| On Blake | ||
| Ø William Blake (1757 –1827): poet, painter, and printmaker
Ø Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England Ø The 19th-century scholar William Rossetti characterised him as a “glorious luminary” Ø “To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit” Blake Ø Blake became a friend of John Flaxman, Thomas Stothard and George Cumberland Ø Blake married Catherine Boucher Ø Blake’s first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was printed around 1783. Ø He opposed the Newtonian view of the universe. Ø William Wordsworth: “There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott.” Ø Alexander Gilchrist’s book Life of William Blake in the 19th century, rapidly transformed Blake’s reputation Ø Blake influenced the Pre-Raphaelites and W.B. Yeats Ø Songs of Innocence. 1789 Ø The Songs of Experience was published in 1794 as a follow-up to Songs of Innocence. Ø The “Songs of Experience” were written as a contrast to the “Songs of Innocence” Ø British composer John Tavener set several of Blake’s poems, including The Lamb and The Tyger. |
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| On the Poems | ||
| “The Lamb“
· published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. · “The Lamb” is the counterpart poem to Blake’s poem: “The Tyger” in Songs of Experience. · Like the other Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, The Lamb was intended to be sung; William Blake’s original melody is now lost. · “The Lamb” bears similarities with Charles Wesley’s hymn beginning “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” from Hymns for Children, published in 1763, The Tyger · published in the Songs of Experience in 1794. · The Cambridge Companion to William Blake says it is “the most anthologized poem in English.” · “The Tyger” is the sister poem to “The Lamb” · “The Tyger” presents a duality between aesthetic beauty and primal ferocity · The Tyger is also an enigmatic poem
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| The Lamb | Rhyme | |
| Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o’er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee, Little Lamb I’ll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee. |
This poem has a simple rhyme scheme: AA BB CC DD AA AA EF GG FE AA.
The rhyme mimics the “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” hymn. It has the air of nursery rhymes. “Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o’er the mead“. The poem has two stanzas with ten lines each. The first two and last two lines of each stanza are repeated like the chorus or refrain of the song. These lines have six beats, and they serve as bookends to the middle six lines, most of which have seven beats.
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| MCQs | ||
| 1. Lamb viewed the Newtonian world-view with
A. Trust B. Sympathy C. Distrust D. Hatred 2. Blake can be called a Romantic in the sense that A. He rejected the Enlightenment theory and wrote of the oppression of human beings by the established systems 3. Which religious sect did Blake believe in A. Catholic B. Protestant C. Anglican D. No established religion 4. Which of the statements is most appropriate for Blake A. Blake was a poet, painter and printmaker B. Blake was a poet, painter and trained printmaker C. Blake was a poet D. Blake was a trained poet, painter and printmaker 5. Which of the statements is correct A. Blake influenced the paintings of the Victorian Period B. Blake influenced the Modernist writers like Eliot C. Blake influenced the Pre-Raphaelites and the Symbolists. D. Blake influenced the Romantics 6. The general view of Blake till the first half of the nineteenth century was that he was a A. Genius B. Mad man C. Religious man D. Heretic 7. Which of the following influenced Blake most A. The Old Testament B. The New Testament C. The Bible D. Scholasticism 8. The Lamb alludes to the A. Pre-lapsarian state of the world B. The world of innocence during childhood 9. The Lamb is a metaphor for A. The child [poet] 10. How are the child and the lamb linked in Blake’s vision A. Both suggest partaking of the qualities of Christ, the meek and humble 11. Which of the statements is most appropriate? A. Blake made an illustration of the poem and intended it to be sung B. Blake made an illustration of the poem C. Blake intended the poem to be sung. 12. What do the questionings in the poem suggest? A. The child is curious B. The child knows the answer instinctively C. The child knows the answers and the questions are just rhetorical in a musical movement to avoid reasoning 13. “By the stream & o’er the mead” Here we have an image of A. The pre-lapsarian world of innocence and beauty 14. “Gave thee such a tender voice,/Making all the vales rejoice!” What is significant about the voice? A. It is marked by innocence 15. “For he calls himself a Lamb” Why is ‘he’ called ‘Lamb’? A. He [Christ] sacrificed his life for redeeming mankind from the Original Sin. 16. “He became a little child/I a child & thou a lamb” How is the equation made? A. Christ, the child and the lamb—partakes of the qualities of meekness and humility 17. “Little Lamb God bless thee.” Why does the poet repeat the line? A. The lines are sung emphatically at the end praying for the whole of mankind to be blessed as a flock or followers of Christ. 