Songs of Good and Evil

In the poems "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," William Blake uses symbolism, tone, and rhyme to advance the theme that God can create good and bad creatures. The poem "The Lamb" was in Blake's "Songs of Innocence," which was published in 1789. "The Tyger," in his "Songs of Experience," was published in 1794. In these contrasting poems he shows symbols of what he calls "the two contrary states of the human soul" (Shilstone 1).

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.

¨The Lamb¨ is a soft poem, makes you want to sleep with something soft over you. The words in the poem make you feel fluffy like a lamb. The rhyme scheme of this poem tied well with the words and really made this poem flow. When reading this poem I felt like I could turn it into a song, or a bedtime story for children. In this short poem William Blake likes to talk about Christ. The narrator asks ¨The Lamb¨ “little Lamb who made thee” trying to teach ¨The Lamb¨ where it came from along with who its creator is. This question is the sum of the first stanza of the poem. The second stanza

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.

The Songs of Innocence poems first appeared in Blake’s 1784 novel, An Island in the Moon. In 1788, Blake began to compile in earnest, the collection of Songs of Innocence. And by 1789, this original volume of plates was complete. These poems are the products of the human mind in a state of innocence, imagination, and joy; natural euphoric feelings uninhibited or tainted by the outside world. Following the completion of the Songs of Innocence plates, Blake wrote The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and it is through this dilemma of good and evil and the suffering that he witnesses on the streets of London, that he begins composing Songs of Experience. This second volume serves as a response to Songs of

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 was one of several transitionary writers between the Age of Reason and the Age of Romanticism. He saw the poverty and suffering that surrounded him and was a supporter of the French Revolution in its early days. He could not accept the neoclassical idea of a stable, orderly hierarchy in the universe, but instead viewed existence as a blending of opposite poles - good and evil, innocence and experience, heaven and hell. His magnum opus Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience is the epitome of how his work embodied his beliefs.

It was known that Blake had a pleasant and peaceful childhood. His poems relate to his background because it was said that Blake was once considered mad for his, “idiosyncratic views.” This means that when he was young, he had many visions of extraordinary images. It was rumored that at such a young age Blake would, “see a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” His parents were not amused of such story and then other people began to realize he wasn’t kidding about his visions and they also realized that Blake had a special talent within

Through this, Blake is showing the hypocrisy of religion, a theme commonly shown throughout “Experience.” Throughout “Innocence” a simple, child-like portrayal of religion is explored. This could show Blake as primarily a religious poet as there are common, simple themes running throughout many of his poems in “Innocence.” This simple view of both Christ and religion contrasts the complex metaphors used to represent religion in “Innocence.”

(Blake). “The Lamb” represents a religious symbol, possibly even the Christ figure, or the whole of humanity itself, which the “extensive use of symbols derived from Christianity and a more elaborate view of his theories about reality and knowledge” (“The Poetry of Blake”) provide which is not unprecedented seeing as, during this time period, it was common to reference symbols from biblical scriptures. The Lamb symbolizes the many children of God, as the biblical verse “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23) quite clearly references. Blake’s poem states, “He became a little child: / I a child & thou a lamb” (Blake).

Through out time, young sheep have always been described as pure, tender, and innocent. Even in the Holy Bible, lambs are talked about in such high honor that they were even used to be holy sacrifices during biblical times. William Blake describes the young sheep in similar characteristics in the poem “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”. A tiger as we know its characteristics to be is fierce and mysterious. Always lurking around, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. In William Blake’s two separate poems he ties each of the poems together with in-depth understanding and symbolism. Both animals play an important part in both of Blake’s poems.

William Blake, writer and artist born in 1757 was a simple unadventurous man. You may know some of his poetic pieces but his official education was in art. 10 years old Blake attended the Royal Academy of Arts School just after entering drawing school. William Blake went on to doing numerous great things like creating his own books, creating paintings, and engravings, getting married to his wife Catherine Boucher, and more. I took interest in Blake as an author because of the way he believes in his imagination and how we see the world. Imagination is about feeling and emotion, he seen the world differently, as if our humanity is bigger than our body, or how we see the world.

“The Lamb” by William Blake brings about spiritual passions and the emotional about the Lamb of God, who is Jesus Christ. “The Lamb” by William Blake is a lyric poem in which the author marvels at the love, wonder and innocents of child poetry, also which states personal passions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.”1 In select “The Lamb “it was talking to me intellect emotion, imagination and internally. In our lesson, category “The lamb is a symbol of innocence also, a character of Christ’s sacrifice by sin.”2 Blake stated in the poem “for he calls himself a lamb”: He is meek, and he is mild describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the creator of the lamb. Since Jesus is often called the ‘Lamb of God, the representation of the instinctive chosen in the poem is very recognizable. Reading the poem as a Christian it can point to word of God’s in a biblical point of view. “Sometimes a lamb is just a lamb, unless it's the "Lamb of God," Or unless it's the human lambs being shepherded by Jesus Christ.3 “Christianity turns everyone in this poem into a lamb; also the poem's symbolic, religious meaning comes through in the second stanza, where the lamb's creator is revealed to be Jesus Christ.”4 In line one “Who made thee”, (John 1:3), when God created he make something from nothing. Analysis the poem it gives the urge to answer the question in the sonnet. Because we are created a being, we have no basis for pride. Reminded that you exist, because God made us, and

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are collections of poems that utilize the imagery, instruction, and lives of children to make a larger social commentary. The use of child-centered themes in the two books allowed Blake to make a crucial commentary on his political and moral surroundings with deceptively simplistic and readable poetry. Utilizing these themes Blake criticized the church, attacking the hypocritical clergy and pointing out the ironies and cruelties found within the doctrines of organized religion. He wrote about the horrific working conditions of children as a means to magnify the inequality between the poor working class and

Some of William Blake’s poetry is categorized into collections called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake explores almost opposite opinions about creation in his poems “The Lamb” and “The Tiger.” While the overarching concept is the same in both, he uses different subjects to portray different sides of creation; however, in the Innocence and Experience versions of “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake uses some of the same words, rhyme schemes, and characters to talk about a single subject in opposite tones.