![]() ![]() In "The Shepherd," Blake continues to exalt this gentle vocation, which requires little of the shepherd except to listen to the "innocent call" and "gentle reply" of lambs and ewes. Songs of Innocence contains nineteen poems, including an introduction in which Blake casts himself as a shepherd, writing words to the happy songs he plays on his pipe for the benefit of a child he meets on a cloud. The two volumes are widely considered some of Blake's best and most influential works, setting the stage for the Romantic Era in European art. Through experience, Blake suggests, innocence is replaced by fear and inhibition. Rather, innocence is lost by experiencing the social, ethical, and political corruption of institutions like the Church, the government, and the ruling class. However, unlike in Milton, it is not pride or folly that causes a person to lose the paradise of innocence. Childhood is not sin, Blake suggests, but a kind of protected innocence not unlike the Paradise of Milton's Paradise Lost. For Blake, innocence and experience are the "two contrary states of the soul," and differ greatly from the prevailing Christian idea that children are born into "original sin" but can later achieve "salvation" through the Church. ![]() Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a two-volume illustrated book of poetry published in 17 by the English poet and painter William Blake. ![]()
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