Analysis Of Alasdair Gray s Songs Of Innocence And Of...

Intermediality comprises the combination of the literary text with other media or forms of art, or the incorporation of such media and forms into the literary text. The combinatory mode, which is known from illustrated novels of the nineteenth century, gained new prominence in Alasdair Gray’s self-illustrated novel Lanark (1981) and in comic books or ‘graphic novels’ by writers such as Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. With regards to English Romantic poet William Blake, both his lyrical Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789-94) and his prophetic poems of epic length were conceived as an intermedial work made up of text and illustration. Blake’s collection of poems; Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1789-94) seemingly concerns contradictory ideas. It is intended as a look at two contrasting perceptions of the world, as envisaged by ‘the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, with each group of poems serving as one half of the two contrary states. The pairing of opposites is the principle underlying this collection of contrary poems, some of which are headed by identical titles. The â€Å"Introduction† to the Songs of Innocence highlights the process from piping or singing a song to the writing down of the text, that is, the journey from orality to scripture. Its counterpart in the Songs of Experience is tinged by prophetic overtones (â€Å"Hear the voice of the Bard!†). In ostensibly simple terms, the two contrary poems â€Å"The