Contemplating God's Creation in William Blake's The Lamb and The Tyger

such a terrifying beast?” and “Who is God who dares to make such a terrifying

Unlike the lamb this poems meaning is something different I believe. In my opinion this poem can be interpreted as a response to the industrialization that Britain was going through during the time of Blake. I think we first see this in the title “The Tyger” or tiger misspelled. When you think of a tiger you think of ruthlessness, ferocity, fast acting, just as the industrialization of Britain. This theme is very common through out Blake’s pieces as we see it in almost every poem. It is present in “The Chimney Sweeper” and “London”. Blake paints an image of what the tiger represents through out this poem and its harsh nonetheless, which further makes me believe that he is talking about the revolution. I believe that the description of the tyger that Blake gives us an insight to think that it is unpleasant and hurtful, not necessarily the tyger itself but the revolution that is tied in with it. We see the word “dread” repeatedly used in describing the tyger and we can draw a conclusion to say that it puts an emphasis on the pain and suffering that was

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.

According to Blake this creature has a special "inner" source of energy which distinguishes its existence from the cold and dark world of inanimate things (Blake 3). There is also an essence of the devil in the tiger. William Blake points this out by using words like furnace and just by him picking a tiger. There are many other violent predators out in the jungle but he chose the tiger because of its bright orange and black. When it runs it looks like a fireball. In line twenty of "The Tyger," William Blake says, "Did He who make the lamb make thee?" (Blake 539). What he is wondering is if he made such an innocent creature like the lamb how could he make a beast like the tiger?

The most leading literary device used in Blake’s poems is symbolism. In this particular poem, “The Lamb” is a reference to God himself. This is because of the trinity that is involved with being a Christ follower. The trinity is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The child in the poem, is a symbol as innocence and purity just like Jesus Christ. Christians are to “receive the kingdom of God like a child” (Luke 18:17, ESV). This means that we are to have child-like faith, and trust in God, just like children do in their parents.

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.

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.

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.

Thesis Statement: The Lamb written by William Blake is a beautiful spiritually enriched poem that expresses God’s sovereignity, His love for creation and His gentleness in care and provisions for those that are His .

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

The Lamb by William Blake belongs in the song innocence category. When a person thinks of a lamb they think of a sweet animal who could do no harm, and this is exactly what songs of innocence means. In some ways the lamb is pure and childish. Lambs do not have anger and do not really care how things workout. In the poem, The Lamb by William Blake he explains, “Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly delight (lines 5-6).” Blake recognizes all the good qualities that lamb’s posses and is very positive about the lamb although it may not be the smartest animal. In God’s eye his son is lamb.

The poem begins with the question, "Little Lamb, who made thee?" The speaker, a child, asks the lamb about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its particular manner of feeding, its "clothing" of wool, its "tender voice." In the next stanza, the speaker attempts a riddling answer to his own question: the lamb was made by one who "calls himself a Lamb," one who resembles in his gentleness both the child and the lamb. The poem ends with the child bestowing a blessing on the lamb.