The Lamb and the Tyger Essay

The poem, The Tyger, contrasts innocence and experience, and good and evil. The description of the tiger in the poem is as a destructive, horrid creature. The original drawing on the poem shows a smiling, cuddly tiger which is quite the contrast to the tiger described in the poem. This picture might suggest a misunderstanding of the tiger and perhaps the fears that arouse from the poem are unjustified. This poem contrasts the tiger with a lamb which often symbolizes innocence, Jesus, and good. The tiger is perceived as evil or demonic. Blake suggest that the lamb and the tiger have the same creator and in a way states that the tiger might also have the ability to have the benign characteristics of the lamb. The tiger initially appears as a beautiful image but as the poem progresses, it explores a perfectively beautiful yet destructive symbol that represents the presence of evil in the world. In the poem, Blake writes: " What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry (4-5)." It is hard to determine if the tiger is solely evil or good.

Persona is an important concept in these poems. "The Lamb" could be read as a nursery rhyme to little children. The persona of this poem is one of a little child talking to a lamb. The persona of "The Lamb" is shown in line seventeen, "I a child, and thou a lamb." The persona helps Blake to show that God made such a harmless creature like the lamb and such a pure child. The reader knows that God made both these creatures because the line "Little Lamb, who made thee?"(Blake 538) is repeated throughout the poem. The child is a symbol of purity so that is why Blake chose to use a child as the persona rather than a grown up. The child is describing to the lamb who made him: We know this because in the second

In “The Lamb” by William Blake, you will see that, if analyzed closely, the lamb is a personal symbol which signifies God himself. The innocence of a child is like that of a lamb, and serves as a model for humans to follow. In the first stanza, the speaker is the child who is also the teacher. The child asks the lamb who gave him life and all his needs, along with a voice so "tender”. Then, the child declares that he will tell the lamb who their creator is. The creator shares the same name as the lamb, which is a reference to Jesus Christ. The end of the poem is giving way to a blessing which, gives an expression of the child’s adoration at the connection the lamb makes in child,

Just like the “lamb” that was born into this world through a virgin and was sacrificed for all mankind, this same “lamb” made us and called us by his name. In his poem "The Lamb," William Blake clearly uses repetition, personification, and symbolism to describe his religious beliefs and how a pure sacrifice is portrayed by a little lamb. Laura Quinney’s book, “William Blake on Self and Soul,” shows the religious side of Blake when it says, “Blake makes this argument in his address “To the Deists,” where he insists “Man must & will have Some Religion; if he has not the Religion of Jesus, he will have the Religion of Satan” (Quinney, 2009). Blake uses his religious view to show us he believes that our creator is the Lamb of God. He distinctively uses the innocence and purity of a little lamb and how its creator clearly takes care of it. The lamb is fed, given water by the stream and a bidden a blessed life.

In the poem “The Tyger” by William Blake, the use of rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism all help the reader understand the theme and what was going through the authors thoughts while writing. William Blake was a mystic poet who channeled his thoughts and questions to write poems. He questioned the creator of both the Tyger and lamb, how could the same God create a destructive creature like the Tyger and on the other hand create a gentle animal, the lamb. This ties into the theme of the poem of how a God could and would create a monster like the Tyger.

The characteristics of The Lamb of God is meek and mild. The temperment of the little lamb would also share these character traits. The speaker next relates himself, as a child, to this trait of innocence. The Lamb of God was also a child, He is God incarnated, born of a virgin. The next line; “We are called by his name.” implys that wer are all called by his name. We are his flock and his creation. The poem is then finished with the speaker telling the little lamb, “Little Lamb God bless thee.”

that it is not normal for her to look this way and there is a false

William Blake’s poetry is considered through the Romantics era and they access through the sublime. The Romantics poetry through the sublime is beyond comprehension and spiritual fullness. A major common theme is a nature (agnostic religion). In William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” he describes the tiger as a creature that was created by a higher power some time before. In Blake’s poem he questions, “What immortal hand or eye/ Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” (Blake 22-23). He describes the tiger as a form of symmetry that can be seen as evil, yet have intriguing features such as those that make the tiger a beautiful creation. Blake also questions if that the higher being who created the tiger also created all else around the world such as a human being. Blake shifts his first stanzas from the tiger to the creator. Not only is he questioning who created the tiger, but he is also describing the beauty and evil of the world. The beauty that the Romantics believe in is nature and one evil seen through the world is materialism that distract humans from the beauty of nature 's gifts. He believes that people lose touch with spirituality when haven’t given to nature. Blake also illustrated his own works through

