Analysis Of Blake's Songs Of Innocence And Experience By William Blake

In 1789, English poet William Blake first produced his famous poetry collection Songs of Innocence which “combines two distinct yet intimately related sequences of poems” (“Author’s Work” 1222). Throughout the years, Blake added more poems to his prominent Songs of Innocence until 1794, when he renamed it Songs of Innocence and Experience. The additional poems, called Songs of Experience, often have a direct counterpart in Blake’s original Songs of Innocence, producing pairs such as “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” In Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake uses musical devices, structure, and symbolism to develop the theme that experience brings both an awareness of potential evil and a tendency that allows it to become dominant over childhood

Similar to common nursery rhymes, Blake uses musical devices in both “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” which brings an awareness of potential evil and how it dominates over innocence by exercising specific language in both related poems. For example, Blake uses alliteration in “The Lamb” by repeating “Little Lamb” several times during the poem to grasp the reader’s attention. Along with alliteration, Blake’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” both capture the reader’s attention by using rhyme scheme. For example, Blake’s use of couplets in both of the related poems potentially brings an awareness of how evil dominates over innocence. Blake utilizes the couplet series in his poem “The Tyger” and proves his theme by comparing and contrasting the tyger and the lamb and even bravely asks if the same Creator who created the innocent little lamb also created the potentially evil tyger

For example, in “The Lamb,” Blake portrays the lamb as a symbol of purity and innocence by describing it as meek and mild, tender voiced, and softly and brightly clothed (6, 7, and 15). With these descriptive adjectives, the reader can easily interpret that Blake is using the lamb to symbolize an innocent child. However, in “The Tyger,” the tyger is symbolized as potentially evil and dominant. Blake describes the tyger as being fiery-eyed, framed with fearful symmetry, and made in the fiery furnace of hell therefore depicting the tyger as a symbol of evil (4,6, and 14). He also states how even the heavens and the earth were upset with the creation of this evil being, and, as a result, “the stars threw down their spears / And water’d heaven with their tears” (17-18). Through Blake’s use of description the reader is able to visualize what is happening throughout the poem, and the reader can draw conclusions and discern the symbolism in both “The Lamb” and “The