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Essay / Comparison of two contrasting poems by William Blake
The Experience of Innocence In William Blake's “Songs of Innocence” he refers to the Lamb through many modes and even writes a song specifically titled “The Lamb”. In “The Lamb,” the child speaking reveals a gentle, hymn-like tone through a simplistic diction and rhyme scheme. The speaker also displays his closeness to God through his innocence, as seen by an experienced reader; the child speaks to the Lamb and does not know that Christ was the sacrificial lamb. Additionally, "The Lamb" shows how the innocent speaker takes the world at face value and does not question it, unlike Blake's later "Songs of Experience." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay “The Tyger” is the opposite of its companion poem, “The Lamb,” in several ways. First, although the titles of the two poems are very similar, each animal represents something completely different. The Tyger represents a powerful and potentially dangerous animal, while the Lamb is a symbol of weak and vulnerable innocence. Additionally, the Lamb is also the symbol of Christ and divinity and is found in both poems. In “The Tyger,” the speaker asks, “Did he who created the Lamb create you?” wondering if the Creator, God, created both good and evil in the world. “The Tyger” also differs from “The Lamb” in the speaker. In “The Tyger,” Blake has only one speaker, who does not accept the world as it is, but rather questions and reflects throughout the poem. Words such as “fire,” “night,” “furnace,” and “deadly terrors” describe a sense of darkness and mystery that one discovers through experiencing the world. The mysteries found show a sense of experience because it is an abstract thought that requires a deeper sense of the world and such that the mysteries are created to describe something that cannot be grasped rationally. Blake also asks in line 5, “In what depths or distant skies/Burn the fire of thine eyes?” In this stanza, Blake uses the depths and distant heavens as an abstract location where the speaker poses an ambiguous question as to whether the Tyger comes from hell or heaven, and whether he is good or evil. In "The Tyger", the speaker questions evil and mystery, unlike in "The Lamb", where the speaker is innocent and only speaks of the good things of the world, because he has not experienced the corruption. The comparison between the number of stanzas in the two poems also shows the opposite. In “The Lamb,” there are only two stanzas showing the simplicity of innocence, whereas in “The Tyger,” there are six stanzas showing the complexity of experience. Additionally, the rhyme schemes of the six stanzas give the poem a song-like feel, allowing for a more somber tone, while "The Lamb" has a rhyme scheme that would be more like a hymn, giving a calming tone to the poem. The differences between the two poems show the opposites between innocence and experience. Through “The Lamb,” Blake demonstrates the innocence of childhood and how children are closer to divinity because of their unawareness of the world. While on the contrary, Blake demonstrates through "The Tyger", how people grow and become more experienced, their worldview becomes tainted and, in a sense, blinded by the mysteries of the world..