“The Lamb” perfectly portrays and symbolizes the innocence of childhood. Blake chose a lamb for the poem because they are associated with innocence and purity, just as a child who has not come into contact with the evil of the world is. Blake uses “The Tyger” to completely carry out the theme. A tiger is used to symbolize how people grow up, become aware of evil, and choose to let that evil overcome the innocence they once knew, the innocence of the lamb.The tiger is not loved by the speaker as the lamb is because the speaker is aware of the evil that the tiger is. Just as tigers dominate lambs in the animal kingdom, evil dominates innocence because innocence becomes lost after evil is…
During the time the “Tyger” was written, William Blake deemed the world to be very unstable, as there was a shift into the industrial revolution, and many writers such as William Blake looked to literature to have a focus on inspiration and the individual. The speaker in the poem looks to the animal as a companion and a dominant figure in the world: “Tyger Tyger burning bright in the forests of the night.” (Blake 1-2). This verse is showing how the tiger appears to have some sort of force in the natural world, as it seems to be a very powerful and stable animal. Also, the tiger is a metaphorical companion for the speaker in the poem as it can show energy, and allows the speaker to share their point of view and expose truths about the worlds state. The “burning” metaphorical device used in the poem can imply the power the tiger shows and the inspiration it carries within the world. In nature tigers are dominant, and in the poem, the tiger seems to carry the role of a symbolic character. The speaker looks the animal as a feeling of relief from uncertainty, as the animal is very powerful. “What immortal hand or eye, Could fear thy fearful symmetry?” (Blake -). This is further signifying how whoever created the tiger, made it a very dominant animal, as it is “immortal”. This also shows how the speaker looks to the animal for companionship and assistance in times of need, and therefore giving the speaker a change in understanding for survival of the…
The poem begins when the child is being born, he describes his mother and father’s reaction. ’My mother groand! My father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt, helpless, naked, piping loud; like a fiend hid in a cloud.” (page 752, line 1-4) When adults read this short poem they connect it to their own birth and childhood. Which helps them soon realize that their parents were unhappy with their birth and they were struggling in this world since the minute they were brought into it. This archetype is very deep and raw, especially for the time period it was written in. All around, Blake utilizes another archetype within even eight lines of a poem in Infant…
Holy Thursday was the first Thursday in May where there was a service every year for the charity schools of London; they may have been attended by as many as 6000 children. In Innocence the poem conveys the innocence of the children but can however be about the irony of the service and the fact that the poverty is present. the reference to ‘lambs’ and repetition of ‘multitudes’ emphasises the number of children and perhaps the extent of the poverty, the lambs could also be interpreted as a sacrificial animal, which shows the children are being used to make the people feel good. The lines in this poem are longer than Blake’s typical poetry and this could also emphasise the volume of magnitude of the poverty, furthermore the ‘flowing river’ also gives imagery of a large volume.…
William Blake, a poet, painter, and printmaker, once stated, “To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour” (William Blake). He often opens our minds to deeper thought in his pieces. Blake wrote two pieces called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Within these two topics, Blake wrote many stories/poems that demonstrate the personality of innocence and experience. Both topics open our minds and forces us to look deeper into the text to see archetypes provided. William Blake’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” both model one of the pieces and opens our minds up into deeper thought.…
Both poems seem against God, because they don’t understand why God will allow the existences of suffering. The poems “The Tyger” and “The Chimney Sweeper” seem to talk about how the innocence of love or good things are ruined once you began to experience the hardship in adult life. For example, in “The Chimney Sweeper” shows how innocent children must undergo abuse of child labor by workers, as kids are forced into hazardous circumstances to earn money for materialistic items that we want. The poem “The Tyger” questions God intention, the poet asked multiple questions throughout the poem, but the one which stood out the most was “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” This allows us to see God's intentions from a different perspective compared to the innocence prospective. It shows how Blake is challenging God, how the God who can display innocence in this world has the same aptitude to exhibition evil in this world. In the poem “The Tyger” God is powerful and strong while in “The Lamb” God represent someone who is tender and not as powerful. These poems focus on the evil that exist in the…
It is a God that holds darkness in him rather than light. Angels from above “threw down their spears” (17) because they are so upset with this person walking around. They are disappointed that this creature is making a bad name for all the other ones. They “watered heaven with their tears” (18) because the fallen angels have been casted out and are no longer looked upon. These lines are the most religious lines of the poem. “Did he smile his work to see” (19) is going back to referencing God even though it is a God that wants to put sin and corruption into the world. Is he smiling at his work and this creature he created? Is this what he wanted the final result to be? Someone who is filled with anger, despair, and hate? The Angels are confused on how the Tyger turned out like this and question if the same person who made the Tyger is “he who made the Lamb?” (20) The Lamb is a symbol of Jesus Christ who we can say was made by God but also a reference back to Blake’s poem The Lamb. The Lamb is a soft, senseless creature and how could the same creator make both of these two with such extreme…
