William Blake was both a poet and a visual artist, committed to the interaction of word and image on the page. Each of his illuminated books was completed by hand: first, he would hand-etch designs onto copper plates, then ink-printing the pages, which he subsequently hand-colored and hand-bound. Given the labor-intensive nature of this publication process, he produced few copies, and all are different. The Blake Archive allows us to compare different copies of his texts; I link here to the two pages of “The Little Black Boy,” from Songs of Innocence, which show how the tension between the verbal and visual texts can change our interpretations:
All Blake’s known extant work is included in the Archive, which is sponsored by the Library of Congress.
I invite you to use illustrated versions or the posted the pdfs of the poems we are reading:
From Songs of Innocence:
“The Lamb”
“The Chimney Sweeper”
“The Little Black Boy”
From Songs of Experience:
“The Chimney Sweeper”
“The Sick Rose”
“The Tyger”
“London”