Write about 'The Lamb' and 'The Tiger' by William Blake. Explain how the poet portrays these creatures and comment on what you consider to be the main ideas and attitudes of the poet.

Write about ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tiger’ by William Blake. Explain how the poet portrays these creatures and comment on what you consider to be the main ideas and attitudes of the poet.

‘All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.’

Cecil Frances Alexander

Indeed, God created all creatures great and small, and he could not have created two creatures more different from each other than the lamb and the tiger. The question arises in one’s mind therefore: -

‘Could one creator design and give life to two exhibits of such a vast contrast?’

William Blake certainly poses this question in a somewhat clever manner in the two examples of his work that I’ve analysed and compared, namely ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tiger’.

In the two collections of his work, namely Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, he has several contrasting poems that bring the two states of being described by both collections under the microscope. As one of the early Romance poets, Blake was writing in opposition to the rapidly changing, revolutionary eighteenth-century. Essentially, that opposition developed into an appreciation of the emotions, as opposed to reason ant intellect, and a recognition of the purity and innocence which childhood represents in contrast with the corruptions and in-authenticity of adulthood, with its learning and experience of life. The English Industrial Revolution played a very influential role in William Blake’s work.

Songs of Innocence includes a reversal of the expected ‘hierarchies’. The poems reject the authority of the dominant culture over the individual and the authority of the rational mind over the imaginative faculties. Within the adult, the child is resurrected, liberating imagination, desire and creativity.

On the other hand, we encounter the dark underside of the virtues upheld in traditional children’s literature in Songs of Experience. The poems reveal the perversion of natural creative energy that results from repression and injustice, and the hardships of life and the world we live in.

I shall now compare and contrast the two contradicting poems mentioned previously: ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The tiger’, both revealing the ‘two halves’ of Blake’s journey through life, and reveal much about his views.

Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience were written five years apart (Songs of Innocence obviously being his premiere work) and were both written in a simplistic style that made them accessible for children. They show to different worlds: one in which God is trusted implicitly and there’s no question of moral issues; and one which the fallen state is examined and religious hypocrisy is examined. Questions arise about the mode of thinking about Christianity in all its repressive, Puritanical vainglory.

‘The Tiger’, part of Blake’s Songs of Experience is a poem about the nature of creation, much as his earlier poem found in Songs of Innocence, ‘The Lamb’. However, ‘The Tiger’ takes on the darker side of creation, when its benefits are less obvious than simple joys. Blake’s simplicity in language and construction contradicts the complexity of his ideas. This poem is meant to be interpreted as a comparison to ‘The Lamb’, showing both contrary states of the human soul with respect to the creation. On doing research on the poet, I found that Blake was said to believe that a person had to pass through an innocent state of being, like that of the lamb, and also absorb the contrasting conditions of experience, like those of a tiger, in order to reach a higher level of consciousness. In any case, Blake’s vision of a creative force in the universe making a balance of innocence before experience is at the heart of the poem. The poem reflects primarily the poet’s response to the tiger, rather than the tiger’s response to the world. It’s important to remember that Blake lived in a time that had never heard of popular psychology, as we understand it today. He wrote the mass of his work before the Romantic Movement in English literature. He lived in a world that was in the opening stages of the Industrial Revolution, and in the midst of political revolutions all over Europe and in America. As we look at his work we must in some way forget many of the ideas about creativity, artists, and human nature that we take for granted today, and re-imagine them for the first time as, perhaps, Blake did himself. It is in this way that Blake's poetry has the power to astound us with his insight.

Firstly, it must be understood that ‘The Tiger’ is only about a tiger as the tiger is presented as exhibit A in the poet’s search for proof of a Creator; an example as it were, of some of ‘the Creator’s most fearsome work; Blake is struggling, as perhaps many of us are, to come to grips with what sort of being this Creator may be. In this struggle there is no literal observation at all; we are transported to into a highly metaphorical setting of a blacksmith’s forge, which Blake sees as the only possible source for the creation of anything so ...

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Yes, the first two lines may begin to suggest a literal observation: -

“Tiger! Tiger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,”

but what is being observed here? I would say we part company with ‘literal observation’ rather quickly. Firstly, we see a ‘tiger’, but Blake doesn’t actually waste any words describing it in the literal sense at all; he assumes we’ve all seen a tiger sometime or other, and now chooses a very metaphorical phrase

‘…burning bright…’

to describe it, which strikes a chord in the heart than in the senses. Granted, this clever description could be applied simply to create the striking dark and vibrant colours of a tiger’s fur, but William Blake signals that he intends more than that by placing our beast ‘in the forest of the night’, where instead of being nearly invisible as our ‘literal brain’ tells us it would be, the ‘Tiger’ is invested with almost mythical qualities of heat and luminescence. Thus already in the third and fourth words of the poem we’ve travelled beyond the literal beast itself and are beginning to bear witness to what might be its primal source. Although it is still important to remember to note that Blake isn’t making any statements in this poem; it is question after question after question: -

“What immortal hand…?”

“In what distant…?”

“And what shoulder…?”

“What the hammer?”

“Did he smile…?”

