A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF THE VERBO-PICTORIAL WORK <i>SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE</i>, BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Abstract

: William Blake was a poet, engraver, illustrator and painter from the 18th century. He developed an original printing technique called Illuminated Printing, through which he engraved poems and drawings on the same copper plate. He used this method to print his main works, which were characterized by an unmistakable union of verb and image. In order to analyze more deeply how, effectively, verbal and no-verbal aspects were intertwined in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (the work we chose to study), or even, in order to observe to what extent words assumed imagistic attributes or vice-versa, we resorted to the semiotic theory by Charles Sanders Peirce. The semiotic investigation comprises all areas of knowledge involved with languages or systems of signification. Therefore, it has, as its object of investigation, all the possible codes; it establishes connections between different semiotic media. We took into consideration, in our analysis, predominantly, the relation between the sign with its object, because we found out a tendency to iconicity, indexicality and simbolicity in the referred work.