18. The word ‘wooly’ reminds of A. Christ’s being born with a soft wooly hair. 19. “Softest clothing wooly bright”. Here the word reminds the readers/listeners of A. The halo of Jesus Christ [or a revelation of the divine spirit] 20. “Gave thee such a tender voice” What is the significance of the voice here? A. The visionary prophetic voice of Christ 21. “Little Lamb who made thee/Dost thou know who made thee?” What does the poet allude to here? A. Genesis [creation of the world] 22. “Little Lamb who made thee/Dost thou know who made thee?” Why does the child [the poet] repeat the words? A. In song to remind the listeners about the glory of God’s creation 23. How does the poet reject reason through the voice of the child? A. The poet moves away from the reasoning of the Enlightenment and presents a primal view of the natural world as a glory of God’s creation and 24. What biblical line does the poem echo? A. Blessed are the meek:/for they shall inherit the earth. [Mathew 5:5]
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| The Tyger | Rhyme and Meter | |
| Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, |
The poem consists of six quatrains. Each quatrain contains two couplets.
The poem is in trochaic tetrameter with catalexis at the end of each line. The following illustration using the first two lines of the poem demonstrates tetrameter with four trochaic feet, the last one catalectic: …..1………..2……………3………………4 The fourth foot in each line eliminates the conventional unstressed syllable (catalexis).
Alliteration: Tiger, tiger, burning bright (line 1); frame thy fearful symmetry? (line 4) |
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| MCQs | ||
| 1. The Tiger stands as
A. The violent aspect of Christ as envisaged in the Apocalypse B. The Satanic force as opposed to the innocence represented by the lamb C. The revolutionary force born in the womb of Industrial Revolution D. Enigmatic poetic image 2. What does the aggressive rhyme of the poem suggest? A. A theme of a darkly intense and awe-inspiring experience 3. The rhetorical questions suggest that the creation of the tiger is an act of A. Confrontation and audacity 4. “In the forests of the night.” What does ‘night’ suggest here? A. Dark world, mysterious and unknowable 5. “What immortal hand or eye?” Whose hand might have been referred to here? A. God B. Satan C. Both 6. “In what distant deeps or skies” Here the ‘deeps’ implies A. Hell 7. “In what distant deeps or skies” Here the ‘skies’ implies A. Heaven 8. “On what wings dare he aspire?/What the hand, dare seize the fire?” What possible allusions do you get here? A. The myths of Daedalus, who dared to build wings but lost his son Icarus in the process, and Prometheus, who dared to seize the fire from the gods of Mt. Olympus 9. “And what shoulder, & what art,/Could twist the sinews of thy heart?” Blake might have derived the image from A. Behemoth in Job. [40:17:] 10. “And when thy heart began to beat,/What dread hand? & what dread feet?/What the hammer? what the chain”. What is the aspect Blake is trying to emphasize here? A. The fearful and mysterious act of Creation [of God] 11. “What the anvil?” may mean A. The basis of Creation 12. “When the stars threw down their spears.” The lines may allude to A. Lucifer’s being thrown out of heaven 13. “And watered heaven with their tears”. It can mean A. When Lucifer fell, Heaven was in tears, because it was God who had created a monster. 14. “Did he smile at his work to see?” Blake here may be trying A. to come to terms with the purpose of the creation of Good and Evil. 15. “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” Blake here may be trying A. to come to terms with the purpose of the creation of Good and Evil. 16. “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/In the forests of the night.” These lines are A. Ambiguous 17. “What immortal hand or eye/Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”. Here the poet A. Expresses his amazement at the act of creation, setting aside the question of good or evil. 18. “What the hammer? what the chain?/In what furnace was thy brain?/What the anvil?” What is significant about the irregularity in meter here? A. The irregularity in the trochaic mimics the beat of the maker’s hammer on the anvil. |
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Blake’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”
