“Little lamb, who made thee?” Line 1
“Dost thou know who made thee?” Line 2
In addition, here we see that Blake has pre-modified the noun, “lamb.” by using the adjective, “little.” Before it.
“Little lamb.” Line 1
This emphasises how innocuous Blake wants the lamb to be portrayed and how defenceless the lamb really is. The adjectives used to describe the lamb are connotative; they make the reader feel protective over the lamb, as the lamb is portrayed as a beautiful and innocent creation.
Blake has used a collection of adjectives to make the reader respond in this way,
“Little…delight…softest…tender…rejoice…meek…mild.”
These words make the reader think of childhood, innocence, and naivety. The poem “the lamb.” Also, have a lot of religious connotations and references to god,
“Meek, and he is mild.” Line 15
These adjective are sparsely used, when they are they are usually used in a religious context, i.e. many hymns used these words to describe the child Jesus. This personification of the lamb makes it seem as if the lamb is almost god like. The poem ends with the phrase,
“God bless thee!” Line 20
This seems almost as an answer to his first question,
“Who made thee?” Line 1
We see, only at the end how important god has been through out the poem and the reader will realise that the poem is about god making the lamb in his image.
The reader may realise that in the first verse every line ends with a Question for example,
“Dost thou know who made thee?” Line 2
Where as in the last stanza there are no questions, this is because the second stanza is a reply to the first. We know this as the first line of the second stanza begins with,
“Little lamb, I tell thee.” Line 11
In this perspective, the poem could almost be viewed as a dialect. This makes the poem seem less formal than “The tiger.”
“The tiger.” Was written in a very formal manner to emit the aggressiveness of the tiger, but also how weary humans should be around this magnificent beast. In “The tiger.” Blake uses a lot more alliteration,
“Burning bright.” Line 1
“Distant deeps.” Line 5
“Began to beat.” Line 11
We also start to realise a pattern here that in every verse there is at least one piece of alliteration.
There are many religious references in ”The tiger.” also, instead of these connotations being used to emit godliness in a manner of innocence and beauty it is more majestic and the temptation of the forbidden. The tiger could be viewed as the devil as the lamb is viewed as god, both powerful, but one is forbidden while the other is innocent. These animals are total opposites and this is why we see many contrasts within the poem.
The reader may realise the difference in the description of how these animals are made,
“Gave thee clothing of delight, softest clothing, woolly bright?” “The lamb.” Line 6 & 7
“What hammer? What chain? In what furnace was thy brain?” “The tiger.” Line 13 & 14
Automatically there is a difference in the structure of these two lines, where in “The lamb.” Blake has used enjambment to allow the description of the lambs making flow; he has used sharp short sentences to describe the harsh and brutal process in which the tiger was made. We can assume that Blake believes that god is involved in the making of both the tiger and the lamb,
“Did he who make the lamb make thee?” Line 20
Yet in both poems, Blake has refereed to god as he and Blake is questioning who the creators are of these two paradoxical animals.
We are lead to believe that the tiger is evil, as not only it is an opposite of the lamb, which was made in god image,
“He is called by thy name, for he calls himself a lamb.” Line 14
In addition, the physical description of the tiger emits a hellish atmosphere,
“Burnt the fire of thine eyes?” Line 6
“In what distant deeps.” Line 5
The poem ends on a melancholic ending, Blake repeats the first verse but omits “could.” Blake replaces “could.” with the word,
“Dare.” Line 24
We see here that Blake has decided that some one powerful has created this being almost as a challenge, still I believe it also acts as a warning; who dare challenge god.
