ABSTRACT
Experience opens with four plates which form a narrative bridge between the two volumes of Songs. The 'story' they tell is that of the Piper's transformation into Bard. Getting this story right, understanding the true nature of the Bard's character and dilemma as it unfolds over the first four plates, is of utmost importance to any reading both of Experience and of Songs as a whole; much more so, I would argue, than speculation about changes in Blake's attitudes and ideas between 1789 and 1794 (a 131matter of considerable dispute) 1 or about his gradually evolving myth or system. That Blake changed is not in doubt: I simply think it best (and most in the spirit of this study, and of what it takes to be Blake at his best), to move from the text to the change, rather than from the change to the text. Once we have discussed the story and its larger implications, especially those which affect our reading of subsequent plates, we shall turn to several key poetic and pictorial motifs introduced in the opening sequence. The reader, it is assumed, moves directly from Innocence to Experience.
