William Blake was a visionary English poet who lived from 1757-1827. He is now considered one of the most important figures of the Romantic Age. His works of poetry have become more important in the 21st century than anyone would’ve thought many years ago. Much of his poetry has obvious biblical references.
In the poems, The Lamb, The Poison Tree and The Tyger, Blake uses many techniques including symbolism, apostrophe, metaphors, rhetorical questions, repetition, allusions and alliteration.
At the outset of “The Lamb,” we see the use of alliteration. He begins the poem with “Little lamb” and repeats it throughout. He then introduces rhetorical questions, and the combination of these literary devices creates a childlike picture of
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Though there is no reference to a tree until the last line of the poem, Blake alludes to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge by using words such as garden, apple and tree in the poem. “And into my garden stole,” “Till it bore an apple bright,” “My foe outstretched beneath the tree” (Blake 1794/2007 p.807).
Blake uses repetition in his poem by repeating “I was angry with,” in the first stanza. “I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow” (Blake 1794/2007 p.807).
Written in Songs of Experience, The Tyger, by William Blake tells about the evil in the Bible. Not only does it include references to the Bible, it includes references to its sister poem, The Lamb.
William Blake uses personification to show stars in the sky throwing spears and their tears filling Heaven. “When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears” (Blake 1794/2007 p.1072).
Blake also uses imagery in the poem. He paints a picture of God hammering out the body of a ferocious tiger on an anvil. “What the hammer? What the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp” (Blake 1794/2007 p.
One of William Blake great poems, The Tyger” is well known as one or perhaps
Another technique this poem takes use of is alliteration. The alliteration used helps to express the themes importance through repletion of sound devices. A specific example of alliteration
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
Since Blake loves lambs because of the connection they makes with Christianity and sinners, he uses the description of a lamb to signify what God did for us. He also utilizes imagery in giving the picture feeling of deep faith he has in his Christianity. One of the most sensual lyrics is lyric 6; “Softest clothing, wooly, bright. This gives the reader a sense of what God does for sinners; He gives them all their needs.
The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the
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.”
It appeals to the God as a song of understanding. He develops his passion for all things pure, raw and innocent through “The Tyger’s” descriptive imagery. Imagery such as “When the stars threw down their spears, And water’d heaven with their tears” brings closure to Blake’s desires to provoke a sense of humanism in the
William Blake was a painter, engraver and poet of the Romantic era, who lived and worked in London. Many of Blake’s famous poems reside in his published collection of poems titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This collection portrays the two different states of the human soul, good and evil. Many poems in the Songs of Innocence have a counterpart poem in the Songs of Experience. The poem “A Poison Tree” is found in the Songs of Experience and it delves into the mind of man tainted with sin and corruption that comes with experience. In a simple and creative style, the religious theology of the Fall of Man is brought to life. The poem tells the story of how man fell from a state of innocence to impurity, focusing on the harmful repercussions of suppressed anger. Blake utilities many literary devices to successfully characterizes anger as an antagonist with taunting power.
The Lamb' begins by a child asking the lamb if it knows who made it. The fact that the inquirer is a child is established later in the poem. The answer, of course, is God. The child describes the gifts God has given the lamb-life, food, clothing, and a sweet voice. In the second stanza, the child tells the lamb that it was made by God, and that 'he calls himself a lamb', and that 'he is a little child'. The poem ends with the child saying 'Little lamb, God bless thee!'
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.
Rhyme is found all throughout the poem and has a huge effect on the reader. Blake used rhyme and detail to create some more wicked thoughts of the Tyger in the readers mind. Each stanza is made up of two couplets. Because these couplets keep a steady going rhyme, we
William Blake is one of England’s most famous literary figures. He is remembered and admired for his skill as a painter, engraver, and poet. He was born on Nov. 28, 1757 to a poor Hosier’s family living in or around London. Being of a poor family, Blake received little in the way of comfort or education while growing up. Amazingly, he did not attend school for very long and dropped out shortly after learning to read and write so that he could work in his father’s shop. The life of a hosier however was not the right path for Blake as he exhibited early on a skill for reading and drawing. Blake’s skill for reading can be seen in his understanding for and use of works such as the Bible and Greek classic literature.
To understand what is being said in such poems as "THE GARDEN OF LOVE" and "The Little Vagabond" one must consider the poet's religious, or shall I say spiritual, position. William Blake considered himself to be a monistic Gnostic. That is, he believed what saved a person's soul was not faith but knowledge. Faith, he felt, was a term that was abused by those who thought spending every Sunday in a church would grant them eternal salvation regardless of what actions they exhibited outside the walls of the church. Church ceremonies were also dry, emotionless and meaningless, according to Blake. Church was evil, as Blake would have put it.
is a representation of the relationship between creator and creature. This poem may be one of his more popular poems from The Songs of Experience. In the poem, Blake writes about how the Tyger was created by the same immortal being who created the sheep. In this case, Blake is referring to God creating both good and evil in the world. Blake depicts this by this excerpt from the poem, ?the contrast between fire and night ? [which] corresponds to the contrast of yellow and black stripes ringing the Tyger itself [sic].?8 John E. Grant comments that William Blake?s poem is ? ? horrifying, as well as awesome, to think of an animate thing being hammered into shape in the smith.?9 Through this statement, Grant is referring to the creation of Tyger and the rest of humanity by God. The hammer merely being an instrument of creation.10 It is strange how much Blake speaks of God and creation as a whole, as he was not religious or a believer in one God, creator of the