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what influence did Blake 's interest in the old and new testament have on his songs or poems pdf
william blake poetry analysis
relationship between the lamb and the tyger by Williams Blake
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William Blake was an English poet who was home schooled by his parents and found it difficult to socialize with other children which made him into a bit of an outcast as a child. His family was very religious, but they didn’t always agree with the church’s teachings. Because Blake didn’t have many friends and was schooled at home, he had a lot of time to reflect on life. There is a lot of biblical discourse in Blake’s work especially in his famous books Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Songs of Innocence has poems that speak of God in a redemptive sense like the teachings from the New Testament where as Songs of Experience are about the God who has created evil and brought suffering to the world. This essay is going to compare and contrast two poems, one from each book entitled The Lamb from the book Songs of Innocence and The Tyger from the book Songs of Experience. Both poems are examples of Anaphora, meaning one word or phrase will repeat throughout the poem lending weight and emphasis.
Blake’s The Lamb is short having only two stanzas. Each stanza contains five rhymed couplets with repetition in the beginning, middle and at the end of the poem. The poem starts with a question, “Little Lamb, who made thee? / Dost thou know who made thee?” (Lines 1-2). Here the speaker is clearly asking the lamb of its origins and then questions the lamb again, asking if he truly knows who his creator is. Blake then goes on to describe the gifts of life the lamb has been given from his creator beginning with life itself, food, clothing, a voice “Making all the vales rejoice!” (Line 8). The speaker then again questions the lamb in lines 9 and 10 repeating the same questions from lines 1 and 2.
In the second stanza, the speaker begi...
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...ed in the poem The Tyger and the poem The Lamb. Another contrast is the open awe of The Tyger and the easy confidence of The Lamb. The predator is the tyger and its prey is the lamb. The tyger brings power, darkness and danger, but the lamb brings light and goodness. The tyger is the adult who has experience and the lamb is the child who knows nothing but innocence. The tyger and the lamb are not only opposites, but they create a paradox in the speakers mind.
Unlike The Lamb, where in the poem there are seven questions and answers, The Tyger is fifteen unanswered questions. Many people find themselves asking themselves unanswerable questions and questions that contain answers about life, nature, God and the universe. Blake is attempting to authenticate the complexity of the creatures of our world that there is a creator God and that we are not here by accident.
In Blake’s poem “The Lamb” from Songs of Innocence, Blake proves that in order to keep innocence alive, a child must not question. It is in a child’s nature to trust all that has been told. Therefore the lamb represents childhood as well as innocence. The lamb is personified as being a gentle creature without sin, and the poem itself is characterized by pleasant light imagery. This imagery is an indicator that innocence is a desired state of being. In the first stanza of the poem, the narrator asks questions regarding
While William Blake’s “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Innocence was written before the French Revolution and Blake’s “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Experience was written after, creating obvious differences in formal structure; these poems are also uniquely intertwined by telling the same story of children arriving to church on Holy Thursday. However, each gives a different perspective that plays off each other as well the idea of innocence and experience. The idea that innocence is simply a veil that we are not only aware of but use to mask the horrors of the world until we gain enough experience to know that it is better to see the world for simply what it is.
In the poem, "The Lamb," from Songs of Innocence, William Blake asks the little lamb, "Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?" (1351). It is here where the author purposely questions the reader and leaves the reader, wandering for an answer to that precise question. The author then continues by leading the reader to an indirect possible answer to his question by saying "Little Lamb I'll tell thee! / He is called by thy name, / For he calls himself a Lamb" and proceeds a line later with "He became a little child; / I a child & thou a lamb." It is apparent that he doesn't exactly give a direct answer. He mentions in an roundabout way that the lamb's creator calls himself a Lamb and that he became a little child. This vague background provides an idea who the creator actually is, but not enough to somehow match the creator with God from the biblical texts. And, since the information is vague, the reader really can't come to a narrowed conclusion because the answer itself depends on the reader's beliefs and experiences and so therefore leaves the true answer to the question still unanswered.
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’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are excellent examples of Romantic literature that supports Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s myth of the noble savage. Through skillful use of symbolism, diction, and allusion, Blake effectively portrays humans in natural and societal existence.
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.
The ideas that are presented in poems are often the same ideas everyone is thinking but are too afraid to speak their mind for fear that they might be judged. Allen Ginsberg explained this predicament when he said “[p]oetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private” (Ginsberg). This quote applies especially to “The Tyger” by William Blake. William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” at the surface is very simplistic; however, with further analysis the story’s theme of religion asks fundamental questions that pertain to one’s worldview with the use of symbolism.
