How Is The Diction Used In Blake's Poetry

William Blake was a romantic in both poetry and visual art; his poems were almost always accompanied by images that Blake himself made, emphasizing his passion for the arts. Blake’s works were put together in collections such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1794). The main focus of Blake’s poems was the exploration of contraries. No two poems illustrate this nature of the contradictory as well as “The Tyger” and “The Lamb” where Blake utilizes structure and theme, among other literary devices, to demonstrate the duality of the human soul. Both “The Tyger” and “The Lamb” follow a similar structure. They both have the same rhyme of AABB, which gives both poems a sense of continuity

“The Lamb” contains positive and pastoral diction as seen by the usage of words like “delight, bright, tender, and meek” (Smith). They all contribute to the positivity of the work as a whole, giving an image of tranquility and of peace, which points back to the theme of simplicity and innocence. “The Lamb” gives off this child-like appeal as the lamb is pure and good, and in turn so must be the one who created it (Smith). “The Tyger” contains dark and fearful diction because the tiger isn’t innocent like the lamb; it’s destructive and complex, painting an image of darkness, pain, and confusion. The description of the tiger itself is contradictory: It’s beautiful while it’s “burning bright” yet it still has “its deadly terrors.” Bringing back the question: How could the one who created the sweet little lamb, create this awe-inspiring and terrifying

The lamb obviously symbolizes Christ as seen by the pure and innocent lamb’s description throughout the poem. The simplicity of this symbol illustrates the straightforwardness and innocence of the poem (Aubrey). The simple nature of the symbol shows the speaker’s seemingly naïve attitude as there isn’t much complexity to the lamb itself. The child speaker can reason within himself that the good God created the pure lamb. However, “The Tyger” presents a completely different symbol. The tiger itself is very complex. As Kher states, there is a “doubleness of the tiger” meaning it seems to represent contrary attributes simultaneously as the tiger is both good and bad, fearful and inspiring. These contradictions seem to disqualify the usefulness of the tiger as a symbol, however this just once again contributes to the true complexity of this work (Paulson). The juxtaposition of these two creatures is not by accident, the lamb and the tiger could not be more different (Smith). Lambs are meek and mild, while tigers are ferocious and savage. These two animals symbolize their respective halves of the human soul. The literal lamb is the manifestation of the Songs of Innocence, while the tiger is the Songs of