“Lamb and The Tiger”

“Lamb and The Tiger”

William Blake (1757-1827)

 

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 seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“The Lamb by William Blake”

William Black(1757-1827)

Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

 

 

 

Show how Blake deals with contrary states of his Songs of Innocence and Experience with reference to “The Lamb and the Tiger”

 

                                        The two sets of Blake’s “songs” – were originally composed separately : Innocence , etched in 1789, preceded Experience by five years. When Blake issued to two collections together, in 1794, he gave the volume an interesting subtitle: “showing the two contrary states of the Human soul”. The idea of ‘contraries’ provides an important in element in Blake thought, a method of meeting away deceptive surface appearances of things to make his readers respond to the reality without presupposition.

 

                                      This recognition of existence and importance of alternatives which may be equally true and may be equally  passionately , held, is fundamentally Blake. These he called 'contraries', and he considered them fundamental  in humor growth and learning , In songs of Innocence and experience similar events are watched from contrary angles. In ‘contraries’, together give a complete vision, there is also give a complete vision, there is also a suggestion that the differences are resolved in a higher principle symbolized by Chris, something like the relativist theory that paralleled lines meet in infinitive to understand this completeness in contradiction, we have few better examples than the contrast and collaboration of “The Lamb” of Innocence and The Tyger of Experience.  

 

                                      The "Lamb" is a Traditional symbol of innocence and is often used as such as such in the Bible, especially in the New Testament where Christ is the ‘Lamb of God’, who offered himself as a sacrificing for the sins of mankind. God took human shape, and underwent suffering and an agonizing death on the cross. Thus the ‘Lamb’ symbolizes God’s love. The ‘lamb’ symbol, is very basic in Songs of Innocence, for, in the Introduction the child voice asks, “Pipe a song about a lamb”. This Lamb – Christ equation is the care of ‘The Lamb’;

 

“I a child, and thou a lamb

We are called by his name”

    

But Blake in the poem enquires into the source of the lamb/child/Christ innocence, into the nature of God who created the Lamb: “Little Lamb who made thu?”

 

                                                Who made the lamb? No doubt some benevolent being, very lamb life in character. But who made the Tiger? the force beast is the contrary of the lamb, and symbolizes God’s wrath . But Blake asks, “Did he who made thee lamb?” the answer is, of course, “yes”; the contraries originated from the same cosmic womb.

 

                                                This Tiger of Blake is a creature of deadly terror, symbolizing the dreadful forces of the World, just as the Lamb symbolizes gentleness, vulnerability an innocence. The fearsome beast calls forth the emotion of amazement, wonder and this gives rise to wondering question about the nature of his creature:

 

“On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?”

 

But the ‘fire’ of the tiger’s eyes is not only fighting and destructive, it can also purify, illuminate and be an instruments of creation. Hence, Blake uses two creative images. God hammering out the shape as a Blacksmith and twisting the sinews as a potter. The ‘forest of the night’ also become a multi-layered symbol. It is not only the dark jungle in which the tiger lurks but the tangled maze of error, abstract reasoning and tyranny that keep good man in throne, denying him his natural state of innocence. The tiger, thus, is an aspect of the burring spirit of revolt, of violence - an inconvenience state without which perhaps innocence can never be recovered.   

 

                                                Thus the lamb and the tiger ultimately meet, as contraries shot in the conception of the source of creation, “Little Lamb who made thu?” the answer is - the God who created the tiger. Blake thus affirms the oneness of God, the holiness of prophetic wrath which serves as protection against the destroyers of Christ and Lamb.

 Explanation

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame try fearful symmetry?

 

                                      These lines are extracted from Blake’s The Tyger. addressing the tiger, the poet expresses his wonder of the terrifying look of its well-formed boy. Its two eyes burn like fire in the darkness of the night. The formation of the tiger is well-balanced . the animal is a mixture of beauty and dread. No mortal hand could produce such a creature, no mortal eye could see to the proper shaping of it. The poet is full of owe for the super human artistry of the maker of the tiger.

