Sonnets of Innocence and Experience
In this collection of 36 sonnets, what I aim to do is contrast the ‘innocence’ of pre-industrial, possibly even Neolithic, man, living in harmony with nature, with the ‘experience’ of our modern condition.
We have over-populated our little Earth. With our teeming masses we have pushed other species to the margins or even to extinction, misusing the planet's resources and polluting our environment with our waste. Without a radical change in direction, the future looks bleak for mankind.
The inspiration for this book comes from ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ by English poet and illustrator William Blake (1757-1827). Though Blake’s concept of ‘the Fall of Man’ was more spiritual than practical - in keeping with the perspective of his age - the contrast is not as stark as you might expect.
We are born, Blake believed, in a state of innocence and become part of the fallen world through experience. Despite his visionary insights, Blake had no conception of how far we would fall 200 years after his death, taking mankind to the brink not only of spiritual, but existential, disaster.
The cover of my book features a picture of a stuffed dodo. This large ground-living pigeon, famous not for existing but for not existing, became extinct long before William Blake was born. The sonnets in this book take Blake’s concepts of Innocence and Experience as states of consciousness before and after the Fall of Man and reimagine them for the new concerns of our age. What better than the dodo to symbolise man’s progression from inhabitant to steward and finally to vandal of our planet.
We have over-populated our little Earth. With our teeming masses we have pushed other species to the margins or even to extinction, misusing the planet's resources and polluting our environment with our waste. Without a radical change in direction, the future looks bleak for mankind.
The inspiration for this book comes from ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ by English poet and illustrator William Blake (1757-1827). Though Blake’s concept of ‘the Fall of Man’ was more spiritual than practical - in keeping with the perspective of his age - the contrast is not as stark as you might expect.
We are born, Blake believed, in a state of innocence and become part of the fallen world through experience. Despite his visionary insights, Blake had no conception of how far we would fall 200 years after his death, taking mankind to the brink not only of spiritual, but existential, disaster.
The cover of my book features a picture of a stuffed dodo. This large ground-living pigeon, famous not for existing but for not existing, became extinct long before William Blake was born. The sonnets in this book take Blake’s concepts of Innocence and Experience as states of consciousness before and after the Fall of Man and reimagine them for the new concerns of our age. What better than the dodo to symbolise man’s progression from inhabitant to steward and finally to vandal of our planet.
