Blake's The Lamb and The Tyger: A Poetic Analysis, Exams of Poetry

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THE LAMB & THE TYGER

(W. Blake)

A (very) short visual intro to the poems by Silvia Mazzau

Blake’s «complementary opposites»

• A visionary poet, mystic,

and artist, William Blake

believed that “ without

contraries there is no

progression”.

• The two states coexist

in the human being as in the Creator.

Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee 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: Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee

The Lamb (2)

nd STANZA : the speaker attempts a riddling answer: 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.

Analysis

• Themes: innocence, the creation, the nature of God
• Setting: idyllic ( “stream”, “mead”, “vales”)
• Key images: the lamb, the child, Christ (as the Good Shepherd & as the Lamb of God), the identification poet / child / Christ
• Rhythm: slow, comforting
• Rhetorical Devices: ❖ Repetitions both of lines and of single words ❖ Archaic forms ( “thee”, “thou”, “thy”, “dost”)

The Tyger (1)

The poem begins with the speaker asking a fearsome tiger what kind of divine being could have created it. Each subsequent stanza contains further questions, all of which refine this first one:

• from what part of the cosmos could the tiger’s fiery eyes have come?

The Tyger (3)

The speaker wonders how, once that horrible heart “began to beat,” its creator would have had the courage to continue the job. Comparing the creator to a blacksmith, he ponders about the anvil and the furnace that the project would have required and the smith who could have wielded them.

What the hammer? what the chain , In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger, Tyger burning bright , In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Analysis

• Themes: experience, the creation, the nature of God
• Setting: wild, industrial
• Key images: the tiger, its creator (as a daring, courageous being and as blacksmith)
• Rhythm: hammering, disquieting
• Rhetorical devices: ❖ Repetitions both of lines and of single words ❖ Archaic forms ( “thee”, “thy”, “thine”)