'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger'

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The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’

William Blake did not go to school but instead was apprenticed to an engraver. He later moved on to the royal academy where he acquired his taste for mysticism. This combined with his distrust of organised religion lead him to write such questioning poems such as ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’. Through poems like this Blake wanted to escape from the repressive and puritanical views people had of Christianity in the eighteenth century and to simply marvel at creation

The titles ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’ portray contrasts about the poem from the very start. We see that the lamb is meek and innocent and the fierceness of the tiger contrasts with this, and that is why they work as they were intended, as opposites. The poet seems to want to explore the breadth of creation in the two poems.

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In ‘The Lamb’ questions are asked in the first verse. ‘Dost thou know who made thee?’ is asked and the answer is provided in the second verse; the verse starts ‘I’ll tell thee’. Of course the answer was that God made the lamb. These are the questions of a child and of course the answer is obvious before reading the second verse. The poem is likening Jesus Christ to the lamb and suggesting it is understandable that God made the lamb because ‘He calls himself a lamb’.

The Tiger, however, is of course an entirely different animal. In ‘The Tyger’ ...

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