Mingling Awe and Innocence
The well-known author and artist, William Blake, developed works during the Romantic Age. He had a very unique childhood, filled with surreal experiences. At the age of ten Blake claimed to have his first vision, when he saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree of angels. Later in life he saw a spirit ascend into the ceiling after his brother passed away from tuberculosis. As a result, The Bible and God were tremendous inspirations in his artwork and poetry. He published a collections of poems in 1789 called Songs of Innocence and Experience. In this compilation, Blake’s faith and heavenly ideals are revealed as he ponders innocence and power. While these divine concepts are continuously mentioned throughout Songs of Innocence and Experience, two poems in specific that explore awe in the presence of God are, “The Tyger” and “The Lamb.”
“The Lamb” is a short poem that focuses on innocence as a young boy observes a lamb. He begins to question the lamb, asking if he knows his creator. “Little lamb, who made thee?” (1). Then the boys states all the parts of the lamb’s life that the creator gave him, like: his food, surroundings, and
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Similar to “The Lamb,” Blake begins by questioning “What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” (3-4). These lines suggest that the tyger was created in an otherworldly place like heaven or hell. Blake states that the tyger has fire in his eyes, displaying his supernatural might. The fire symbolizes God’s power and ability to create. In this case, is the tyger a threat to God, since he possesses some of His fire? Blake continues by implying that the creator of the Tyger is mighty and compares his work to that of a blacksmith. Blacksmiths dangerously create objects with a fiery furnace. Similarly, it was dangerous for God to create such a powerful creature with a supernatural fire in his eyes (“The Tyger
By positioning his first proclamation in parallel with Isaiah 34 and 35, Blake invites, or rather, forces dialogue between Isaiah and himself, and claims for himself Isaiah’s prophetic authority. Later, he dines with both Isaiah and Ezekiel in a symbolic gesture of equality and solidarity and discusses with them as one prophet to another the challenges that one faces in such a line of work (plate 12). Blake again establishes the bond between prophets and the fires of Hell by telling of an angel who, having been converted by a devil, embraces the fire and, consumed by it, arises as the prophet Elijah (plate 24). Thus allegiance to Hell, Bake claims, makes one a prophet.
William Blake focused on biblical images in the majority of his poetry and prose. Much of his well-known work comes from the two compilations Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poems in these compilations reflect Blake's metamorphosis in thought as he grew from innocent to experienced. An example of this metamorphosis is the two poems The Divine Image and A Divine Image. The former preceded the latter by one year.
Abstract: William Blake's Songs of Innocence contains a group of poetic works that the artist conceptualized as entering into a dialogue with each other and with the works in his companion work, Songs of Experience. He also saw each of the poems in Innocence as operating as part of an artistic whole creation that was encompassed by the poems and images on the plates he used to print these works. While Blake exercised a fanatical degree of control over his publications during his lifetime, after his death his poems became popular and were encountered without the contextual material that he intended to accompany them.
The Romantic Era brought the time of William Blake, when his talent of artistry emerged with many unusual Renaissance of talents.William Blake was on 28 November, 1757 in London, Europe. He was an extraordinary child out of rest of his six siblings, in which two of them died in his early childhood. Starting from his early childhood, William Blake talked about having strange visions such as at the age of four he saw god putting his head to the window and around the age of nine, when he was walking through the landscape area; he saw a huge tree that
William Blake, born in 1757 and died in 1827, created the poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell. Blake grew up in a poor environment. He studied to become an engraver and a professional artist. His engraving took part in the Romanticism era. Romanticism is a movement that developed during the 18th and early 19th century as a reaction against the Restoration and Enlightenment periods focusing on logic and reason.
Blake’s house, and she refuses to leave. Mrs. Blake quotes Latimer, “‘Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall see this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out’” (Fahrenheit 451, 33). Undoubtedly, this quote sparked the reexamination of how Montag looked at the fire. Fire, now captured the symbol of life, knowledge and strength through the candle. The symbol of fire continues to grow and develop, like Montag in the story. Eventually he reaches the outskirts of town and finds the flickering flames of the fire to almost be like “winking eyes” (Fahrenheit 451, 139). The fire has gone from a destructive device, used only to burn books, and had transformed into something that now has a life. When Montag says, “winking eyes,” it shows how the symbol of fire now has a life. The fire was now giving something back to him, providing him with the heat to keep him warm, instead of the destructive behavior he had only known it to
William Blake was an English romantic poet who lived from 1757 to 1827 through both the American and the French revolutions. Although he lived during the Romantic Age, and was clearly part of the movement, Blake was a modern thinker who had a rebellious political spirit. He was the first to turn poetry and art into sociopolitical weapons to be raised rebelliously against the establishment. His poetry exemplified many of the same topics being discussed today. Although he was known as both a madman and a mystic, (Elliott) his poetry is both relevant and radical. He employed a brilliant approach as he took in the uncomfortable political and moral topics of his day and from them he created unique artistic representations. His poetry recounts in symbolic allegory the negative effects of the French and American revolutions and his visual art portrays the violence and sadistic nature of slavery. Blake was arguably one of the most stubbornly anti-oppression and anti-establishment writers in the English canon.
