Comparing The Lamb and The Tyger by William Blake

Comparing The Lamb and The Tyger by William Blake

In this essay I am going to analyse, compare and contrast two poems by

William Blake. They are called 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger'. I will be

looking at how Blake uses imagery, structure and form to create

effects and how the environment that Blake lived in affected the way

he wrote his poems.

In the late 18th century, the world was changing and developing into a

new world quite fast.

Blake was born in London, the third of five children. Because of the

relatively lower middle class status of his fathers line of work,

Blake was raised in a state of not quite poverty, but he saw what life

could really be like if he was down on his luck, and this he would

experience for the rest of his life.

When he was nineteen the American Revolution happened and this caused

great social unrest in the high and wealthy classes. Then, when he was

32, the French Revolution occurred which signalled the end of the

monarchy and aristocracy in France. This, not surprisingly, caused the

same area of society in Britain to fear that the same would happen in

their back yard.

Blake was still writing at the start of the Industrial Revolution,

this time became the primary phase in which heavy machinery was used

in factories and mines. This created a feeling of great political

upheaval and paranoia, shown by the appearance of the Luddites.

All these events affected the way Blake wrote, in the way that he

spoke about how the power of God can influence us, the world being a

beautiful place, but man not being in harmony with it all. Where he

lived was an awful place, he lived next to a graveyard and a

workhouse. People died in the street and he witnessed it all, but he

was stil...

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...bles as the one that preceded it. "By the

stream & and o'er mead" the missing 'v' in over reduces the amount of

syllables from two to one. This is so that the rhyming pattern will be

even (6,6,7,7,7,7,7,7,6,6) instead of (6,6,7,8,7,7,7,7,6,6), also most

of the rhymes in this poem are visual as well as oral this emphasizes

the poems rhymes and thus allowing the message to get through clearer.

The language used in 'the Tyger' is, in places, very similar to that

of 'the lamb'. It uses alliteration in the phrase, "burning bright" to

emphasize how striking the colour of this animals coat is.

It also uses the old forms of address and it too has visual rhymes as

well as oral ones.

But what it has that 'the lamb' doesn't is, it repeats words one after

the other in the phrase "Tyger, Tyger", this is used the same way

alliteration is to stress the metaphor.