Tyger And Lamb Comparioson Essay, Research Paper
The gentle lamb and the menacing tyger in Blake s Songs of Innocence and Experience shows the contrast between the innocence of childhood and the experience of adulthood.
The first two lines of. The Lamb sets the style of childish inquisitiveness, Little Lamb who made thee/Doust thou know who made thee? (1-2) The poem is divided into two stanzas, the first containing the questions about who made the little lamb and about, Who gave thee clothing of delight/Softest clothing wooly bright (5-6) gives the reader an image of childlike fun with the lamb frolicking, By the stream and o er the mead (4). He further describes the lamb as having, such a tender voice/making all the vales rejoice (7-8). The narrator is questioning the lamb, just as an inquisitive child would question an adult as to why the sky is blue. The narrator is telling the lamb about all of its good, gentle, happy qualities, and once again asks, Little lamb who made thee/Dost thou know who made thee (9-10)
The poem is written is childish repetition, which continues, in the second stanza. In the second stanza, the narrator is answering the questions for the little lamb, with the impatience that is characterized by childhood. The narrator is not giving the lamb a chance to answer the question. The narrator answers instead, Little Lamb I ll tell thee/Little Lamb I ll tell the (11-12) He tells the lamb, He is called by thy name/For he calls himself a lamb (13-14)
Christ is often described as a lamb and Blake uses the lines, He is meek and he is mild/He became a little child:/I a child thou a lamb (14-16) The narrator is the child and he is telling the lamb that there, like Jesus were created by God. The lamb could possibly even be Christ. Jesus preached in the vales and made people happy when he spoke to them. That is a possibility. This poem is one of child curiosity, an innocence of creation and shows a love of all things created by God, the unconditional love of a child.
On the other hand, The Tyger is anything but meek and mild. Blake goes from the brightness of The Lamb to the darkness of, The Tyger . This evident in the first stanza, Tyger, Tyger, burning bright/In the forest of the night (1-2). The narrator is asking who or what has created the Tyger, What immortal hand or eye/could frame thy fearful symmetry (3-4) The narrator continues asking the Tyger questions, much like the narrator asks the lamb. The narrator is asking where the creator of the Tyger is, In what distant deeps or skies/Burnt the fire of thine eyes?/On what wings dare he aspire?/ What the hand, dare seize the fire (5-8). The narrator is finding it hard to believe that the same creator of, The Lamb could also create something which, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?/And when thy heart began to beat/What dread hand and what dread feet? (9-12).
The narrator continues to ask the Tyger where he came from and has a tone of disbelief, What the hammer? What the chain/In what furnace was thy brain?/What the anvil?/What dread clasp (13-16). In disbelief, the narrator continues asking cynical questions that narrator is questioning not just the Tyger, but appears to be questions God as well. The narrator is asking in an almost incredulous tone, When the stars through down their spears/and watered heaven with their tears:/(17-18) The narrator finally ask the all important question, Did he smile his work to see (10) Was the creator happy with what he created in the menacing tyger, are adults as happy as when they were children. Now that they are adults, or are they, sorry they grew up and joined the real world. The narrator cannot believe it, Did he who made the Lamb make thee? (20) Is the same one responsible for the happiness of childhood also responsible for the experience of adulthood?
The narrator does not answer the questions for the tyger; the narrator has no answers only questions, Tyger, Tyger burning bright/In the fire of the night/What immortal hand or eye/Dare frame thy fearful symmetry (21-24)
In the poems, innocence is happiness, in contrast, experience is unhappiness, foreboding, ill favored, there does not appear to be anything good about experience. Blake implies God created all creatures some in his image, the Lamb and some in his opposite image, The Tyger . The Lamb from Blake s, Songs of Innocence and Experience and the Tyger are 2 examples of the difference between innocence and experience.
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