral scenes, began work on his book for children. What Blake did is to assimilate poetry and illustration as a combined entity appearing on the etched plates; he practically invented the etched–pate technique, and composed and fashioned simultaneously, thus departing from previous book production processes. His Songs of Innocence integrated illustration with text, a rapid departure from the method then used by other book makers. On Blake’s new technique, Joseph Viscomi writes:
In other words, what is imagined to have occurred on paper in the form of the “preliminary drawings,” or mock-up, did occur, but it occurred on copper and only on copper, where the tools and materials of illuminated printing allowed the individual page design to evolve, which in turn allowed the book to evolve, organically. (25)
Blake saw in his purpose the meshing of songs and illustration, to complement and enhance each other, and to bring the text to life. Blake did make his intentions in creating Songs of Innocence very clear from the outset, as noted by Brian Alderson: “Blake once remarked in a letter that his Visions had been ‘elucidated by children, who have taken a greater delight in contemplating my Pictures than I even hoped’.” William Vaughan writes on this combination of poetry interweaved with illustrations in Songs of Innocence as follows:
Blake was familiar with the genre, having produced illustrations for a children’s book of similar shape and appearance by Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from real Life, a progressive tract promoting liberal education. Perhaps Blake set out with that intention – maybe even thinking of it as being appropriate for some child that he and Catherine were still hoping to have at that time. (28).
It must be remembered that “educationalists, particularly women writers of the period who often had high ideals but little talent, championed materialistic values and practicality, while scorning ‘irrational influences’ on the child’s mind, such as fairy tales and nursery rhymes” (Bingham and Scholt, 151).
This format, together with the idyllic tone of the songs and the title itself might lead one to suppose that it was intended to be a book exclusively for children. However, Blake soon departed from his original concept as he became more involved in the process of engraving. His other philosophical notions of man’s role on earth began to intrude and interfere with his work of instruction and inspiration for children. On this point, it is important to note Kathleen Raine observation that “Songs of Innocence might have been planned as a book of children, but once he was involved in its making, Blake soon loss any purpose but the creation of beauty” (46). The question then is to determine where Song of Innocence ceases to be a book for children and became a book of morals for adults, or whether it should remain solely as a book for children.
The songs can be divided into three categories: those essentially for children which can be read by children, those that can be for children if read by an adult to children, and those that manifest the social evils of eighteenth century London.
The songs belonging to the first group (those that could be read by children) and they are: “Introduction,” “The Shepherd,” “The Lamb,” “The Blossom,” “The Little Boy Lost,” “ The Little Boy Found,” “Laughing Song,” “ Spring,” “Nurse’s Song,” “Infant Joy” and “Dream.” It is now necessary to consider the thematic structure and accompanying illustrations for a few of these songs, and to determine to what extent words and illustration complement and enhance each other. Indeed, the opening verse in the “Introduction” is spontaneous and bright, full of energy and vitality, full of rhythm, and must have been memorized and chanted by countless children as they go about their play.
Piping down the valleys wild.
Piping songs of pleasure glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
The title page of Songs of Innocence shows a devoted mother or nurse reading to attentive children under the shade of a tree, and this clearly indicates the “family” atmosphere. At a close examination of “Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy C, 1789, 1794 (Library of Congress): electronic edition” one cannot help but admire the richness of the color which enhances the picture of the attentive children listening to the nurse read a song, with one child in a flowing brown gown, the other partly visible in blue, with the sky a lighter blue. The title Songs of Innocence hung as if magically from the tree, with light flowing cursive letters, which enhance and complement the scene. Depth brought out by the coloration gives an airy feeling of a peaceful atmosphere and a time for the singing of songs of innocence. Indeed, the very title set Blake’s book apart from those of his predecessors.
Brian Alderson reports that:
A familiar case has been made out for Blake knowing such widely-approved works as Isaac Watts's Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children, first published in 1715, or Mrs Barbauld's Hymns in Prose of 1781. There are echoes of their phrasing in Songs of Innocence, but their conventional philosophy may have acted as irritant rather than influence. Nor did these writers have the self-assurance to address the reader with Blake's uninhibited directness or to give such an imaginative density to their texts. (18)
Blake’s words themselves soothe and enhance, his commands are clear and precise, yet not probing, his muse ready to please the listener, the child. Blake creates the mood in the title page where his blend of words with illustrations and this is readily apparent in the first two songs in Songs of Innocence: Introduction song, and The Shepherd. The song in the Introduction clearly indicates “the spontaneous lyrical and poetic effusion to written poem” (Fuller, 55), and in the second poem the Shepherd becomes “the good Shepherd of Christian symbolism, Christ as ideal Guardian” (Fuller 55). Then “the piper’s replacement in ‘The Shepherd’ contemplates a broader similar scene but a different relationship. The sheep are in the same satisfied postures but the shepherd, in contrast to the piper, is appropriately watchful rather than celebratory” (Smith, 167). In the Introduction we see a dream-like laughing child. The illustrations complement the text where both margins contain four vignettes of stem-like growth, common in medieval manuscripts and in stained glass, showing the lineage of Christ from Jesse and father of King David (Fuller, 56). This motif continues in several poems, first picked-up in the “Introduction” and continues into “The Shepherd”:
How sweet is the shepherd sweel lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
Andd his tongue shall be filled with praise.
Blake’s earlier biographer Gilchrist makes sound observations:
The designs, simultaneous offspring with the poems, which in the most literal sense illuminate the Songs of Innocence, consist of poetized domestic scenes. The drawing and draperies are grand in style as graceful, though covering few inches' space; the colour pure, delicate, yet in effect rich and full. The mere tinting of the text and of the free ornamental border often makes a refined picture. The costumes of the period are idealized, the landscape given in pastoral and symbolic hints. Sometimes these drawings almost suffer from being looked at as a book and held close, instead of at due distance as pictures, where they become more effective. In composition, colour, pervading feeling, they are lyrical to the eye, as the Songs to the ear.
