Khudiram Bose Central College

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

“The Lamb And The Tyger Explore Two Contrary States

Of Human Soul”------- Argue Critically.

Submitted In Partial Fulfilment Of The Requirements Of

B.A. (Honours, Semester—IV) Under The University Of
Calcutta

Registration No.- 2 2 2 - 1 2 1 1 - 0 1 3 3 - 1 9

CU Roll No.- 1 9 2 2 2 2 - 1 1 - 0 0 6 0

Name Of The Supervisor:

Rajdeep Mandal

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 • ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:-

I would like to thank the faculty members specially my

project supervisor Rajdeep Mandal whose valuable guidance has been the ones that
helped me patch this project and make it full proof success. His suggestions and
instructions has served as the major contribution towards the completion of the
project.

Then I would like to thank my parents who have helped

me with their valuable suggestions and guidance has been helpful in various phases
of the completion of the project.

Last but not the least I would like to thank my

classmates who have helped me a lot.

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 • TABLE OF CONTENTS:-

TOPIC NAME PAGE NO.

▪ Abstract & Keywords 4

▪ Project Title 5

▪ Introduction 6

▪ How The Lamb and The Tyger

Explore two contrary states of 7 - 10

the Human Soul

▪ Conclusion 11

▪ References 12

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 • ABSTRACT:-

The present paper deals with William Blake’s The Lamb and The
Tyger that explore two contrary states of human soul. Blake beautifully represents the
theme in front of us by juxtaposing the experience of faith, wonders and joy of child
like perspective with the sense of horror, doubt and suffering one gains through
experience in a fallen world Our present study is an in-depth analysis of the two
poems The Lamb and The Tyger set in the context of his idea of Innocence and
Experience.

• KEYWORDS:-

Innocence, Experience, Contrary states, Human soul, Faith, Joy,

Horror, Suffering.

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 THE LAMB

&

THE TYGER

EXPLORE TWO CONTRARY STATES

OF

HUMAN SOUL

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 • INTRODUCTION:-

“Blake’s poetry contained an honesty against which the whole conspires because it is
unpleasant.”
------T.S. Eliot

William Blake was a mystic poet and this “Mystic movement” of his mind required
Metaphor, he saw no likeness but identities, so the images and symbols are found
galore in his poems. The two sets of Blake’s songs, Songs of Innocence and Songs
of Experience were originally composed separately: Innocence fetched in 1789
preceded Experience by five years. When Blake issued the two collections together
in 1794, he gave the volume an interesting subtitle:

“Showing the two contrary states of human soul”

The poems The Lamb and The Tyger are symbols of two different states of the
Human soul. They do not supplant each other rather they act as a supplement. The
idea of “Contraries” provides an important element in Blakean thought. As Blake
asserts The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

“Without contraries is no progression

Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy
Love and Hate
Are necessary to Human existence.”

The first part The Lamb sets out an imaginative vision of the state of innocence
while the second part The Tyger shows how life challenges, corrupts and destroy it.

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 In Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience similar experiences
and events are presented from contrary angles. The “Contraries” together give a
complete vision; There is also a suggestion that the differences are resolved in a
higher principle symbolised by Christ, something like the relativist theory that
parallel lines meet in infinity. To understand this completeness in contradiction, we
have few better examples than the contrast and collaboration of The Lamb of
“Innocence” and The Tyger of “Experience”. The two poems show remarkable
parallelism but also a different message. Blake wrote The Lamb from the point of
view of a child, with naivete and wonder, while The Tyger revisits its predecessors
from the perspective of an older, more mature individual. As the titles indicate, the
poems are in opposition, pitting innocence and experience against each other.

The most obvious similarity between the two poems is their address
of an animal, although their tones differ greatly. In The Lamb Blake seems to be
more joyful and adoring of a great creator. He uses words such as ‘delight’ and
‘rejoice.’ In The Tyger however, Blake grows austere and meditative. This change can
also be seen in his vocabulary choices: ‘fearful’, ‘dread’, and ‘deadly terrors’. Blake’s
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are meant to be read together. The
Lamb and The Tyger complete and build upon each other.

