Analysis of William Blake's "The Tyger" and "The Lamb"

Here are two of William Blake's most famous poems in his inimitable drawings (if you find them difficult to read, here are text versions of "The Tyger" and "The Lamb").

These were published in William Blake's 1789/1794 Songs of Innocence and Experience. These often but not always had mirrored poems, where one upon reflected upon another, setting up the contrast of innocence and experience, which is probably the most useful tool in examining these poems. The book's subtitle, as seen here, is another, underutilized tool:

"Shewing [Showing] the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul"

 "The Lamb" illustrates innocence, "The Tyger" experience. Commonly, "The Lamb," which the persona addresses to the lamb itself ("Little Lamb who made thee"), is seen showing God's sweetness in giving

clothing of delight, 

Softest clothing wooly bright; 

Gave thee such a tender voice

God himself became a lamb.

By contrast, "The Tyger" is commonly read as at least a tentative questioning if not a critique of God. How could this fearful deadly predator be made by the same hand that made the lamb ("Did he who made the Lamb make thee?")? How can the God who makes good also make evil?

It may be saying these things, and I think it is important to keep in mind, but take a closer look at "The Tyger." The first stanza is the same as the last. In other words, it has symmetry. Within that symmetry, poem asks, "What immortal hand or eye, / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

What hand or eye? Why, Blake's obviously. He just did it.

We have a frame followed by what one could describe as the wildfire of the Muse. The whole centerpiece is less a description of a tiger than the a poet's process:

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...? 

Did he smile his work to see?

Art? Work? What else would God, a creator like the poet himself, do but smile with pride on his creation?

Do you doubt this interpretation? Try the next line:

"Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

Why, yes. Blake wrote both "The Tyger" and "The Lamb."

How about the subtitle of the collection: "[Showing] the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul"? He may be talking about God but more pointedly about humanity. So the same critique one just applied to God has to be applied to himself.

When we turn to the question of "The Lamb" [Little Lamb who made thee], we have to ask what a lamb is. Yes, a wooly animal. Yes, as stated in the poem itself, God (at least in Christian terms). Also, believers. And a child, too, is considered a lamb--a usage still somewhat common today. Now these lines read differently:

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name.

God is a child, the lamb is a child, the poet narrator is a child, and all "called by his name." So God is a child is a lamb is a poet/creator. We all have the same name.

"Why, the nerve! Calling himself god and 'immortal!' "

That does take some balls. Maybe Blake is egotistical, but it makes the poems fascinating. For now we see our humanity reduced to contraries--formed of opposite poles. These aren't poems about innocence and evil--at least not so much--but of innocence and experience. Does the tyger have less right to exist? It does exist. It's already here, and it exists within us, next to the lamb. Are they at war? Are we at war with ourselves, our contraries? Let's rephrase our critique of God and point it at ourselves: "How can we who make good also make evil?"

Much as these poems seem simple, simplicity isn't Blake.

Free to Watch Ursula K. Le Guin Video through Aug 30

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin is free to watch in the United States through August 30. It's a discussion of her work and thematic preoccupations.

Writers were quoting her saying stories make their own rules that you cannot break.

Another good quote:

"Imaginative fiction trained people to be aware that there are other ways to do things and other ways to be, that there is not just one civilization, and it is good, and it is the way we have to be."

How true is this of speculative literature today?

Poem Analysis: Paul Zimmer's "Upon Entering the Storm, Unable to Swim, Zimmer, Rollo, and Cecil Are Saved"

 This poem appeared in The Republic of Many Voices and the University of Georgia Press edition of Paul Zimmer's Crossing to Sunlight: Selected Poems. You can read it on Google Books here. You can hear the poet read the poem here (you'll have to forward to the proper poem).

The poem opens "A storm mixed and fell upon the lake." We have three figures, presumably all men are stuck during a storm while having a boating mishap. The first two seven-line stanzas describe this outcome.
The volta comes at the beginning of the third and final stanza: "Then a great voice said, 'Rub-a-dub-dub!' "

The trick of this multiple it's a shift in tone--referencing a nursery rhyme where three men are out to sea. One version calls the men "fools": They are, after all, not sailors but men of other professions trying to sail in a tub.

The final line claims: "And we sailed off believing, believing." There are a number of ways to read this transformation:

1. Straight. Three men are inexperienced sailors who fear drowning until they encounter a "great voice" [God or something like a god]. This reading fails to take into account the tone shift with "Rub-a-dub-dub!" however. Perhaps God is amused at their ineptitude. Their belief is real. Perhaps God sees them as absurd and foolish.
2. Imaginative. Three young boys imagine themselves out in lake, shower head raining down on them and their imagination leads them to despair until a parent reminds them of who and where they are. The main tone, though, undermines this reading unless the boys are imaginative. Their belief is both absurd and real. Parents provide illusory protection.
3. Both interpretations simultaneously. These men are boys, fools, but God makes them feel secure as if parent talking to them. Their belief is both absurd and real. But should they be believing? Or was it just their imagination? Maybe their fear was absurd. They are, after all, on a lake, albeit in a leaky boat.

What makes this one fun are the multiple possibilities in delineating what's happening too much. Some details make it seem real, others do not. The possibilities make it a tantalizing joy to read.

Paul Zimmer calls the poem "kind of irreverent," which perhaps shuts down reading #1, but maybe not since God is unlikely to quote from a nursery rhyme. He does, however, mention that it's original inspiration is based on an event that occurred in reality, which bolsters reading #1 or #3.