SOURCE: Price, Martin. “The Vision of Innocence.” In Twentieth Century Interpretations of Songs of Innocence and of Experience: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Morton D. Paley, pp. 36-48. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969.

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1964, Price examines the poems of Songs of Innocence independently of the contrasting elements contained in Songs of Experience.

William Blake's Songs of Innocence were engraved by 1789. Not until five years later were they incorporated into The Songs of Innocence and Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Partly because the Songs of Innocence have found their way into the nursery, partly because the Songs of Experience include some of Blake's most brilliant poems, there has been a tendency to discount the Songs of Innocence or to save them by reading them as highly ironic poems, each with its own built-in contraries. This produces...