Comparison/Contrast of "The Tyger" and "The Lamb" by Blake
William Blake's "The Tyger" and "The Lamb" are both very short poems in which the author poses rhetorical questions to what, at a first glance, would appear to be a lamb and a tiger. In both poems he uses vivid imagery to create specific connotations, and both poems contain obvious religious allegory. The contrast between the two poems is much easier to immediately realize: "The Lamb" was published in a Blake anthology entitled "The Songs of Innocence" which depicted life through the childlike eyes of the naive, whereas "The Tyger" was written six years later and included in the Blake add-on anthology "The Songs of Experience" which depicted life in a much more realistic and painful light. Both poems share a common AABB rhyme scheme and they are both in regular meter. In "The Tyger," Blake paints a picture of a powerful creature with eyes of fire and dread hands and feet. He asks rhetorical questions with a respectful awe that is almost fearful, and makes the setting more foreign to the reader by including imagery like "the forests of the night." By contrast, Blake's portrait of "The Lamb" is one of innocence and childli
When he asks "The Tyger" "What immortal hand or eye; Could frame thy fearful symmetry," he makes references to a blacksmith-like creator, but he is not so much asking whose hand or eye (the obvious answer being "God's") - rather, he is asking "what sort of?" Blake is wondering what sort of powerful force could possibly have the means to create this fearsome animal. In "The Lamb," however, Blake is much more lucid about his theories of origin. "The Tyger" is almost an examination of the horrors in the world while "The Lamb" examines only that which is "bright," "tender" and "mild. " Despite these discrepancies, both poems are extremely similar in several more obvious ways. Just as he did in "The Tyger," Blake asks the lamb rhetorically who made it and from whence it came; in this poem, however, Blake makes it clear that he will answer his own questions ("Little Lamb I'll tell thee"), and then goes on to say that it was not only made by its creator, but it is also like its creator. " The use of words like "night," "burning" and "terrors" in "The Tyger" create quite a contrary image for the reader than that of "The Lamb. One set of eyes gazes in wonderment in the direction of a little Christ-like lamb which grazes by the stream clothed in the softest wool, while the other set of eyes looks directly into the less-understandable face of a fierce tiger, burning brightly in nighttime forests with a powerful, sinewy heart and eyes of fire. Ultimately, Blake is exploring his own thoughts about good and evil, and the ability for life to be at the same time both delightful and horrifying. For these reasons, despite their contrasts, "The Tyger" and "The Lamb" are both poems about life and creation, and both leave lasting, vivid images in the reader's mind. They share a simple rhyme scheme, and both explore concepts of nature but expand these concepts into religious allegory and metapoetic ideas about an almighty Creator and his or her underlying reasons for creating two radically different creatures. "The Lamb" is reflective of the Creator's love and inherent goodwill towards all living things, while "The Tyger" is the embodiment of the ultimate power and might of the Creator's ability. The pastoral, idyllic images painted in "The Lamb" are also in direct contrast to the more foreboding, vaguely sinister landscape which Blake creates in "The Tyger. Although both poems share a common medium (an animal) through which to examine all of creation, the reader leaves each poem with very different feelings.
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