 

                                                  It is important to note that Blake presents the fierceness of nature not through a symbolic object – a tiger – but through that object embodied in particular language. The phrase burning bright makes the tiger a symbol burning quality - wrath, passion. The word bright modifies the kind of burning --- it brings a sense of light, something glorious in the quality symbolized.  The forests of night may refer to the darkness of night, it may also mean ignorance, repression and superstition --- human experiences which have to be broken by the terrifying forces which are symbolized by the Tiger. Fearful Symmetry refers to the blend of beauty and dreed in the conception of the tiger. The poem is a series of questions. That shows the wonder of the speaker.

How does Blake blend child-Like innocence and adult wisdom in The Tyger and the Lamb?

 

 

                                   William Blake is the most questionable and mysterious figure throughout the entire existence of English Literature who shows up in the late eighteenth century with a progressive energy to split away the ordinary universal culture recorded as a hard copy sonnets. He dismisses sound judgment and accepts that the enthusiastic world is incredible. His creative mind as often as possible represents dynamic good truth as he thinks about heaviness likely could be found in his Songs of blamelessness and Songs of Experience which contain probably the most enchanting verses at any point composed I English. The two assortments of sonnets represent two differentiated mentalities to life and ides. On the off chance that in the Songs of Innocence the youngster like straightforwardness and trust in heavenly nature have been reflected, in The Songs of Experience the injuries and brutalities of human progress, of custom and law have been ventilated. In The Lamb he has communicated in completely basic but then golder expression the satisfaction and honesty of a Child's first contemplation about existence. Here Blake appears to turn into a youngster living in a universe of bliss, excellence and love. The artist shows that the awesome voice of adolescence is unchallenged by the test and the questions of understanding. In The Tyger there are articulations of marvel and cross examination as we have in The Lamb; yet it is the miracle of another sort, - awe that man can acknowledge the open brutality of man. Here Blake is tragic, practically severe, not from the fortifying distresses but since experience has instructed him that man are visually impaired. In The Tyger Blake shows that men are oblivious of the genuine information on the spiritual nature of life since they lean toward motivations to the mysterious vision, and law and profound quality to regular drive. In this way, The Tyger portrays how experience demolishes the blameless condition of youth and gets damaging powers its place. It breaks the free existence of creative mind and builds up a dull, cold and detaining dread. In the sonnet, The Lamb removed from the Songs of blamelessness, Blake portrays the security and affirmation of presence that has a place with Lamb under a savvy shepherd or to kid with adoring guardians. Be that as it may, in The Tyger in the Songs of Experience the writer talks about experience that wrecks the condition of kid like honesty. In this manner The Lamb and The Tyger are in piercing diverge from one another. The two sonnets speaks to the two parts of Christ, Blake's image of the heavenly soul. Sheep's tenderness and tyger's savagery are the differentiating characteristics of the human psyche. At the point when the sheep is obliterated y experience, the tyger is expected to reestablish the world. In The Lamb Blake gives one sort of presence which is splendid with delight and congruity, yet in The Tyger he discovers its place taken by another which is dull and vile.

 

                                       2.The two poems are sharply contrasted with their beginning. The lamb begins with the innocent question:

“Little Lamb , who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?”

The Tyger begins with the striking  terror:

“Tyge! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame try fearful symmetry?”

Again, all through the poem, The Lamb we observe the child-like innocent description of the Lamb about its ‘Clothing of delight’, ‘tender voice’, gentility, mildness, meekness etc. The poet has drawn a beautiful similarity between the Lamb, the child and God bestowed upon the innocent Lamb. On the other hand, the poet has given a fearful and terrible description of the tyger and also the enormous power of the creator. The Tiger which stands for experience gives a description of the terrible appearance and strength, of the Tyger. The poet describes its dazing, burning eyes, strong soldier and sinews, powerful heart, fiery brain, terrible and dreadful feet by which it can destroy the evils which kill the innocent Lamb.

                                    3. The child like quality of the lamb lies in the tittle boy’s unconscious but serious address to the lamb:

“Little Lamb, who made thee?”

