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How does Blake present the contrary states of innocence and

             Songs of Innocence and Experience' juxtaposes the innocent and pastoral world of childhood against the adult world of corruption, with 'The Lamb' representing a meek virtue and 'The Tyger' showing opposing, darker forces. The lamb is the voice of a child, whilst some critics believe the Tyger is a presence of evil. Keynes believes The Tyger' contains the "riddle of the universe-. The Lamb', on the other hand, is much less complex.
             Blake was a supporter of the French Revolution, approving of the revolt against the authority of the Kings, but he was appalled by the anarchy the Revolution unleashed. It is believed by many critics that these attitudes are expressed in The Tyger'. Blake also shows his contempt for the Industrial Revolution in 'The Tyger', with many references to mechanical creation, rather than the innocence of nature, shown in 'The Lamb'. Innocence is conveyed through the lamb, which symbolises Jesus. The traditional image of Jesus as a lamb accentuates the Christian values of meekness and peace. The image of the child is also associated with Jesus. This poem, like many in 'Songs of Innocence' accepts what Blake saw as the positive aspects of Christian belief. The tyger is beautiful yet also terrible in its capacity for violence. I believe Blake is trying to put forward the question that what kind of God would design such a beast as the tyger? What does the existence of evil in the world tell us about the nature of God - and what does it mean to live in a world where a being can be both beauty and evilness? Pared with 'The Lamb', the two poems give a perspective on religion that includes the good as well as the evil. The poems complement each other and offer a good instance of how Blake perceives religion.
             The Songs of Innocence' portrays the nave hopes and fears that afflict the lives of children and trace their transformation into adulthood. The Lamb' is written from the perspective of a child and draws attention to natural human understanding before the corruption of experience.


Essays Related to How does Blake present the contrary states of innocence and

1. the tyger and the lamb

... , "The Lamb" and "The Tyger", from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, respectively, shows what Blake referred to as "the two contrary states of the human soul." In "The lamb", Blake creates what is the epitome of innocence for him, a gentle and caring creature, surrounded by pastoral imagery. In "The Tyger" however, the imagery changes, the focus is on the blazing fire, burning out of a dark sky, and the elusive, yet powerfully exhilarating Tyger. The change from innocence to experience is well documented, and serves to comment on the ... of the other, but instead they rely on t...

  • Word Count: 2271
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Songs of Innocent Experience

... to represent his view on the traditional Fall of man. Innocence represents Eden, experience represents the Fall, and the higher innocence represents the Fortunate Fall. In The Lamb and The Tyger, Blake sets up these contrary states that represent the human soul and shows how the two do not truly repel each other, but how they are dependent on each other to obtain a higher innocence, and escape primitive duality, and abandon notions of good and evil. The simplest way to describe The Lamb is that it ... is prelapsarian, that is to say, life before the fall. This lies mostly in the voice o...

  • Word Count: 1362
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

3. The Tyger and The Lamb

... "Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul". The title encourages us to consider the 'contrary states' of innocence and experience as we read the poems in both collections. Through a cycle of unanswered questions, Blake motivates the readers to question God. These two poems are meant to be interpreted in a comparison and contrast. 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger' share two different perspectives representing an innocent and an experienced view of creation and existence. To Blake, innocence is not ... of this. What God would create such h...

  • Word Count: 2028
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Blake's Innocence and experience

Do Songs of Innocence and Experience need to be read together? Songs of Innocence and Experience are a series of poems on how we see the world at different stages of our lives. The fact that Blake himself described the collection of poems as shewing the contrary states of the human soul', must be seen as an invitation to view the poems of Innocence and Experience in relation to one another. Both collections contain poems of a similar title, such as The Chimney Sweeper THE Chimney Sweeper and Nurse's song ... simplify the moral dilemmas of the time and present them in a form which could be und...

  • Word Count: 1564
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

5. "I Have Sought for a Joy without pain,/ For a Solid Without

... ,/ For a solid without fluctuation..." (The Book of Urizen). How does Blake's poetry comment on Urizen's longings? The Urizenic ideology of immutability is what Blake seeks to subvert and destroy throughout his poetry. Urizen's longings epitomizes the tyranny of religion; "one God, one Law" (The Book of Urizen, Plate 4, line 40). Urizen is the mythological representation of the Orthodox Christian God. Blake condemns this "merciful" God, which praises the "good" (or the passive) and denounces the "evil" (or the energetic). He felt that ... the theological myths of the creation of Christia...

  • Word Count: 2454
  • Approx Pages: 10
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Poetry

... that Eliot gives the reader out of this poem is the hope that we don't end up like Prufrock. The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely ... the contrary movement of the interior gyre"[6] (that is, from the conventional Christian dispensation). The Judeo-Christian found...

  • Word Count: 6460
  • Approx Pages: 26
  • Grade Level: High School

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