William Blake is one of the most original and influential English poets - so eccentric and ground-breaking that even his biggest fans considered him insane long after his death. The poems in Songs of Innocence & Experience are his most popular and lasting achievement, essential for anyone even remotely interested in poetry and a good place for those new to Blake and poetry generally to start.
1789's Songs of Innocence celebrated innocence as variously reflected in childhood, showing infants' and children's relatively pure mental and physical states before adult corruption. Many of its poems are first person from a child's perspective, and most of the rest describe a child's point of view; others speak to or about them. Blake used appropriately simple vocabulary and form; lines are short, rhymes obvious, and imagery very pared down. Indeed, at first glance, the poems seem puerile. However, a closer look shows they are anything but; despite - or perhaps even to a certain degree because of - this, they have a wealth of significance. They are in fact at least as complex as most far longer works; extremely thought-provoking and often morally ambiguous, they raise a host of important questions. These apparently simple poems address a wide range of theological and ontological queries. They also deal with more practical themes like class, race, and family relations, taking on economic, social, and other concerns. Most of these are answered with conventional platitudes heavily soaked in Christianity; the poems seem a paean to optimism and can be very uplifting, but cynics may even laugh aloud.
However, this is only half the story. In 1794 Blake added Songs of Experience, which essentially carried the concept into adulthood. Simple poetic trappings remained, but the tone was now far darker; cynicism and pessimism crept in, showing an opposite plane of thought and seemingly even a different world. Several poems were direct responses to those in Innocence, sometimes with the same name. This greatly multiplied the works' already very complex nature. It is important to remember Blake's subtitle: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Experience essentially deals with the same questions as Innocence but has contrary conclusions. Having them in the same book is disarming and perhaps somewhat unsettling. Blake does not say which, if either, he believes or show any favoritism; one might say putting the Experience poems last does the latter, but this is merely chronological. He creates a true moral and intellectual murk, leaving us to find our way out - if we can.
As this suggests, the poems were not only at the very advent of Romanticism but also very modern in a way literature almost never was until the late nineteenth century. Blake was so far ahead of his time that it is small surprise he was little understood or appreciated. Succeeding generations have seen him and his work in various ways, but the notable thing is that both have endured; his work has such greatness and depth that each age sees itself in it. This is partly because of its ambiguity but at least as due to its universality; Blake's themes are fundamental human thoughts and emotions that let his work speak as profoundly now as ever. Here we begin to see just how important his simple forms are; they are as appropriate for the themes as the subjects. Since his concerns are elemental, so are his forms; the former are relevant to all and the latter accessible to all, letting him speak to all. This aspect also makes the songs a great way to introduce the uninitiated to poetry and are indeed often used in introductory classes; his eminently accessible verse is perfectly suited for showing the rudiments of meter, tropes, and rhyme. Conversely, of course, his treatments are anything but simple, which makes him ideal for the most abstruse close readings - an apparent paradox he would doubtless have appreciated.
There are many ways to buy Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, but it is essential to get both and read consecutively, whether in individual or combined editions. Blake meant them to be experienced as one, and they play off each other as few works do. Getting one is not just missing half the experience but nearly the whole; they are able to stand on their own, but the impression is extremely misleading and, perhaps more importantly, unintended. They are so excellent in any case that anyone who reads one will immediately want the other, making both doubly necessary.
It is also important to realize that Blake was as much a visual as a literary artist and in fact issued the poems in "Illuminated Books" where they were written on color plates with various pictorial representations. He did not consider the poems standalone works, and the visual element is indeed important. Pictures often underline or reinforce the words but sometimes seem to give a contrary impression; only a few are apparently incidental. Whether or not one likes visual art and regardless of how one thinks the poems work in themselves, they do play off visual elements in complicated and interesting ways. Needless to say, because the plates are expensive and difficult to reproduce, nearly all collections have only the poems - a concept that would have appalled Blake if he could have even conceived it. The poems are of course more than good enough to stand alone, but we must remember that Blake never meant them to do so. The dedicated will want to seek out editions reproducing the artwork in addition to the poems.
Get more detail about Songs of Innocence and Experience: Two Complete Books.
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