Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Blake's "two contrary states of the human soul." The first collection shows childhood wonder and divine presence; the second, its systematic corruption by church, state, and industry. "The Tyger" and "The Lamb" work as contrasts. The chimney sweeper poems function as social indictment. "London" stands as the greatest short poem about urban alienation. Blake invented visionary poetry and the critique of industrial capitalism simultaneously, in language that sounds like hymns.
Stripped of the hand-colored plates, which is how nearly every edition presents them, these poems lose half their argument; Blake made picture and verse one object. On their own the Innocence lyrics flirt with nursery saccharine and need their Experience twins to land, so an anthology that serves 'The Lamb' alone is a greeting card.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
