Can you spot the difference between figure 1. and figure 2. below?

All of the poems in William Blake's ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ were conceived and executed as integrated compositions of words and illustration. They were printed from hand-etched plates and hand coloured.

Unfortunately the categories of description in the vocabulary of printing only have words for ‘text’ and ‘illustration’. At a pinch it extends to ‘illuminated pages’.

There is no category capable of succinctly describing Blake's art which aims to transcend these categorical boundaries. Hence, his poems are routinely printed as plain text as shown in figure 2. above — effectively eviscerating his compositions.

William Blake was a formative influence in the development of the works in ‘Organic Language’. In these works, not only are words combined with pictures, but the words are the pictures.