This poem was in his collection entitled, Songs of Innocence. ""today his most popular volume, he revealed glimpses of life as it appears to innocent childhood, full of charm and joy, and trust"(William Blake Dark 77 or 79 blu)." This is what Blake adapted as his style; his poems were simple, direct, and clear enough for a child to understand. One of Blake's other more popular poems is, "The Lamb." This poem like many others is written in his idiosyncratic view of Christianity, th...
The first literary reference is the title of Chapter 5, which is called “Fearful Symmetry” which comes from the William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”. The poem itself is not cited until the end of the chapter, but not the whole poem, so in order for the reader to understand the importance of the reference, one must read the poem, and understand the interpretation behind it. The last two stanzas of poem are most important to understanding the meaning: “…When the stars threw down their spears/And watered heaven with their tears/Did he smile his work to see/Did he who made the Lamb make thee/ Tyger! Tyger! burning ...
The greatest poets can match the form of their poems to their content. William Blake is one such example of a great poet. He is able to utilize standard poetic techniques to illuminate the themes of his poetry. The rhymes in William Blake’s The Lamb parallel the perfect innocence of the lamb being addressed, and create a singsong mood, which enhances the rejoiceful theme of the poem.
William Blake’s 1793 poem “The Tyger” has many interpretations, but its main purpose is to question God as a creator. Its poetic techniques generate a vivid picture that encourages the reader to see the Tyger as a horrifying and terrible being. The speaker addresses the question of whether or not the same God who made the lamb, a gentle creature, could have also formed the Tyger and all its darkness. This issue is addressed through many poetic devices including rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism, all of which show up throughout the poem and are combined to create a strong image of the Tyger and a less than thorough interpretation of its maker.
There are often two sides to everything: chocolate and vanilla, water and fire, woman and man, innocence and experience. The presence of two opposing items allows for harmony and balance in the world. Without water, fire cannot be put out and without woman there can be no man. William Blake’s poetry collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience draws parallels between poems of “innocence” and poems of “experience”. His poem The Lamb is mirrored by his poem The Tyger.
In William Blake’s poem “The Lamb” the speaker begins with the ultimate question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?/ Dost though know who made thee?/” (Blake lines 1-2). The speaker then continues to elaborate on the question in a playful, innocent, singsong manner describing the kindness and thoughtfulness that the creator put in to producing this ever so gentle lamb. The tone of this poem is soft and lulling, the tender, calm rhyme scheme puts the reader in a soothing, dreamlike state. “The words and images presented - stream, mead, delight, softest, tender and rejoice - are positive and pastoral. One can picture a lamb frolicking in the green grass…” (Smith).
In conclusion these two poems by William Blake are both deep and have hidden meanings, they both use imagery, repetition, alliteration and ryming couplets as well as biblical references to create a vivid pictures in the readers head. But these poems do differ in many ways such as the structure, theme and way it is written. The Tyger appeals to me most as it has more hidden meanings than the Lamb and the Lamb is boring and as if written by a child (for effect). In this essay I have analysed, contrasted and compared the two poems The Tyger and The Lamb to the best of my ability detailing the poetic devices used and the underlying meanings.
William Blake, a romantic poet in the late 1700s, wrote a collection of biblical poems, called The Songs of Innocence and Experience. In this collection, Blake wrote a six-stanza poem consisting almost entirely of questions, titled “The Tyger”. Blake addresses this “Tyger” throughout the entire poem, beginning by asking who or what immortal creature made the Tyger. Blake then describes the Tyger as a fearsome and evil creature and tries to understand how the person who made the Tyger could have continued the process once it’s horrible “heart began to beat” (Blake 11). He compares the creator of the animal to a blacksmith, asking if the creator used an anvil and hammer to create the creature or other tools. Towards the end of the poem, Blake