The Tyger and The lamb

There's really not much that I could say that has not been discussed in class yet I feel the necessity to put my learnings into writing and I hope that in so doing expand my realizations of the poems.

Upon reading the title of the Lamb, I thought that the whole poem was about a description of a lamb or a personification of some sort. Still later, I thought that it was talking about the "Lamb of God", a very spiritual reflection of a person inspired by a lamb and a shepherd. At first, it seems to me that the poem is very mystified but reading a poem over and over again opens avenues for a better understanding of it, so now I come to my most recent understanding of William Blake's The Lamb.

Detaching myself from my former notions of The Lamb, I think that the poem is about an offering of a vulnerable lamb, untainted of its purity and innocence. As I hear in mind its "tender voice" that makes all the "vales rejoice", I think of an unknowing prey that is being targeted by a predator- which brings me to another of Blake's poems The Tyger.

The Tyger for me represents fury and fierceness- like that of a predator always ready to strike its prey. The prey, in this case may be the lamb. It is interesting to note that these two poems contrast each other so that to create a totality of effect, they must not be understood in isolation of the other.

The Tyger and The Lamb signifies the polarities that make up the whole world and even the human psyche.It is in the existence of one that the other finds its meaning as it also holds true that we cannot understand the other fully if the other is not fully understood. It is in the greatness of the Creator who made the opposites not to negate each other but to create harmony out of this seemingly contradicting world.