This poem is about the un-know, the ‘invisible answer’ (which is symbolised in the invisibility in the ‘forest of the night’, where only the tiger can be seen, suggesting that only the Tiger holds the answers, hence the poet’s personal language towards the Tiger e.g. ‘thine eyes’). Blake never allows his imagination to go any further than a glimpse of a ‘hand’, ‘shoulder’, ‘dread feet’. These are mere hints of what might lie beyond, and the poet invites our imagination to take over where his left.

He arises questions in our minds – whose ‘immortal hand’? Who’s the HE who smiled? How was the tiger created? Can the Creator who had the power to crate such a forceful specimen have the power to control it? Also, the symbolism of the ‘fire’ arises the query of which fire was the tiger created in (considering the poet uses the metaphor of a blacksmith’s forge) – Heaven’s fire, or Hell’s? Blake sends our imaginations wild, and in the end, he provokes us to question our faith.

Finally, having expressed so masterfully this fundamental question, he turns our attention deftly and unexpectedly to the question which gapes wonderingly at the contradiction and complexity of it all, the question which really tries to pose the question of a heart beating within the bosom of this Creator, a heart as we understand a heart to be: -

“Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

Through the use of constant complicated rhetorical questioning, Blake is simply enquiring as to whether God the Creator, who created the meek, mild Lamb, could be able to create a creature of such ferocity? A complete opposite and utter contradiction of ‘The Lamb’.

‘The Tiger’ comparatively to ‘The Lamb’ uses more stark, unsettling imagery: -

“…forests of the night…”

“Burnt the fire of thine eyes…”

“…dread hand…dread feet…”

and the mention of the ‘chain’, ‘hammer’ and ‘anvil’. Focussing on that particular latter part, I suppose you could make the point that ‘The Lamb’ is very much a representative pf the pastoral age, when people kept sheep and lived mainly in the countryside, whereas ‘The Tiger’ might reflect the rapidly expanding industrial age in which Blake lived at the time. By contrast to the Lamb, the Tiger is presented as a ferocious animal of ‘Fearful Symmetry’, forged by some immortal, metaphorical blacksmith.

It may be believed by many that Blake’s imagery in ‘The Tiger’ is of a factory, and that the poet is thus expressing his dislike of industrialization. Although this interpretation is fair, I personally believe that specific details don’t go far enough: although the poem contains elements of the devil and there’s an ‘evil edge’ to the imagery, this view is not truly William Blake’s. Blake does refer to the fall of Satan and his rebellious followers: -

“When the stars threw down their spears,

and water’d heaven with their tears…”

but the poem isn’t so much about the fall of Satan as it is about the fall of Man, not from innocence but into naiveté, and the necessity of being tested.

The poet asks the Tiger the same questions as he does to the Lamb i.e. ‘who made you’? Except, this time, he asks it differently and appears to leave the question unanswered. Step by step, the lines are regular, rhyming, but unlike ‘The Lamb’ the rhythm is heavy, as are the consonants. This Tiger ‘stalks’ the jungle, but what is this specific jungle? Is it literal? Perhaps, but no more than the Tiger itself is.

This Tiger is a fearsome beast striding a fearsome land – is this a reference to man? If so, it is a terrific metaphor, which captures the loss of innocence due to the gain of experience in a person’s life, and certainly displays the poet’s feelings as he grows out of his innocent, care-free childhood, through the gruelling French Revolution where he’d hear of the brutality of man and machine, and consequently grows into a hardened man, aware of the world’s cruelty and men’s tricks. Hence, the poet’s views and state of mind have changed by the time he composes Songs of Experience.

Also notable is the change of verb from the first stanza; the first and last stanzas are identical except for that one word: -

“What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

“What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

This is very effective, because the opening stanza displays the poet’s original query and his curiosity – he’s basically pondering to himself who or what could’ve ‘framed the fearful symmetry’ of the tiger? As the poem progresses and Blake investigates and analyses deeper into the evidence, the poet realises something elemental – any old fool could’ve designed the tiger in their mind, but who actually had the courage, who ‘dared’ to go to the extreme of ‘placing pen to paper’ and concocting such a powerful and fearful animal? This emphasises the fact that the tiger is to be feared.

Another technique noticeable in both these stanzas is the un-fitting rhyme: -

“…eye

…symmetry”

This suggests that this Tiger has its faults, it’s imperfect, which is rather ironic because the poet emphasises the Tiger’s perfection throughout the poem, and that its creation was a mode of artistic nature: -

“…symmetry…”

“…what art…”

“…his work to see…”

Therefore, this beautiful masterpiece isn’t all it seems, and that makes us a bit more weary of the animal and its creator.

‘The Lamb’ can be found in William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and is the contradictive poem to ‘The Tiger’. Many elements of both poems can be linked and ideas coincide with each other, although the general idea is that the poems contradict each other.

The Lamb is presented as meek and mild, a creature with ‘clothing of delight’ and a ‘tender voice’. It is a creature that reflects the qualities of Jesus Christ, the so-called ‘Lamb of God’ just as we reflect the image of Christ as a man: -

“I a child, and thou a lamb;

We are called by his name.”

