Great Works II

No blog post for me.

-Ramanpreet

“The Lamb” and “The Tyger” written by William Blake seems to be poems that are polar opposites of each other. “The Lamb” is written under the songs of innocence while “The Tyger” is written under the songs of experience. There was such happy and bright feelings in “The Lamb”; Blake uses such words to characterize the “lamb” as delight, softest, and bright. However, there were much more vicious words to describe the “tyger” in “The Tyger,” such as: burnt, dread and terror. Blake seems to portray innocence as something that everyone has when they are young. It is perpetual, after all, how could you know about the entire world when you are incredibly young? But in the case of the tyger, it seems that the tyger has gone through much more than the lamb has. The tyger is always questioning itself, always fighting with emotions, and always grasping with some kind of negative action. It even goes as far as to say, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (339). It is wondering how someone who could make something so innocent, so cheery, and so positive make the tyger who is subject to all of these infernal feelings? It indeed questions the power of a supposed God, as the poem of “The Tyger” ends, “What immortal hand or eye / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” (339). Blake rationalizes that this supposed God wields immense power to create something in such a positive sphere as well as something in a negative sphere.

“Ode on Intimations of Immortality” written by William Wordsworth brings a much more light hearted point of view in my opinion. It depicts nature and all of its glory as well as childhood as one of the recurring themes. The poem always associates children as something extremely positive, such as, “Thou Child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy / Shepherd-boy!” (355). It depicts scenes of children playing with nature while it also depicts adulthood in a negative way, remarking that it is always muddled with darkness. I get the feeling from the poems that children really do appreciate nature, yet as they grow older, they eventually lose that appreciation. However, the narrator seems to express extreme fondness of nature just like the children do. Although he has gotten older, he didn’t forget his childhood and his interaction of nature. He remarks that regardless of what humans do to nature, “The clouds that gather round the setting sun / Do take a sober colouring form an eye” (359), and the Earth will continue to turn as it has been doing.