The world view depicted in Blake’s poem “The Lamb” is of innocence and beauty. The narrator of the poem is a young child who begins by asking a lamb “who made thee?” The narrator continues to question the lamb’s origins and creation until the narrator recalls their religious teachings and answers his own question by telling the lamb “He is called by thy name,” a reference to God. The narrator also makes reference to Jesus, as he tells the lamb “For he calls himself a Lamb;” “He became a little child.” The narrator tells the lamb that it, as well as he, were created in God’s image, and that they are both blessed by God. The world view of the child in “The Lamb” is of innocence and beauty. The narrator in “The Lamb” knows very little of the suffering and pain the world is capable of. The lamb itself “symbolizes human innocence” as well as Jesus Christ (Baine, 566).…
I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of man, In every infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles I hear. How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry Every black’ning Church appalls; And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down the Palace walls. But most through midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse Blasts the new-born infant’s tear, And blights with plague the Marriage hearse. When the poem reads, “Runs in blood down Palace walls” and “Blasts the new-born infant’s tear”, there is a central conflict between life and death and innocence and experience. Life is created with the new-born baby, and as Blake views is born innocent. The blood running down the palace walls is a symbol of death, and how along with death comes experience in knowing the cruelties and the truths of the world. William Blake became a major pioneer for writing in his time, because he chose to make his own mythology and not conform to what the world wanted him to be, which “kept him more simply a poet than…
The poem “The Tyger” by William Blake is from the song of Experience. This poem sends an evil tone through dark images, fearful words, symbols, and personification. The poem’s focus is the speaker questioning a terrifying tiger what kind of superior being could have made it.…
In Blake’s poem “The Lamb” it has two main themes childhood and spiritual development. Throughout the poem Blake writes about a creator and innocence. The poem begins with a child asking a simple question of “Little Lamb who made thee”? (pg.134) As children we have all asked this question wanting to know where did we come from or how did we get here? Even after many years scientist and bible scholars still argue over this issue. The child in the poem wonders how the lamb got its wool coat and how it survives outdoors in the elements. He knows it is not by chance or luck. The child thinks that it must be someone greater who created him and the lamb.…
In this stanza, Blake is questioning whether or not god was proud or happy with what he created or if he is sad with it. In the last line he asks the question as though he already know the creator of the gentle lamb but can't fathom that such a creator could create the tyger as well two having the same creator. The Tiger Itself is used as imagery in the poem; it represents something that is powerful, evil, unpredictable, and unpredictable. In contrast, in "The Lamb", the image of the lamb itself represent godly, innocent, pure, and childlike.…
Blake uses the creation of the Tyger as a metaphor for the creation of suffering “What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?” The ‘immortal hand’ clearly refers to the almighty who fashions the ‘fearful symmetry’ of the beast. Blake wonders where in heaven or hell did God find the inspiration to make such a fearsome creature: “In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?” Having fashioned this fearsome creature, Blake wonders whether God questioned the need for such a fearsome beast that was clearly designed to cause pain and suffering. “When the stars threw down their spears, and water’d heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see?”…
It was written during one of the happier periods of Blake’s life, whereas The Tyger, (from “Songs of Experience) was said to have been written at a depressing time for him and his family. The Lamb is a gentle poem, which is believed to have been written as if it was narrated by a child who is talking to a lamb, whereas the narrator in The Tyger is (in my opinion) quite an old man/woman who has experienced most of their life. I believe this because The Lamb has a naive, simple sound to it, almost as simple as a children’s nursery rhyme but The Tyger sounds like they have learnt a lot from life and the vocabulary has a broader range than a…
In the first part of the poem, the child is asking the lamb about his origin while the second part is a kind of answer provided from the same child. With his innocent voice the child says: "Little Lamb who made thee/ Dost thou know who made thee." He builds up a series of questions, also characterizes and praises the Lamb. He creates a bright and pure picture of it. There are images of the lamb that lifts this creature up into divine spheres: it has the clothing of delight, the softest wooly bright, and a tender voice. The closing lines of this stanza are the repetition of the first two lines, which tensifies the mood of the poem, emphasizing the unknown origin of the lamb. The second stanza starts with a kind of suggestion, a kind of hope concerning the creator of the lamb. The narrator talks as if he would know the answer for the child's questions: "Little lamb I'll tell thee,/ Little lamb I'll tell thee!" Blake then states that the lamb's creator is the lamb itself. In fact, this little mild creature could be no one than Jesus Christ, himself. As we go on reading the poem, Blake makes it clear that the poem's point of view is that of a child when he says "I a child and thou a lamb." It is a child's curiosity that raises the question in our minds, as well, about the creator of the lamb and about everything that is beautiful and divine. The poem ends with the blessing of the child, "Little lamb God…