He is no doubt about the answer which identifies the nature of the child and of the Lamb with the creator:

“He is called by the name,

For He calls Himself a Lamb.”

 

The Poet emphasizes the joy of the immanent God, His mildness and His tenderness, His mildness and His tenderness. The lamb which is at first the symbol of God’s created ‘innocence’ is identified in Jesus, ‘The Lamb of God’. By ‘Clothing of delight’ Blake thinks of ‘innocence’ as one clothing for the soul and ‘experience’ as another. Again, by the expression, ‘He is meek and He is mild’ Blake obviously echoes the mildness and innocence of God represented through the lamb. Christ shows gentleness, innocence and meekness, the very qualities of a child. In the poem The Lamb, the child and Christ are identical because they are all innocent:

“I a child, and thou a lamb,

We are called by His name.”

 

Thus the poem The Lamb is fought with deeper philosophical idea of innocence, mildness and meekness about the comic world.                                                        4. The Tiger deals with the fierce forces of the soul which are needed to break the bands of experience. The ‘forests of the night’ in which the tyger lurks are ignorance, repression and superstition. It has been fashioned  by unknown supernatural spirits, like Blake’s mystical hears, Orc and Los, prodigious smiths who beat the living , world with their hammers; and  this happened when ‘the stars threw down  spears’,  that is, in some enormous cosmic crisis when the Universe turned round  in its course and began to move from light to darkness.

 

                                  5. Martin price writes, “The Tyger is the best known of Blake’s songs and the most frequently and elaborately interpreted.” The ‘fearful symmetry’ deals with the initial puzzle; the ‘symmetry’ implies an ordering hand or intelligence, the ‘fearful’ throws doubt on the benevolence of the creator. The ‘forests of the night’ are the darkness out of which the tyger looms; they also embody the doubt or confusion that surrounds the origin of the tyger .  In the case of the Lamb the creator calls Himself a Lamb; in the case of the tyger the creator again is like what He creates and He is supposed to be the Promethean Smith working violently at His forge.

                             6. On the use of symbols, The Lamb deals with the innocence, patience, gentility and meekness. The Lamb has the innocence of the child and the innocence of the child and the innocence of its creator. But The Tyger deals with the immense problems of evil. Blake never considers evil abstractly; therefore evil must be the tyger is how to reconcile the forgiveness of sins. So it is evident that the climax of the tyger:

“Did He who made the Lamb make thee?”

Is not an exclamation of wonder but a very real question, the answer of which is also uncertain to Blake? Blake intends to suggest that the great purpose of wrath is to consume error, to annihilate those stubborn beliefs which cannot be removed by the two poems are dealing with two opposite ideas of the poet about the existence of the human soul in two different ways.

                                  7. The two poems though apparently appear to be as simple as lullaby. Yet they signify deeper philosophical thoughts about comic world. The poet probes deep into the spiritual world and deals with the creation of God. His prophetic vision and realization about divinity throw him from the petty boundary of the material world to the world of divinity and spiritualism. Therefore his poems lutray the glimpses of his vision about God and His mysterious creation.   

 

“Did He who made the Lamb make thee?”

Bring out the significance of this line from your reading of The Lamb and The Tiger

 

William Blake is the most controversial and enigmatic figure in the History of English literature appear in the late nineteenth century with a revolutionary zeal to break away the conventional orthodox culture in writing poems. He rejects common sense  and believes that the material world is unreal. His imagination frequently symbolizes philosophy of life  and his sense of divinity may well be found in his  Songs of  Innocence and Songs of Experience. The two collection of poem stand for two contrasted attitudes to life and ideas. If in the Songs of Innocence the child-like simplicity  and trust in divinity have been reflected, in the Songs of Experience the wounds and cruelties of civilization, of custom and law have been ventilated . Obviously, The Lamb which is included in the  Songs of Innocence and The Tiger  which is included in the Songs of Experience bear two opposite ideas of Blake. The two poems deal with two contrary states of human soul. – Innocence and Experience.In the Lamb the poet has expressed in perfectly simple yet golden diction the happiness and innocence  of a child’s first thoughts about life.  Here Blake seems to become  a child living in a World of happiness, beauty and love. In The Tyger  Blake shows that men are ignorant of the true knowledge of the spiritual nature of life  because they prefer reason to the mystical vision, and law and morality to natural impulse. Therefore, The Tiger describes how experience destroys the innocent state of childhood and brings divestment forces in its place. It breaks the free life of imagination and establishes a dark, Old and imprisoning fear. In The Tiger the poet speaks of experience that destroys the state of child- like innocence. Therefore, The Lamb and The Tiger are in poignant contrast with each other as they are the symbols of two different states of human soul.