The ‘Lamb’ is a traditional symbol of innocence and is often used

as such in the Bible, especially, in the ‘New Testament’ where Christ is the ‘Lamb’
of god, who offered himself as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of mankind. God
took human shape and underwent suffering and an agonising death on the cross. The
‘Lamb’ symbol is very basic in Songs of Innocence, for in the ‘Introduction’ the
child voice asks “pipe a song about a lamb.” In that poem too the Lamb-Christ

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equally is explicitly presented. ‘The child on the cloud’ is the Christ child, the lamb
of god. This connection is at the heart of The Lamb:

“I a child, and thou a lamb

We are called by his name.”

But Blake in the poem inquires into the source of the Lamb-child Christ innocence,
into the nature of god who created the Lamb:

“Little lamb who made thee?’

Who made the lamb? No doubt some benevolent being, very

lamb like in character. But who made the tiger? The fierce beast is the contrary of
the lamb, and symbolises god’s wrath. But Blake asks:

“Did who made the Lamb make thee?”

The answer is often ‘yes’: the contraries originate from the same cosmic womb. And
this suggestion of unity in the midst of diversity and opposition is consonance with
the prophesies in the Bible:

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 “ I from the light and create darkness
I make peace and create evil
I the lord of all these things.”

In complete opposition, the ‘ Tyger’ is symbol of power and

Ferocity. The ‘fire’ of the Tyger’s eye is not only frightening and destructive, it can
also purify, illuminate and be an instrument of creation. Thus the tiger-like forces are
needed in man if oppression is to thrown off and resisted. The Tyger, thus is an
aspect of the burning spirit of revolt, of violence, an un innocence state without
which perhaps innocence can never be recovered as Blake said in a proverb:

“The tigers of wrath are wiser than

The horses of instructions.”

It is for this reason that when the stars threw down their spears and shed tears of
negation, god smiles on his new creation. The star symbolised the antihuman forces
and the fantastic control on human destiny as in astrology. And these forces are
destroyed by the Tyger ---- the forces that oppress innocence and darken the divinity
in man.

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 From innocence man passes to experience and what Blake
means by this can be seen in The Four Zoas:

“What is the price of Experience? Do men

buy it for a song?”

When he composed Songs of Experience he seems to have passed through a spiritual

crisis. He realised that when experience destroys childlike innocence it puts many
destructive forces in its place. The world of experience is always threatening but
Blake prophesizes that one cannot nourish innocence always.

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 • CONCLUSION:-

The Tyger and The Lamb go well together, because in them,

Blake examines different, almost opposite or contradictory ideas about the natural
world, its creatures and their creator. Blake believed that it is necessary to be fearful
to protect the lamb within us. There are no angels in the post-lapsarian state to
protect us so it is we who should protect ourselves. His loud voice of protest is
evident throughout. According to Blake to reach a higher state man must be tested
by experience and suffering. This is the link between the two sections of Blake’s
book. In Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience there are only hints of the
final consummation which shall restore men to fullness of joy. The poems are
concerned with an earlier stage in the struggle and treat it from a purely poetical
standpoint. What Blake gives is the essence of his imaginative thought about this
crisis in him and in all men. He knows that one kind of existence is bright with joy
and harmony, but he sees its place taken by another, which is dark, sinister and dead.
Thus, we find that the two contrary states of human soul have been clearly reflected
in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Thus, the Lamb and the
Tyger ultimately meet, as contraries should, in the conception of the source of
creation.

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 • REFERENCES:-

Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. New Delhi :

Trinity Press, 2016, Print.

Bowra, Maurice. “ Songs of Innocence and Experience” The Romantic

Imagination. New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2000, Print.

Chattopadhyay, Debasish. “Songs of Innocence” Plowman in Darkness.

Kolkata : Avant grade Press, 2006, Print.

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