The Tyger and the Lamb

The Tyger and The Lamb

William Blake was an author from the 1800s, he was someone who had a set view against the realism that was going on at the time he was alive, like the revolutions that were going on and him beginning to question his faith and the world he had once been so sure he had known. There were two of his poems that made a great impact on that thought process in my mind and that will be thoroughly discussed in this essay would have to be William Blake's called The Tyger and The Lamb. These two poems were published almost exactly 5 years apart from each other and yet a reader can say that they could and must have been intermingling poems to each other because of the way they compliment each other so well. Although the way that The Lamb and The Tyger are portrayed and thought of as two different poems, but in reality The Tyger is more of an extension of The Lamb, more similarities than differences.

One difference between The Lamb and The Tyger is how one is innocent and fragile and the other is more experience and rough. In the quote "Softest clothing wooly bright/Gave thee such a tender voice,/Making all the vales rejoice! (Lines 7-9)". The Lamb is considered to be about an innocence, the questioning of the gentle lamb and how it knows of its creator and the hope it gives. The Tyger is something more sinister and complicated. Like in this quote "Could twist the sinews of thy heart?/And when thy heart began to beat,/ What dread hand? & what dread feet? (Lines 10-12)." An article by Martin Price, Called Songs of Innocence and Experience, states that "The Lamb, the creator "calls himself a Lamb/ He is meek, & he is mild;/He became a little child." In The Tyger the creator again is like what he creates... (Martin 17)." Which shows my early statement about Blake's The Lamb and The Tyger.

A similarity between the two poems by Blake would have to be the main concept of creation throughout the poem. Although a similarity is can also be considered a difference by the facts that each was a different thing about creation. In The Lamb the narrator or Blake was referring to how the lamb was created and who created it. The quote "Little Lamb who made thee/...We are called by his name.../Little Lamb God bless thee. (Lines 1,18-19)." shows that god was referenced in the poem. In The Tyger there was also references to the creator. Take this quote "And watered heaven with their tears,/Did he smile his work to see? (Lines 19-20)." which shows that he was talking about the creator in these lines of the poem. In an article by Alegemon Charles Swinburne, he says "..such an impeccable simplicity; nowhere but here such a tender wisdom of holiness, such a light and perfume of innocent (Swinburne 8)." which shows that in both of the poems William Blake had written there was some sort of reference to there being a god and that blake had used him in these poems to show his religious views through his own eyes to entice the poems readers into this type of thought process as well.

Another difference both of the poems would have to be how in The Lamb there was more about how great and noble it was for the creator and in The Tyger there was more of a questioning of the creator. According to Jamie Nakamoto's article, she states that these two poems are of different worlds "... one of innocence and one that has been opened up to reality by experience. He questions how God can create something as sweet and innocent as the lamb in one world and then turn around and create something as fearful as the tiger in the other (Nakamoto)." which helps say that blake had made these two were of completely different from each other and they were questioning of the creator. In the poem The Tyger there is a quote and it says "Did he who made the Lamb make thee? (Line 20)." which shows that William Blake was very questioning of the creator and which also references the lines from his earlier poem The Lamb which was about knowing that god had created the gentle creature.

Another similarity would have to be how they author's personality was shown through the poems. How his world changed so drastically that he wrote his poem The Tyger to question his entire thought process on his own religion he had been faithful to his whole life, now his experience is showing that he is much more interested in questioning the innocence he once had obtained to this new experience of knowledge of what his god can let live. As Samantha Fitzsimmons had mentioned briefly in her article called The Lamb and the Tyger: A Closer Look at William Blake, "...reflecting his childhood memory of divine visions and his view on the importance of innocence in human development... "The Lamb," epitomizes innocence and the relationship between the young and the divine...World events and life itself greatly affected Blake...he addresses his loss of "faith in the goodness mankind" (Wikipedia) caused by the fall of the French Revolution..."The Tyger," seeks the answer to the unknown (Fitzsimmons)." Her statement in her article shows that The Lamb And The Tyger were from his own views on the world. Take this quote which shows how he had viewed god and his religion at first from his poem called The Lamb:

Gave thee life & bid thee feed.

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice!

The Lamb is considered his innocent past before the events of the world made him questioning. The Tyger on the other hand is him after events of the world and his life start to catch up. In Blake's poem called The Tyger theres is these few lines within the poem "What immortal hand or eye /Could frame thy fearful symmetry? /Did he smile his work to see?/Did he who made the Lamb make thee? ( Lines 3-4, 19-20)." that show the readers that its author Blake had begun to start questioning his views on this and his views on the god he thought he knew so well.

Another difference would have to be how one referenced the other inside the poem. Throughout the poem The Tyger had made a reference or two about Blake's other poem The Lamb. For example This lines in The Tyger poem stated "Did he who made the Lamb make thee? (Line 20)." which was a reference from his earlier poem The Lamb. Also in the Tyger Poem there was a line before the reference that said "What immortal hand or eye/ Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? (Lines 3-4)." which is another reference to the thought that