William Blake’s The Tyger and The Lamb are both very short poems in which the author poses rhetorical questions to what, at a first glance, would appear to be a lamba lamb and a tiger. In both poems he uses vivid imagery to create specific connotations and both poems contain obvious religious allegory. The contrast between the two poems is much easier to immediately realize . “The lamb” was published in a Blake anthology entitled “The songs of experience” which depicted life in a much more realistic and painful light. Both poems share a common AABB rhyme scheme and they are both in regular meter. In “The Tyger” Blake paints a picture of a powerful creature with eyes of fire and dread hands and feet. He asks rhetorical questions with a respectful awe that is almost fearful and makes the setting more foreign to the reader by including imagery like “the forest of the night” By contrast. Blake’s portrait of the lamb is one of innocence and child like wonderment “The Tyger is almost an examination of the horrors in the world while “The lamb examines only that which is “bright,”tender, “mild”. The use of words like “night,” “burning’ and “terrors in the tyger”create quite a contrary image for the reader than that of “The lamb.”

The archetype of this poem focuses on how aggressive and vicious the tiger is. It also can be seen as a more physical comparison such as, “Tyger Tyger, burning bright,” (line 1, page 749). Blake says the tiger is burning bright, but does not mean this literally, for he is comparing the color of the tiger to the color of fire. Blake does insult God for creating the creature because all it does is kill and destroy. The tiger also has more power. In which, the Songs of Experience poems are related to those that are leaders, fighters, and that are more outspoken; therefore, The Tyger fits more perfectly with that collection of

William Blake used animals as basic building blocks for poems such as “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” By using these carefully selected animals to depict good and evil, the reader truly understands Blake’s words. All readers can relate to animals such as an innocent lamb and a

William Blake’s The Tyger, in my opinion, is an intriguing poem that looks at the idea of how God is a mystery and how humanity is at a loss to fully understand his creations by contemplating the forging of a beautiful yet ferocious tiger. Blake begins the poem by beginning a conversation with the tiger and almost immediately begins his questions of who could make such a fierce creature. He wonders if God could really create such a creature or maybe it is a creature produced from a darker source. Blake also refers to the tiger as a form of art, almost as if the creator made the tiger perfectly. The image of a blacksmith is also given through the poem as Blake refers to a blacksmith’s common tools and

The poem opens up with the words, “Tyger Tyger, burning bright,” which in this case makes the words Tyger appear to the reader as if the author is speaking directly to the Tyger and sets up the theme of night along with which come darkness and evil. The words “burning bright” are used as a comparison to the Tyger. Blake chooses fire to be compared to the Tyger because both are known to be harmful, strong, wild, forceful, and destructive. In a way, they also resemble each other in looks, as a Tyger in the dark, looks like a fire because of its orange stripes. The third and fourth lines aske the first unanswered question: What creator has the ability to make something with such “fearful symmetry” (4)? The second stanza asks the same question but in a completely different way, wondering where the Tyger came from. In lines 10 and 20, Blake’s asks two questions. These questions are different from the rest, he asks, “Did he smile his work to see? /Did he who made the lamb make thee?’’ (19, 20) These lines are asking if the creator was happy with his work of such destructive soul, it also asks if the creator of the lamb was also the creator of the Tyger. You can look at this as if Blake was trying to connect the evil Tyger with the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. The last lines ask the same question as the first, who could and who would create the Tyger.

William Blake’s “The Lamb” is a part of the Songs of Innocence (1789) and was later accompanied by a larger work, the Songs of Experience (1794). Blake expressed what he believed, and he wanted to prove his true understanding of Christianity. His audience for his poem understood Christianity and were familiar with the Bible. The poem establishes the theme of the vulnerability of innocence and a vision of the speaker. The child's view is limited on account of unawareness of the total reality of human knowledge. The voice of the poem is formed from a speaker that seems to be an innocent child, communicating with a lamb who is unable to answer or respond to the child. The rhyme scheme is similar to that of Dr. Seuss, it is like a nursery rhyme, and also a riddle. This is one of William’s simpler poems, but with a closer analysis it reveals hidden symbols, meaning, tones, and wordplay.

In “The Tyger” it states, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (Blake line 20). William Blake’s curiosity makes the reader feel uncertain. He only highlights the importance of the tyger through asking questions. Blake’s questions were challenging the principles of Christianity. He was underling why God created the beautiful lamb and the ferocious tyger. He wanted people to know that the world is filled with tranquility and disturbance. God himself wants people to adhere to the opposites of life. The way we humans deal with beauty with horror and love with pain. God is the creator of both creatures, but also the creator of such emotions presented within them.