William Blake

Born in 1757

Thinking of 18th century, William Blake was born into a turbulent time, because at that time, there
was the change in English crown, the change also occurred within the system of Church.

There was a shift from the Catholic Church to the Puritan church.

Meanwhile the first steps of the Industrial revolution occurred.

As a matter, within these changes, Romantic period was a kind of a reaction towards people's
definitive approach to the high status of machinery, technology, factories.

On the other hand, this privilege, this approach towards industry, in return created child labouring,
created harsh conditions and poor condition for these workers.

So on the on hand, The Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake reflect these
reactions in terms of innocence: children's, child labouring, Jesus Christ

Experience: science, technology, human experience.

Each experience makes you learn something about life and through this you start to become a
Tyger because you actually fight within this system against your rivals, your competitors, even
against nature.

The thing is once you start to forget about yourself, innocence, where and how we came from, then
like the original first sin, man starts to become a kind of a wicked person. This experience also
expresses the wicked condition of humanity.

Romantic period is also the criticism of the scholastic, dogmatic view of Church as well.

There's a landmark of his parents on Blake. He seems to maintain this tradition.

William Blake

...Milton and Shakespeare- there's another tradition called as neoclassicism: it's entangled with the
appreciation of classic works like Homer, Virgilous, they try to reinvent the style and the new use of
the Renaissance Petrarchan use of poetic style. They re-emphasis the ways of classics starting by
Milton.

William Blake's appreciation, he thinks if the classics has to be considered one way of measuring the
quality of your work is only through classics.

Because In literature, there's aesthetics: the way of comparing your works quality with that of
classics so that you can see whether your work can be compared to that of the works coming from
the classic ages.

That is one of the ways of understanding a work, to call it a canon work.

If a canon work can be compared to a classic work, then this work means it's eligible to become a
canon.

Gothic tradition is another aspect of the 19th century, this is the era where the darkness, especially
the German mythical literary works come onto the surface.

In Gothic works, there're the chains, lady chased by a murderer, there's blood, rape etc.

William Blake had this appetite for his poems.

Why? Because he has something light, good in his personality, there's always the other side of it.

Blake's appreciation of nature

Like nature, in nature we have natural predators like lions, tygers. We have natural preys like
lambs.

From that perspective, William Blake was actually reflecting the regular processes of nature itself.

There're 2 types of literary people

1: only writes for money

2: writes for pleasure

Thinking of 19th century, most of the authors were in a position whereby they would get by through
their writings, they could earn money. Because

Reading was the only and the biggest entertainment of the 19th century. It continued to be like this
till the first introduction of radio broadcast to the public.

William Blake

For William Blake, his main motivation was nature. By observing the mechanics of nature, he
entered the world of humanity as well.

We're also the products of nature.

People started to accumulate themselves, attached themselves to the factories, the new
technological developments and through this, people started to think that 'on the Christian bases'
they started to say that we can even beat God.

There's a great order in the universe, William Blake is talking about it.

Yes, we need technology, developments but this is only one side of humans.

The other side always stands next to nature.

The more you disintegrate yourself from nature, you as a human become more alienated to nature
and thus our lives become the lives of the predators like the Tyger. We're going to hunt each other,
kill each other...
Thinking of this perspective by William Blake, he was absolutely right when he saw this catastrophic
situation of man.

Generally speaking the Romantic period is all about that.

The absolute monsters condition of Man.

This is what Blake tried to create, instigate through his works.

William Blake

Blake was obsessed with Milton and Milton's Paradise Lost.

Milton's Paradise Lost was highly integrated with the war between Lucifer and the God. This is also
another reflection of Genesis.

Milton has created a repetitive work of Genesis, What's written in the first part of Holy Bible.

This is the story of Adam and Eve.

This is a kind of a perfect example of what's happened there. People's kicked out from Paradise is
also another allusion to their alienation from nature.

He is another posthumous situation.

The Tyger

The Tyger and The Lamb are interconnected to each other.

When William Blake starts to resonate the fearful symmetry, fearful looks, fearful condition of the
Tyger itself. It's ready to attack, it's ready to hunt down its prey, through the words, the ways that it
reflects its readiness, its perfectness then we start to see that this Tyger is actually something ever
ready in our souls. It's even becoming more and more powerful as the stanzas move forward. It's
associated with human experience. The more experience, you become more powerful.

The Tyger

Most probably, there's the Tyger's allusion to Lucifer itself. It's a hunter, very beautiful but also very
dangerous.

The Tyger

There's this appreciation. Whether Tyger is a reflection, the true representation of evil, still we
appreciate its power.
Tyger is a hunter and you cannot blame it because it hunts. It's like humans. We're also hunting,
consuming meat.

What's the difference comparing ourselves with Tyger?

Nothing

On the other hand, Tyger's perfect 'architecting' , this is what he puts, he talks about some
technological references here, architecting he says.

Nature's development into a kind of a competition with technology. That's why he uses such words.

On the other hand, there could be some possibilities so that he's talking about Prometheus: the saver
of Mankind in Greek mythology, he was the one who saved Humans. He is associated with the Jesus
Christ figure.

And Icarus, He flew higher and higher and the sun melt Icarus's wings because wings were attached
to his body and the sunlight cause it melt down. Icarus is a reflection of Lucifer.

He asks: is this the same God, the same Power that created both the Tyger and the Lamb? Why?

This sets in contrast like Ying Yang.

The Tyger

This is a reaction to the Industrial Revolution

The Lamb

It's like a lullaby. Because a child is exposed to that poem. The protagonist of the poem is the Lamb
and the child. When we were children, we are like Lambs because we're innocent, we're not
experienced, and we’re not exposed to the evils of the world.

As we become older, we become the Tyger.

If the Tyger is a reflection of Lucifer, the Lamb is a reflection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ also associated himself as the Lamb, the innocent person. He was very innocent when
he was crucified by the Roman soldiers.

Jesus was the Lamb like any children. He was one of these children.

This child in the poem is asking these questions.

She sees this little Lamb and she tries to understand, imagining that she is also familiar to the Tyger
herself, tries to understand this soft fur of the Lamb, and asking questions to the God.
Tries to understand who created the Lamb itself, the Lamb could be the lamb, the children or the
Lamb is a true representation of Jesus Christ.

If there's innocence, you cannot talk about any sins, and Lamb, white lambs without any black dot,
but as it grows it starts to turn a Tiger

This is also the double nature of humanity. On the one side inside, we're still children, but also
there's this hunter, hunter gatherer side of us. This is what William Blake was trying to tell us:

Nature makes us The Lamb but experience turns us into the Tiger.