William Blake The Lamb Meaning

“The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are contrasting poems. They seem to be opposites of each other, “The Lamb” sends a message of innocence and purity, while “The Tyger” sends a message of evil, fear, and hate. “The Tyger” is definitely a stronger poem, it’s written in questions and progressively gets more and more intense. Both poem uses symbolism and the animal represents a quality. There are references to the Christian figure Jesus, it says in “The Lamb,” “For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child (14):” However there is no references to any religious figure in “The Tyger.” “The Lamb” is written in a question and answer format. The first stanza was a series of questions that asked who created such innocence. Afterward the first stanza, it’s followed by a stanza of answers and responses to the first stanza. The whole poem is written in a gentle nature that calms the reader and adds assurance to the reader. However contrasting “The Lamb,” “The Tyger” is written very aggressively and makes the reader doubt and question the innocence of the world.

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

In “The Lamb” by William Blake, you will see that, if analyzed closely, the lamb is a personal symbol which signifies God himself. The innocence of a child is like that of a lamb, and serves as a model for humans to follow. In the first stanza, the speaker is the child who is also the teacher. The child asks the lamb who gave him life and all his needs, along with a voice so "tender”. Then, the child declares that he will tell the lamb who their creator is. The creator shares the same name as the lamb, which is a reference to Jesus Christ. The end of the poem is giving way to a blessing which, gives an expression of the child’s adoration at the connection the lamb makes in child,

Allusion is also an important part of this poem because of the way the author uses it to connect to the outside works that may also encourage the reader to think in a certain way that goes along with the themes of the poem. The first allusion, found in lines 7 and 8, are to the Greek gods Icarus and Prometheus. This allusion requires the readers to think about gods and religion, which is a major part of the theme of this poem. Another allusion I see is in line 20, which refers to another one of Blake’s poems, “The Lamb.” This allusion is significant because the speaker asks, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (20) And he wonders whether or not the same creator who made something so gentle and pure could also make such an evil animal. The allusion itself brings the reader to think about the other poems and to contrast the two completely

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 .

In Christian imagery, a pure white lamb represents Jesus Christ, purity, and innocence. The image of the lamb was perfect for Blake to use in a poem based upon innocence. In the poem “The Lamb,” the narrator (presumably a young Blake) is questioning if the lamn knows who created him. We find out that the narrator wasn’t asking the lamb for an answer, but rather if the lamb was aware enough to ask itself such a question. Blake tells the naive, clueless animal that it is the embodiment of Christ. “I a child & thou a Lamb. We are called by his name.” (Blake) This line is the revealing piece of information that tells us Blake is talking about purity. Through each stanza, archetypes of innocence drip from the lines, painting a picture of joy without worry.

Blake wanted people to read this poem and understand his concept of questioning God, for how could God make something so innocent and pure as the Lamb and then in turn make something so evil? The situation is very similar to the

In order to exist in nature and in human, innocence requires experience. The author, William Blake divided his poems into two volumes which are Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. “The Lamb” is the poem from Songs of Innocence and “The Tyger” is from Songs of Experience. In “The Lamb,” Blake writes in an incomplex, childlike way asking an innocent lamb who made it. In “The Tyger,” Blake asks who could have possibly made something as formidable as the tiger. William Blake uses archetypes in his poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.”

Being one of the most influential poets during the Romantic Period, the religious status of Blake has long been as controversial as his own literary works. Nonetheless, the fact that he is indeed a Christian is doubtless - such can be easily illustrated from many fragments of his works such as ‘I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little Lamb, God Bless thee! Little Lamb, God Bless thee!’ from his poem The Lamb. This singsongy excerpt from the Song of Innocence not only appears to readers as Blake’s direct praises of God but also an evident reference to ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’(Eg. Psalm 23) from the Holy Bible. However, it can also be easily argued that Blake is not an ordinary, churchgoing Christian. A great portion

William Blake's poem, "The Tyger," create striking images used to question religion and contrast good and evil. The Tyger could be inspiration, the divine, artistic creation, history, or vision itself. Creating a imagery of fire evokes the fierceness and potential danger of the tiger, which itself represents what is evil or dreaded. " Tyger Tyger, burning bright… In the forests of the night," Blake begins, conjuring the image of a tiger's eyes burning in the darkness. "

They lament the ways in which the intense and harsh experiences of adulthood destroy human innocence while exposing the apparent weaknesses of the innocent perspective on life. “The Tyger,” for example, tries to confront the negative forces in life, while the innocent perspective is not even aware of such forces. These poems also question the inherent “goodness” of love and sexual morality by discussing them as effects of jealousy, secrecy, lust, and shame. In regards to religion, these poems focus much more on the institution of the Church, its role in politics, and its effect on society and the mind rather than individual faith. Blake believes that experience adds a layer to innocence that darkens its hopeful vision, while taking away from its blindness.

The language in The Lamb is used to portray a child-like sense, “Softest clothing wooly bright.” The young boy describes the lamb to be “tender” and “mild” much like himself. The simple and direct tone of this poem provokes a feeling of innocence as indicated by the question the boy asks, “Little Lamb who made thee/Dost thou know who made thee.” Whereas, the question asked in The Tyger is more complex in thought, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?/What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” The language used in The Tyger such as, “fearful symmetry” and “In what furnace was thy brain?” is more elaborate and illustrative in order to imply experience in

William Blake’s “The Lamb” aims to show an innocent way of looking at the world. The narrator of “The Lamb” is asking if the lamb knows who made it, and does so in a way that suggests that whomever created the lamb is kind, and loves their creation. “Gave thee life…bid thee feed…clothing of delight…” These things, when seen from the side of innocence, seem to be gifts to the lamb; things its creator blessed it with. However, the narrator fails to see a lot of the meaning that their own words have. The lamb was given life and fed well so that it could grow and be killed for food later. The narrator states that the lamb’s creator, Jesus, also is called a lamb, “for he is meek and mild”, but fails to see why such a comparison was made between

This poem is about a naïve lamb, which is young and new to the world and its dangers and hardships. The whimsical lamb is asked who its creator was. Blake, “Little Lamb who made thee, dost thou know who made thee. ”(Page 748, 1-2) Later, we find out that the speaker in this poem is the author himself.

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.