They have been corrupted by the effects of their environment and can never go back to that virginal state of mind that only an innocent child possess is what is interpreted from Blake’s reference to Innocence versus Experience. Similar to every human being who starts off pristine and through life and its experiences, are made more apprehensive and aware of the true nature of things compared to when they were simply enjoying childish whims.
They were brought from an undefiled state to one that was more conscious. Much like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden when they were first placed there by God, their minds were innocent and far from the “knowledge” they were later exposed to after eating the apple. Innocence marks that period in a person’s life when they are just a child who is naive and unaware of the true nature of this world and all the harshness and evil that comes along with it. Innocence in comparison to experience does indeed mark two very different ends of the spectrum of life. The story of creation for the tiger is not the Godly extension of the good and the peaceful as the lamb, but a mythological conflict in which “the stars threw down their speakers/ and watered heaven with their tears.” In a world in which God is the lamb, what could be the origin of such power that the tiger emanates from? Only the kind of primordial creation home to the stories of Dionysian’s or Gnostics.īlake describes innocence and experience as “the two contrary states of the human soul.” What do you think he means by this? The poet speaks from a distant, analyzing the tiger’s powerful features, its enflamed eyes, the furnace burnt brain. The question “What immortal hand or eye/ Could Frame they fearful symmetry?” is not rhetorical but posed in awe. The poet does not approach the beast of The Tiger as if it is something to be nurtured. In fact, the beauty of the lamb is “He is called by thy name,” and the lamb’s qualities are described as the direct expressions of God – tender, bright, valuable. The speaker knows the answer and concludes with the truth, that the lambs origin is God.
In The Lamb, it is a refrain, “Little lamb, who made thee? Does thou know who made thee?” In its repetition a song emerges, like a nursery rhyme asking a rhetorical question of the lamb that it can mull over as it goes to sleep. In both poems a question is posed to the animal that the poet encounters. Compare the mode of creation described in “The Lamb” with that of “The Tyger.” How are they similar? How are they different?
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