A close examination of “Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy C, 1789, 1794 (Library of Congress): electronic edition” displays the effective use of Blake’s coloration of a yellow hue for sheep tinged with a green for trees and landscape, with the shepherd highlighted in a vibrant yellow; these colors come together to create depth and produce a three-dimensional effect, and one cannot help but notice the proud yet protective facial features of the shepherd. Thus it can be seen how text and illustration are meshed in Songs of Innocence. The many poems in this first group fulfill Blake’s longing a produce a book fit for children and children only.
With regards to the song “The Lamb” Bryan Aubrey comments:
Another detail concerns the illustration to the poem. Since Blake intended his books to be read in the form in which he printed them, in which each poem was accompanied by an illustration, it is always worth examining a poem's visual aspect. The illustration for "The Lamb" shows a child reaching out to touch a lamb, while sheep graze behind them. There is also a cottage, an oak tree and a stream. But what catches the eye are the two saplings on either side of the illustration, both of which are entwined with vines. The saplings reach up to the top of the frame, and then arch over the entire scene, intertwining with each other in what looks like a riot of jubilation. The cooperative interfusing of nature that is part of the theme of the poem thus receives visual representation.
The second group of poems includes The Echoing Green, The Divine Image, Night and On Another’s Sorrow, are clearly not meant to be read by children, but are meant to be read to children by adults. Here the form is not free-flowing and spontaneous, and answers to questions are not forthright. Harold Bloom’s analysis of intent and meaning in “The Echoing Green” confirms the reading of the poem as not intended for children.
In "The Echoing Green" a day's cycle moves from spontaneous sounds of happiness in the first stanza to the nostalgic laughter of the old folk in the second, to the total absence of any sound in the conclusion: The refrains of the first two stanzas were of sport seen, in present and then in past time, on an Echoing Green. Now, with no sport to be seen upon it, the Green has lost its echoes also, and the darkening upon it is the shadow of mortality, recognition of which will end Innocence as a state.
The meaning in the last few lines are obvious: the heralding of death in the end.
And sport no more seen
On the darkening green.
As Harold Bloom further points out, “The Divine Image” conjures-up God as a “monster of abstractions”:
"The Divine Image" sets forth the virtues of that state at its most confident. The human form divine is the God of Innocence, but this God is not presented as a visual form or the image of the title, but rather as a monster of abstractions, formed out of the supposedly human element in each of Innocence's four prime virtues. What is the face of Mercy, or the heart of Pity, we are expected to wonder. In what dress does the human form of Love present itself, and what is the form of Peace?
An analysis of “Songs of Innocence, copy B, 1789 (Library of Congress): electronic edition” with regards to “The Divine Image” displays a lack of precise representation of the four prime virtues. This is a noticeably marked departure from the earliest poems; the lack of representative images, and precisely those for children. The third stanza, which reads as follows, could have been illustrated to enhance the meaning in the words, rather than leaving the readers to supply their own visualization.
For Mercy has a human art,
Pity a human face,
And love, the human form divine,
And peace, the human dress.
On another level, the poems in the third group are meant as social criticism.
As many critics have rightly pointed out, such poems as ‘The Chimney Sweep,’ ‘The Little Black Boy,’ and ‘Holy Thursday’ beg a fundamental question about the relationship of Blake’s vision of innocence to the manifest social evil of eighteenth-century England (specifically, to the exploitation of child labor, the blatant racism of the slave trade, and the oppressive treatment of orphans)….Some of Blake’s critics seems to conclude that he was condemning Innocence as incapable of ending social, political, and even psychological corruption. (Mellor, 12)
In the poem “The Little Black Boy” Blake makes clear the racial discrimination in England, but offers no solution to its earthly end; instead, he encourages the reader to wait for the call to God’s heaven in the end.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And around the tent of God like lambs we joy.
In “Songs of Innocence, copy B, 1789 (Library of Congress): electronic edition” we see a lead-in illustration instead of Blake’s customary blend of text with illustration. The scene is pastoral, with the little boy and mother under a tree, but nowhere do we see a hint of hope. The same theme is repeated in “The Chimney Sweep” where Tom, the chimney sweep, must resign himself to his fate:
So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
Blake has created a text of wonder and enjoyment with his Songs of Innocence. However, had he created a volume exclusively with the first set of poems, he would have created a lasting portrait for children of all ages and all times.
Works Cited
Alderson, Brian. "Loss of Innocence." Children's Literature Review
19 December 1989, p. 18. Retrieved on 24th September, 2006.
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Bindman, David. William Blake His Art and Times. New Haven: The
Yale Center for British Art, 1983.
Bingham, Jane and Grayce Scholt. Fifteen Centuries of Children’s
Literature. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1980.
Bloom, Harold Ed. William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of
Experience, New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
<http://galenet.galegroup.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/servlet/LitRC? Bryan, Aubrey. “Critical Essays on the Lamb.” Poetry for Students,
Vol. 12, The Gale Group, 2001.
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Fuller, David. Ed. William Blake Selected Poetry and Prose. Harlow:
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Gilchrist, Alexander, An excerpt from Life of William Blake, Vol. 1,
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Meigs, Cornelia, Anne Thaxter Eaton, Elizabeth Nesbitt, and Ruth Hill
Viguers. A Critical History of Children's Literature. New York: The
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Mellor, Anne Kostelanetz. Blake’s Human Form Design. Berkeley:
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Smith, K.E. An Analysis of William Blake’s Early Writings and
Designs to 1790. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1999.
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Vaughan, William. William Blake. Princeton: Princeton University
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