Monday, March 10, 2014

The Lamb and The Tiger

In William Blake's poems The Lamb and The Tiger, the speaker's two different relationships the speaker and his creator are shown through contrasting tone and word choice.
The Lamb is written as if the speaker is addressing someone who does not understand their creator, saying things like "Little Lamb, who made thee?/ Dost thou know made thee?". The speaker shows that he knows the answer to this question and that he is confident in it by acting as a teacher. In The Tiger, however, speaker is the one who needs answers, asking such questions as "What immortal hand or eye,/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?". In both poems the speaker is addressing someone about the nature of God, but his two contrasting behaviors show.
The difference in the speaker's attitude is demonstrated in the overall tone of each poem. In The Lamb he uses positive language,  describing god as "making all vales rejoice" and "he is meek and mild". In contrast in The Tiger,  the language is much more frightening and intimidating. He describes the creator as possessing "dread grasp" and "dread hand" in the making of the tiger.

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