William Blake free essay sample

A Innocence and Experience During the Romantic Age, many poets focused on connecting with their audience on a deeper level by writing about mundane topics. William Blake exemplifies this characteristic of Romantic Age poets with his use of animals, cities, and everyday jobs, such as the chimney sweeps. By using such relatable topics, Blake’s audience is able to better understand the comparisons included in his Songs of Innocence and his Songs of Experience. William Blake’s poems, â€Å"The Little Lamb†, from Songs of Innocence, and â€Å"The Tyger†, from Songs of Experience, are similar and contrasting through Blake’s incorporation of nature, human emotion, and biblical allusions, which were characteristics of the Romantic Age. William Blake creates a comparison between the innocence of â€Å"The Little Lamb†, and the experience of â€Å"The Tyger†, by using elements of nature to show similar and different characteristics of the lamb and the tyger. In â€Å"The Little Lamb†, Blake refers to parts of nature such as the â€Å"stream† and the â€Å"wooly, bright† wool of the lamb. The stream relates to water, which translates to purity and the figurative sense of washing away sins and evilness. The bright wool of the lamb creates the image of pure whiteness, lending to the innocence and purity of the lamb. On the contrasting hand, â€Å"The Tyger† contains much more vivid and dark incorporations of nature. The poem begins with â€Å"Tyger! burning bright in the forests of night†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Giola McCarthy 2 amp; Kennedy, 1149). From the beginning, a feeling of evil and fear comes over the reader, which is quite the opposite of the overall atmosphere of â€Å"The Little Lamb†. The main contribution that nature possesses for this comparison is the concept of good versus evil. Blake uses nature in â€Å"The Little Lamb† to paint a picture of pureness and innocence. The lamb, which could translate to an innocent child, not yet exposed to the cruel reality, represents the good in the corrupt world. On the subject matter, Louis Untermeyer described Blake’s Songs of Innocence as â€Å"†¦not only happy, but simple hearted. Childlike†¦ the objects of the visible world are seen with candid pleasure and stated with frank delight. On the other side, the tyger, represents all things experienced and vicious. Untermeyer comments that in contrast of innocence, for experience there is â€Å"no protection; heedless delight, and unrestrained pleasure [that] gives way to acceptance of pain. † (292) Instead of being oblivious to the evils of the world, experience â€Å"first discovers evil and then is forced to accept it. † (Untermeyer, 292) Although nature mostly contributes to the differences of the poems, it also lends help to creating similarities. Nature evokes human relation to the lamb and the tyger, since they are both creatures and understandable concepts. Although quite different, â€Å"Blake pits the ‘fearful symmetry’ and burning brilliance of the tyger against the placid lamb, and finds both equally beautiful, equally framed by the ‘immortal hand and eye’. † (Untermeyer, 292) Overall, Blake intended for the contrasts in â€Å"The Little Lamb† and   Human emotion plays a key role in the development of the lamb and the tyger’s comparison, which Blake creates through imagery and diction. Blake was very talented and â€Å"†¦his work, like his life, fluctuated between the world of pure vision and the world of brute violence. † (Untermeyer, 293) Imagery used in â€Å"The Little Lamb† creates calmness and confidence that there is hope for the world and still ensures that there is purity among all of the corruption. References to the â€Å"clothing of delight †, the â€Å"tender voice†, and the â€Å"vales rejoice†, inscribe happiness and exaltations to the reader’s emotions. The symbol that the lamb represents is the goodness in the world, something that humans emotionally cling to in times of despair and desperation, when they need the reinforcement that there is still hope for the world even in times of great evil. In contrast, â€Å"The Tyger† creates emotions formed from the feeling of being afraid and having insecurities. Imagery like â€Å"burning bright†, â€Å"forests of the night†, â€Å"fearful symmetry†, â€Å"distant deeps or skies†, and â€Å"deadly terrors clasp† (Giola, 1149) causes  readers to feel scared and almost preyed upon by the vicious fear that the tyger instills. Diction offers influence to the emotions also. In â€Å"The Little Lamb†, Blake’s diction is very important to the overall positive mood. â€Å"Life†, â€Å"feed†, â€Å"softest†, â€Å"bright†, â€Å"tender†, â€Å"rejoice†, â€Å"meek†, â€Å"mild†, and â€Å"child†, all contribute to the innocence and sweet feeling that Blake captures. Diction in â€Å"The Tyger† is very different. â€Å"Night†, â€Å"immortal†, â€Å"frame†, â€Å"distant†, â€Å"burnt†, â€Å"fire†, â€Å"dare†, â€Å"twist†, â€Å"dread†, â€Å"hammer†, â€Å"chain†, â€Å"furnace†, â€Å"grasp†, â€Å"spears†, and â€Å"tears† give a feeling of a fiery hell that is inescapable. The McCarthy 4 reader feels trapped and enclosed in a never-ending fiery â€Å"furnace† of destruction and pain, extremely opposite of the feelings created from â€Å"The Little Lamb†. Because of his strong appeal to emotion and use of pathos, Blake’s poems were quite talked about among his audience. â€Å"I think it is a fair assumption that Blakes Songs of Innocence and of Experience were well known by many members of the†¦community†. (Stauffer) To create a deeper comparison between the innocence and experience, Blake uses biblical allusions. â€Å"The Little Lamb† overall is a metaphor for Jesus Christ, as He is the only perfect example of innocence and is referred to as the Lamb in the bible, as the narrator tells the little lamb â€Å"He is called by your name†. Also in biblical times, lambs were used as sacrifices, which Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for the world’s sins on the cross. The speaker asks the lamb, â€Å"who made thee? † multiple times. Then in the second part of the poem, he changes tone and says â€Å"Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee†. Blake incorporates how Jesus became a little child and that everyone and every creature belongs to God. Blake stresses his belief that â€Å"he conceived God as the spiritual power in man; apart from mankind he could find no meaning in God. † (Norton, 68) â€Å"The Tyger† is a metaphor for the devil, in that it is nothing but evil, and looking to tear goodness to pieces. In this poem, Blake questions what kind of creator could have made this beast. Many references are also made to hell through Blake’s inclusion of fire and the feeling he creates of being trapped. Imagery referencing the genesis, evolution, and redemption of this fiery McCarthy 5 Creature,† (Miner) alludes to the book of Revelations and the fiery end for those who have not found the mercy of God. â€Å"The Little Lamb† and â€Å"The Tyger† force the reader to look at the deeper meaning, which although the lamb is pure and the tyger is experienced, God created both creatures for a purpose. God did not create evil, but He gave his creations the option to choose good or evil with their own free will. Even though Blake writes â€Å"the most absolutely straightforward, [it] can make complex demands on a reader because they are parts of a larger, much less transparent whole. † (Ruff) Overall, William Blake creates a unique comparison between â€Å"The Little Lamb†, from his Songs of Innocence†, and â€Å"The Tyger†, from his Songs of Experience, by incorporating nature, human emotions, and biblical allusions. Although the differences between them outweigh the similarities, this is what Blake intended so the readers would be able to understand the obvious difference between good and evil through this great contrast.  These poems belong together since they act as foils towards each other, bringing out the important details and differences that give each poem their true meaning.