 

Christ is represented by both the Lamb and the Tiger. He has the accommodation of the Lamb and the anger of the Tiger. Maybe Blake implies that it is dependent upon man to offer shape to the tremendous potentialities with which he is supplied. R. S. Eliot says, "In the senescent of the year come Christ the tiger." The tiger symbolize by Blake the 'plentiful life' which Christ came to bring into the World. The tiger is Blake's image of re aeration and vitality. Did the maker grin with fulfillment to see the Tiger whom He had made? The tiger is satisfying to God, on the grounds that the Tiger is a piece of His motivation and delight. Blake here tries to orchestrate the duel parts of the spirit on a heavenly plane. The Lamb and The Tiger are two parts of God and are images of two diverse expressed of the human spirit. At the point when the Lamb is crushed by understanding, the tiger is expected to reestablish the world.e world.

In the universe there are two elements – the Lamb – like and the Tiger-like. Blake calls them innocence and experience. To the mind in the state of innocence the lamb appears to be a fit symbol of life, mild, innocent and beautiful. To the mind which has experienced the disappointments, sorrows and the injustices of life, its symbol is the tiger,  - relentless, strong, remorseless and beautiful. Thus, the tiger symbolizes the fierce forces in the soul, which are needed to break the bonds of experience. The two poems, The Tiger and The Lamb celebrates two contrary states of the human soul, innocence and experience. The Lamb celebrates the divinity and innocence of not merely the child, also of the harmless creature, the lamb. Here we observe the child like innocent description of the lamb about its ‘clothing of delight’, ‘tender voice’, gentility/ mildness, meekness, etc. The poet has drawn a beautiful similarity between the lamb, the child and God, creator. At last the poem closes with the desire of having the blessing of God bestowed upon the innocent lamb. On the other hand, the poet has given a fearful and terrible description of the tiger and also the enormous power of its creator. The Tiger which stands for experience gives a description of the terrible appearance and strength of the tiger. The poet describes its dazing, burning eyes, strong shoulder and sinews, powerful heart, fiery brain, terrible and dreadful feet by which it can destroy the evils which kill the innocent lamb.

The poet emphasizes the joy of the immanent God, His mildness and his tenderness. The Lamb which is the symbol of god’s created ‘innocence’ is identified in Jesus, ‘the lamb of god’. Christ shows gentleness, innocence and meekness, the very qualities of a child. The child, the lamb Christ pre identical because they are all innocent:

“I a child, and thou a lamb

We are called by His name.”

Thus the poem The Lamb is fought with deeper philosophical idea of innocence, mildness and meekness about the cosmic world. The Tiger deals with the fierce forces of soul which are needed to break the bands of experience.

 

The forest of the night, in which the tiger lurks are ignorance, repression and superstition. The Tiger shows how experience destroys the state of childlike innocence. When innocence is destroyed by experience, god creates the tiger to restore innocence. Both lamb and the tiger are created by God. The Lamb represents the mildness and gentler aspects of human nature The Tiger its harsher and fiercer aspect. The gross contrariety between the nature of the lamb and the tiger makes the poet ask –

 “Did He Who made the lamb make thee?”

There is nothing baffling and enigmatic in the question as the lamb and the tiger originate from the same creator who had to create the tiger to restore the lamb i.e. innocence in the soul of man during a great cosmic crisis.