William Blake was born and raised in London from 1757 to 1827. Throughout his early years, Blake experienced many strange and unusual visions, claiming to have seen “angels and ghostly monks” (Moore). For those reasons, William Blake decided to write about mystical beings and Gods. Two examples of the poet expressing his point of view are seen in “The Tyger” and “The Lamb.” Both poems demonstrate how the world is and to sharpen one’s perception. People perceive the world in their own outlook, often times judging things before they even know the deeper meaning of its inner personification. Blake’s wondrous questions actually make an acceptable point because he questions whether God created the tiger with the same intentions as he did with the lamb.
The imagery of nature and humanity intermingling presents Blake's opinion on the inborn, innate harmony between nature and man. The persona of the poem goes on to express the `gentle streams beneath our feet' where `innocence and virtue meet'. This is where innocence dwells: synchronization with nature, not synchronization with industry where `babes are reduced to misery, fed with a cold usurous hand' as in the experienced version of `Holy Thursday'. The concept of the need for the individual's faithfulness to the laws of nature and what is natural is further reiterated in `the marriage of heaven and hell' in plate 10 where Blake states `where man is not, nature is barren'. The most elevated form of nature is human nature and when man resists and consciously negates nature, `nature' becomes `barren'. Blake goes on to say `sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires'. This harks back to `the Songs of Innocence' `A Cradle Song' where the `infants smiles are his own smiles'. The infant is free to act out its desires as it pleases. It is unbound, untainted. Blake's concern is for the pallid and repressed, subjugated future that awaits the children who must `nurse unacted desires' and emotions in this new world of industrialisation. Despairingly, this is restated again in `the mind-forg'd manacles' of `London'. The imagery of the lambs of the `Songs of Innocence' `Introduction' is developed in `the Chimney Sweeper' into the image of `Little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, that curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd'.
All of these poetic techniques work together to create imagery that shows the Tyger as malicious and evil, and the question of whether or not God could create such a monster is never completely answered. Through evaluating this poem the reader comes to understand that it is not truly about the Tyger, but about its maker. Even with so many literary devices used to enhance the reader’s understanding, the final question is still left with no clear response: did the same God who shaped the Tyger also form the Lamb?
The sublime is the feeling of delightful horror associated with powerful, large objects that produce both a feeling of awe and fear. Blake alludes to the “fearful symmetry” (4) of the Tyger in order to create the sublime feeling that the creature is both daunting but exquisite. The sublime quality develops further when Blake asks “What dread hand? & what dread feet?” (12). Implementing the word “dread” adds to the frightening tone of the poem, creating a sense of wonder and mystery that derives from the sublime. Blake uses the sublime notion to allow the readers to process the enormity of both the Tyger and its creator, helping develop the poet’s main question; what “immortal hand or eye” (3) could be so powerful to create a formidable creature like the Tyger? The poem “The Tyger” is complexified by the unusual spelling Blake chose for the word “tiger”. The purpose of the alternative spelling is to enhance the complexity of divine creation, Blake’s main concern throughout the poem. The spelling of “Tyger” is also employed to suggest to the reader that the Tyger discussed in the poem is a different, darker beast than the jungle tiger. Humanity, the devil, or sinful actions themselves could all be argued as the “Tyger” Blake refers to. Blake himself does not explain why he misspelled the word, adding to the unanswered questions, which the entire poem consists of,
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. Although Blake’s poem The Tyger revolved around the idea of a ferocious mammal, its illustration of a sheepish tiger complicates and alters Blake’s message in the poem by suggesting that good and evil simultaneously exist.
Could there be a creator that has the audacity to create one creature so pure, gentle, and innocent then, in turn, create another creature of a hideous nature, so terrifying that one could be driven to insanity just by thinking upon it? In William Blake’s poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” he describes such a creator as this. The reader will find that there are several similarities between the two poems, but in these similarities there are also various differences.
The Tyger is full of words that seem more advanced than the elementary vocabulary in The Lamb and that carry unpleasant connotations such as “distant deeps” or “dreadful terror. “These words not only enforce the idea that not all of creation is good but also add a sense of fear to this side of it by voicing the speakers own fear of it and stirring up negative emotions within the audience. Blake creates this alarm to bring home his personal doubt about some of God’s creation.