Songs of Innocence and Experience

The Songs of Innocence are deceptively simple poems, written as if spoken by children. They are generally hopeful and optimistic. The Songs of Experience are also childlike in approach, but darker and more pessimistic.

When Blake published them together, he called them Songs of Innocence and Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. This suggests he believed people needed both 'states' to understand life. Many of the Songs of Innocence poems have a poem that 'answers' them in the Songs of Experience. Strangely, the companion poems to The Little Boy Lost / The Little Boy Found are called A Little Boy Lost / A Little Girl Lost.

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