Analysis of The Tyger and The Lamb by WILLIAM BLAK

时间：2025-07-12

Analysis of The Tyger and The Lamb by WILLIAM

BLAKE

Introduction

"The Tyger" ,one of William Blake(1759-1827)’s most famous poem published in a collection of poems called Songs of Experience , Blake wrote "The Tyger" during his more radical period. He wrote most of his major works during this time railing against oppressive institutions like the church or the monarchy, or any and all cultural traditions which stifled imagination or passion."The Lamp" wrote into his another poetry collection Songs of Innocence, in which contains idyllic poems.Many of those idyllic poems deal with childhood and innocence. Idyllic poems have pretty specific qualities: they’re usually positive, sometimes extremely happy or optimistic and innocent. They also often take place in pastoral settings and many times praise one or more of these things as subjects.Those two masterpieces reflected poet's meditation about the nature of humanity.

"Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence" .Addressing the contrasts of different states of the human mind is the main concern of William Blake. As a British Romantic poet of the 18th century, William Blake addresses the contrasts of different states of the human mind in his works Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The main poem from this collection, "The Lamb," epitomizes innocence and the relationship between the young and the divine. In singsong verse, a curious child questions the nature of a gentle lamb, and he learns what he already knows: God created the lamb. World events and life itself greatly affected Blake. In Songs of Experience (1794), the sequel to Songs of Innocence, he addresses his loss of "faith in the goodness mankind" caused by the fall of the French Revolution. The outstanding poem from this collection, "The Tyger," seeks the answer to the unknown: how can the god who created the peaceful lamb also be the creator of the fierce, destructive tiger? The speaker asks many questions, but receives no answer. That same year, Blake combined the two contrasting works into Songs of Innocence and Experience "The Tyger" just might be William Blake’s most famous poem. Published in a collection of poems :Songs of Experience in 1794, Blake wrote "The Tyger" during his more radical period. He wrote most of his major works during this time, often railing against oppressive institutions like the church or the monarchy, or any and all cultural traditions – sexist, racist, or classist – which stifled imagination or passion. Blake published an earlier collection of poetry:the Songs of Innocence in 1789. Once Songs of Experience came out five years later, the two were always published together. In general, Songs of Innocence contains idyllic poems, many of which deal with childhood and innocence. Idyllic poems have pretty specific qualities: they’re

usually positive, sometimes extremely happy or optimistic and innocent. They also often take place in pastoral settings :think countryside; springtime; harmless, cute wildlife; sunsets; babbling brooks; wandering bards; fair maidens, and many times praise one or more of these things as subjects.

The poems in Songs of Experience, on the other hand, wrestle with issues of what happens when that innocence is lost. "The Tyger" is often paired with the poem called "The Lamb" from Songs of Innocence.The former references the latter and reexamines the themes of "The Lamb" through the lens of experience. "The Lamb" is one of those idyllic poems which asks the Lamb who made "thee" ,just like "The Tyger", praises how soft and cute it is, then tells it that God made it and how wonderful that is. Blake's tone almost seems ironic , he actually means something very different than what he seems to be saying.Many scholars have argued just that, especially when paired next to his poems about the dangers of religious dogma. The content of these two poem as following shows:

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,