The Prey And The Preda

William Blakes’ Songs of Innocence and of Experience mix the innocent, meek world of childhood against the intimidating and corrupt adult world. Many of the poems are put into pairs and can be seen through both innocence and experience. This allows two different perspectives of how people can view the world. The contrasting poems of The Lamb and The Tyger portray how both purity and evil can be present in the world. When reading “The Lamb”, it is like a lullaby or a nursery rhyme for a child.

A reason for this is the rhymed couplets throughout the poem and the repetition in the first and last couplet of each stanza, making it a song-like quality. Using words, such as ‘delight’ and ‘wooly bright’, brings a sense of happiness and pleasure.

Blake uses simple words as though it was told through the eyes of a child. In the poem, the lamb is associated with Jesus “for he calls himself a Lamb”.

In the Bible, Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God. A lamb is a symbol of spirituality and innocence. The logic of this poem is that God creates sweet and good things like the lamb, so God must be sweet and good. “The Tyger” questions the logic of “The Lamb.” While both poems have rhymed couplets and repetition, “The Tyger” has more of an intimidating and harsh tone. It is claimed that God is all-loving, then how could he “frame thy fearful symmetry?. The poem main focus is how can someone create such a dangerous animal.

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The creator is compared to a blacksmith wielding the creature and wondering if he is happy with his work. The naïve poem of “The Lamb” is paired up with “The Tyger” to show that both innocence and evil exist simultaneously in the world. Filled with questions, it is acknowledged of what is unexplained in the universe. With his poems, Blake created illuminated printings, which is an interaction between text and image. Images can help us understand the text better. The illuminated printing for “The Lamb” has colors of yellow and gold. Vegetation is green and growing showing a happy and healthy environment. A guardian is present to protect the group of lambs, like a shepherd. Overall, the image gives an idyllic setting.

On the other hand, the printing of “The Tyger” uses darker colors like blue, brown, and black. The trees are dead and the tiger stands alone. Overall, the setting is dull to focus on the frightening predator. Blake’s lyrical poems in Songs of Innocence and Experience are paired up to compare and contrast the naïve and good to the harsh experiences of the adult world. The first pair of poems are simply stated, but “Songs of Experience” is more complex, showing the more you learn, the more you don’t know. “The Tyger” attempts to confront the real, chaotic forces in the world that innocence fails to show.