Perhaps this is a suggestion of the fact that we (the human race) are lambs to the Lamb himself – Jesus is watching over us, and god is watching over Jesus. This implies our innocence, helplessness and vulnerability.

‘The Lamb’ contains very gentle and soft-sounding language: -

“Little Lamb…”

“Softest clothing, woolly, bright…

“He is meek and he is mild…”

Being a poem from Blake’s Songs of Innocence, this poem is very innocent sounding; similar to how a child would speak to an animal. The old-English word ‘thee’ suggests closeness between the poet and the Little Lamb; many a child finds friendship in an animal. Therefore, we see what’s happening through the eyes of a child, which emphasises the innocence of the poem – how oblivious we are to the ways of the world when we’re young.

William Blake also creates a very pleasant and happy landscape: -

“By the stream and o’er the mead…”

“Making all the vales rejoice…”

Again underlining how children see the world as one large playground, where the worst possible thing that could happen is falling over and scraping your knee.

On comparing ‘The Lamb’ to ‘The Tiger’, the setting and nature of both poems are completely different (as are the poet’s views). Directly colliding are ‘the forests of the night’ in which the fearful Tiger prowls, and the ‘rejoicing vales’ in which the soft little Lamb prances, which brilliantly show how one’s mind changes as one ages. The poet, once a carefree, innocent child who accepts everything as it’s told, has developed into an opinionated, questioning, experienced man with never-ending queries and worries. This is especially underlined by the fact that in ‘The Lamb’ the poet can answer his own questions: -

“Little Lamb, who made thee?

…Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee…”

A different trend is followed in ‘The Tiger’; the poet again poses the question of ‘who created’, but this time, he cannot answer himself. This contrast is due to the fact that he accepts God as a good creator and a giver in ‘The Lamb’, but with gain of experience and broadening of the mind, he begins to wonder if the same creator could’ve created two animals of such different forms: -

“Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

The period in which ‘The Lamb’ is written is an innocent era in itself – it’s untested, and people had very narrow horizons – there were only certain ‘set’ paths one could follow in life. William Blake uses a singsong, nursery rhyme cadence and the imagery, rhythm and the simplistic language gives an idea of life as a gift from a beautiful God. Yet, ‘The Tiger’ offers completely different ideas to us – Blake’s questioning whether or not the same creator could’ve created such a monstrosity as the Tiger? One begins to recognise that perhaps the poet isn’t referring to animals at all in these two examples of his work – masked by the question “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” is the question “did he whom was responsible for my loving, carefree childhood is also responsible for the horrors of the modern world and the cruelty of man?” “Did he who made the kind men in my childhood make the evil men which roam the world today?” Innocence is certainly lost as one gains experience.

‘The Lamb’ largely revolves around the concept of creation and is written in an archaic style, similar to that of the Bible. The first stanza consists of a set of rhetorical questions, questioning the origins of the creature. The second stanza then provides the answers to these questions.

Very specific details of the Lamb’s visual appearance are given in the first stanza: -

“Gave thee clothing of delight

Softest clothing, woolly, bright?”

Unlike the highly metaphorical descriptions of the Tiger: -

“In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?”

Considering not many people had in Blake’s era had seen a tiger, perhaps The Tiger in reality is the evils of man e.g. French Revolution. It’s therefore conclusive that the Lamb is a link to the ‘innocent past’, opposed to the tiger which is seen as the evil present situation of the world.

Also, if the above quotations are further analysed, the perception of God the creator is extremely different – a good, giving, gentle God is responsible for the design of the Lamb, but a powerful, fearsome, ‘fiery’ God gave birth to the Tiger. The God described by Blake in ‘The Lamb’ is very close to the Earth and its inhabitants, but its apparent that God is far away in ‘distant deeps and skies’ in ‘The Tiger’ – is this a suggestion of Blake losing his faith due to the horrors he’s witnessed whilst developing from a child into an adult? If not, he’s certainly questioning his faith; this is evident due to the fact that he cannot answer questions in his adulthood that he could’ve easily answered in his infant years.

One definite difference between both poems is that they each represent the two extremes: the ultimate good and the ultimate bad - Heaven and Hell. Blake is contrasting the two aspects of human nature and perhaps underlining the fact that not all things created by God are good – some men have good intentions, some are quite the opposite.

Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience portray, as whole works, the dialectical progress of consciousness into fateful, yet powerful and necessary self-knowledge. The Lamb develops into the Tiger – innocence is the price that must me paid to attain an identity in ‘grown-up land’. It has to sacrifice its meek, mild, gentile innocence to become the Tiger of Experience prowling the ‘dark forests’ of life.

In conclusion, I feel William Blake is attempting to transmit an important message: never mind how innocent we are during our naïve, happy playground days, the big bad world is awaiting us all, and we have to stop resisting and accept that we’re all going to develop into Tigers at some point – gaining our own unique symmetry in place of our soft, delightful, tender selves. Life past, present and future poses many questions – it’s up to us to answer them, to discover our true identities, and to decide where exactly our faith lies. Innocence is the foundation upon which experience is built.