William Blake’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” from Songs of Innocence and of Experience are paired poems that display Blake’s “two contrary states of the human soul.” Applying the different tones of these poems to humankind allows for a new view of the idea of creation. Blake uses the contrasting imagery of a meek lamb and a fearful tiger to convey the light and dark side of the human soul and he uses religious aspects to show how the divine creator can be seen as good and evil together. “The Lamb” is told through the narrative of a young boy talking to a little lamb, illustrated in Blake’s painting. The boy repeatedly asks the lamb “who made thee” and finally he tells the lamb that God created both of them. The boy explains that Christ
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The “softest clothing,” “tender voice,” and “meek and mild” descriptions set the tone of Blake’s poem. The lamb is a symbol of innocence, goodness and light, and Jesus Christ. The question of who created the lamb is explained in the boy’s answer that “He [Christ] is called by thy name/ For he calls himself a Lamb:/ He is meek & he is mild,/ He became a little child:/ I a child & thou a lamb,/ We are called by his name.” The boy is saying that Jesus goes by the same name as the lamb and then he goes further by saying Christ is also like the child himself. This likeness forms a connection between humans and creatures with God. Blake wanted to change the idea of this distance separating us from our divine creator. In the article, “William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’: Divine and Beastly Bodies in Eighteenth-Century Children’s Poetry” by Robert W. Rix it is explained how the writer Isaac Watts’ used children’s literature to teach that God was loving, but could also be violent if children did not obey him. Rix writes that Blake wanted to challenge this preconceived belief through a “child speaker [who] defies such admonitions by openly questioning this ideology of children’s books” (224). If Blake’s poem represents the pure half of our souls then his corresponding poem from Songs of Experience would portray our other heinous …show more content…
“The Tyger” asks why and who would create such a terrifying creature. The diction used in this poem sets a much darker scene than its lamb counterpart. Words such as “dread,” “fearful symmetry,” and “deadly terrors” paint quite an unnerving picture for the reader, ironically Blake’s illustration is that of a somewhat unthreatening and maybe even frightened tiger. In an excerpt from the article, “Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to Blake” published in the Children’s Literature Review, by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. discussing this poem wrote, “The union of terror with admiration makes the general tone of the poem that of religious awe…” (29) It is this idea that the divine creator could design something with both beauty and horror that Blake tries to highlight. “The Tyger” combines these two states by referring to “The Lamb” within the poem. In the fifth stanza Blake writes, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” this asks whether the creator who made the lamb or Christ from the first poem is the same one who would construct a tiger. If the tiger is an embodiment of all the evil, viciousness, and destruction in the world then Blake could be questioning and bringing to light the concept that God did not only create what society deems good, but also what humanity views as
The “softest clothing,” “tender voice,” and “meek and mild” descriptions set the tone of Blake’s poem. The lamb is a symbol of innocence, goodness and light, and Jesus Christ. The question of who created the lamb is explained in the boy’s answer that “He [Christ] is called by thy name/ For he calls himself a Lamb:/ He is meek & he is mild,/ He became a little child:/ I a child & thou a lamb,/ We are called by his name.” The boy is saying that Jesus goes by the same name as the lamb and then he goes further by saying Christ is also like the child himself. This likeness forms a connection between humans and creatures with God. Blake wanted to change the idea of this distance separating us from our divine creator. In the article, “William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’: Divine and Beastly Bodies in Eighteenth-Century Children’s Poetry” by Robert W. Rix it is explained how the writer Isaac Watts’ used children’s literature to teach that God was loving, but could also be violent if children did not obey him. Rix writes that Blake wanted to challenge this preconceived belief through a “child speaker [who] defies such admonitions by openly questioning this ideology of children’s books” (224). If Blake’s poem represents the pure half of our souls then his corresponding poem from Songs of Experience would portray our other heinous …show more content…
“The Tyger” asks why and who would create such a terrifying creature. The diction used in this poem sets a much darker scene than its lamb counterpart. Words such as “dread,” “fearful symmetry,” and “deadly terrors” paint quite an unnerving picture for the reader, ironically Blake’s illustration is that of a somewhat unthreatening and maybe even frightened tiger. In an excerpt from the article, “Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to Blake” published in the Children’s Literature Review, by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. discussing this poem wrote, “The union of terror with admiration makes the general tone of the poem that of religious awe…” (29) It is this idea that the divine creator could design something with both beauty and horror that Blake tries to highlight. “The Tyger” combines these two states by referring to “The Lamb” within the poem. In the fifth stanza Blake writes, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” this asks whether the creator who made the lamb or Christ from the first poem is the same one who would construct a tiger. If the tiger is an embodiment of all the evil, viciousness, and destruction in the world then Blake could be questioning and bringing to light the concept that God did not only create what society deems good, but also what humanity views as