In The Lamb poem the rhythm is very soft and gentle like a nursery rhythm because a lamb is a very gentle and placid creature and it is describing Jesus who was the saviour of humanity and never used violence. That is why he is described as a lamb. It also used very cram and soft sounding words ‘gave thee life and bid thee free’. It also refers to a lamb as a child.
The Tyger poem seems to have a much stronger and aggressive rhythm with strong words ‘deadly terrors clasp’. William Blake used this to show how God was hard and unforgiving to sin in the first testament of the bible where he kill people for sinning for example, with plagues of locus and when he drowned the Egyptians in the sea. I think that William Blake used the two very different poems to emphasize the difference of God in the two testaments of the bible and to show that to everything there is an opposite.
In The Lamb I think that a child is speaking because they have soft, gentle and placid tone to them and it also puts out a sign of innocence because young children are innocent like little lambs.
In The Tyger I think it would be a male adult with a deep voice to show the power and strength of a tiger. I think it would also to show the roar of a tiger as being deep and powerful.
The Lamb poem talks of a lamb being soft and cuddly ‘softest clothing woolly bright’ and also tells us that a lamb’s cry is soft and gently ‘such a tender voice’. Then it goes on to describe the lamb as meek, which means patient, and mild, which means soft and gentle, then William Blake goes on to describe the lamb as a child which is trying to get across the thought of a lamb being innocent and that it could never harm anyone.
The Tyger is a very much different poem to The Lamb; it describes a tiger as a very fearful and strong creature. The first two sentences describe the tiger colours by say ‘tyger tyger burning bright in the forests of the night’ this is telling us the colour of flames (red and yellow) and the colour of the night (black) are the colours that a tiger is made up from. The two poems are very different in the fact that the words used in The Lamb are very short but sweet and the ones used in the tiger are very long and powerful.
In the first half of The Lamb there are two questions which both can be answered in the same way, they are ‘Little lamb who made thee’ and ‘Dost thou know who made thee’ William Blake gives an answer to these questions in the last half of the poem by saying ‘He calls himself a lamb’ and ‘He became a little child’ I got the feeling that the person he was talking about was very soft, gentle, and innocent. In the last two lines of the poem William Blake wrote ‘Little lamb God bless thee’, this made me think that this person who was asking the questions would be some one very close to God like Jesus.
In The Tyger there are many questions but they are only answered with more questions so there are no main answers in this poem. The first questions asked where ‘What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?’ ‘What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp? To answer all of these questions William Blake said ‘did he who made thee lamb make thee?’
In The Lamb God is described as sweet and innocent and could not hurt a soul, with a kind gentle and soft nature. He also is said to give life and lets all creatures live free ‘Gave thee life & bid thee free’. He also describes him as a lamb that became a child ‘for he calls himself a lamb’ and then says ‘ he became a little child’ to emphasize the innocence of the Lamb of God.
I The Tyger God is described as an unforgiving dictator whose wrath was hard and stern. It also gives the reader the impression of God as a blacksmith working in a forge with word like ‘hammer’, ‘furnace’ and ‘anvil’ constructing the Tyger also using words like ‘dread’ and ‘deadly terrors clasp’ to give an element of fear and power over everything that lives.
Looking at both of the poems it seem to me that God in The Tyger is very different from The Lamb as The Tyger’s God is very powerful and feared by everyone and The Lamb’s God is very soft gentle sort of like a farther figure to the world looking after everything and being very forgiving.
God created the two animals very differently because there must be differences in the world for everyone to have a mind of there own, free will to do what ever there decision may be and to have there own opinions on a subject.
I think William Blake wrote these two totally different poems to show that the world is based on differences and how it has bad people as well as good. I think that The Tyger poem was the best because I personally think there is more imagination gone in to because William Blake probably never saw a tiger but described it beautifully whereas lambs are very common and can be seen anywhere also it has more harsh and understandable words such as ‘hammer’ and ‘furnace’ because these still relate to today’s way of life.
