“The Lamb” is featured in William Blake’s collection of poems, Songs of Innocence. The poem “The Lamb” is precisely that: a child’s innocent dialogue to a little lamb. The style, diction, and imagery Blake employs in “The Lamb” are used to strengthen this theme of childhood innocence; furthermore, this theme is reinforced when “The Lamb” is contrasted with Blake’s poem “The Tyger.”
William Blake first uses style to reveal childhood innocence. “The Lamb” is broken into two stanzas, each consisting of five rhyming couplets with an AABB rhyme scheme. The first two and last two lines of each stanza contain seven syllables each, while the middle lines of the poem contain six syllables each. The simplicity of this poem mirrors the simplicity …show more content…
First, Blake applies apostrophe, allowing the child in the poem to speak directly to the lamb. While adults would rarely speak to an animal, it is something children readily do. Because the speaker featured in the poem is a young child, the diction in “The Lamb” is simple. The poem is easy to understand and is frequently repetitive. Blake rhymes “thee” with itself four times, and the other rhymes are just as simple. Most of the words in “The Lamb,” including the other rhymes found at the end of each line, are single syllables, such as “feed” and “mead” or “mild” and “child” (963). The choice of these basic words highlight the innocence of a child, a being who does not yet have a large vocabulary but can still demonstrate his definitive understanding of a subject through …show more content…
Too defenseless and vulnerable to survive on their own, sheep need shepherds to watch over them and protect them. The image of a child speaking to a lamb is a picture of one innocent being speaking to another innocent being. However, the use of the lamb represents more than that. After the child asks the lamb if it knows who made it, clothed it, and continues to provide its sustenance, the child answers his own question. By stating that the lamb’s creator is “himself a lamb” (963), the child demonstrates a basic knowledge of his Christian faith. In the Bible, Jesus is often compared to a lamb. As a child, he was innocent and pure, but even as an adult Jesus was referred to as a lamb. For example, when John sees Jesus, he declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (New International Version Study Bible, John 1:29). However, what the child speaking in this poem does not realize is that, like a lamb, Jesus was raised to be slaughtered. It is the “blood of the lamb” (Rev. 12:11), the sacrifice of Jesus’s life, that provides the foundation of the Christian faith. Because the child reveals only the positive aspects of the Christian doctrine when talking to the lamb, failing to discuss the negativity of pain and suffering that is found throughout the Bible, the theme of child innocence is further developed. Interestingly, the lamb is also a metaphor
William Blake first uses style to reveal childhood innocence. “The Lamb” is broken into two stanzas, each consisting of five rhyming couplets with an AABB rhyme scheme. The first two and last two lines of each stanza contain seven syllables each, while the middle lines of the poem contain six syllables each. The simplicity of this poem mirrors the simplicity …show more content…
First, Blake applies apostrophe, allowing the child in the poem to speak directly to the lamb. While adults would rarely speak to an animal, it is something children readily do. Because the speaker featured in the poem is a young child, the diction in “The Lamb” is simple. The poem is easy to understand and is frequently repetitive. Blake rhymes “thee” with itself four times, and the other rhymes are just as simple. Most of the words in “The Lamb,” including the other rhymes found at the end of each line, are single syllables, such as “feed” and “mead” or “mild” and “child” (963). The choice of these basic words highlight the innocence of a child, a being who does not yet have a large vocabulary but can still demonstrate his definitive understanding of a subject through …show more content…
Too defenseless and vulnerable to survive on their own, sheep need shepherds to watch over them and protect them. The image of a child speaking to a lamb is a picture of one innocent being speaking to another innocent being. However, the use of the lamb represents more than that. After the child asks the lamb if it knows who made it, clothed it, and continues to provide its sustenance, the child answers his own question. By stating that the lamb’s creator is “himself a lamb” (963), the child demonstrates a basic knowledge of his Christian faith. In the Bible, Jesus is often compared to a lamb. As a child, he was innocent and pure, but even as an adult Jesus was referred to as a lamb. For example, when John sees Jesus, he declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (New International Version Study Bible, John 1:29). However, what the child speaking in this poem does not realize is that, like a lamb, Jesus was raised to be slaughtered. It is the “blood of the lamb” (Rev. 12:11), the sacrifice of Jesus’s life, that provides the foundation of the Christian faith. Because the child reveals only the positive aspects of the Christian doctrine when talking to the lamb, failing to discuss the negativity of pain and suffering that is found throughout the Bible, the theme of child innocence is further developed. Interestingly, the lamb is also a metaphor