BLAKE
He was a rebel, he lives in a period of greater changes like the Industrial Revolution, French
Revolution and American Revolution, he incredibly embraced the revolution because he became a
harsh critic of his contemporary society, he embraced revolution in the name of freedom of all
types of tyranny and both his poems but also his paintings and all the art expression of this
visionary libertarianism, he rejected any form of social, political, religious oppression. For Blake
revolution was a divine instrument of purification, because it destroyed the corruption of word.
The themes we find on his work are the figure of the child and the childhood, his best known
collection are the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience. The songs of innocence
shows that the child is not only the symbol of the oppressed, but in particular the child is the
embodiment of the bless state of innocence, ha is pure, he hasn’t experienced the evil of the
world yet, both the collections are complementary states of the human life and they can’t be
separated or eliminated from the heart of men. In his works Blake sees heaven and hell has
opposite but at the same time they coexist because they are both elements of Gos’s creation.!
In the XVIII century art and literature imagination and free poetic expression have a dominant role,
thanks to imagination you can see beyond the surface of reality.!
The Lamb and The Tyger
In both poems we find question related to life, for example “who created good and evil?”, “why
would the same hands who created the lamb (good), also created bad things (tiger), there are
question that probably every human being has asked himself. So in this two poem Blake
addresses this question.!
They both ask a question about the Creator, in the Lamb (similar to a lalaby because of the
receptions and the rhythm) the question is answered, because the child knows that the one who
created the Lamb is the same being that created him, the creator is God, and the child knows it,
in line 17-18 it is said that “I a child and thou a lamb, we are called by his name”, the child doesn’t
mention God’s name, only in the line 19-20 God is mentioned, but the child knows he is the one
who created him. In the Tyger the creator question is not answered it is left hanging for the reader
to figure it out, the author asks if the same hand that created the Lamb is the same who created
the tyger, line 20 “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”. The poems are similar because they
asks the same question, they are different in the way the question is asked, in The Tyger Blake
presents a question in line 3-4 in a more arrogant way. Both poems uses animals in addressing
the creator’s question, the Lamb is mild (mite), is harmless, on the other hand the tiger is
considered fearful and dreadful, both the poems have a sense of awe (is kind of wonder, surprise)
but in the Lamb is more childish, innocent while in the tiger is more adult because of the
experience. In The Lamb Blake uses happy words, like delight, bright, rejoice…and all these
words can be associated with innocent, while in the tiger we have words associated with burning,
burnt, dreadful, terror we have fearful words. They both have an allusion. The Lamb symbolize
purity, an innocent animal that resembles Jesus Christ, he was innocent and was crucified to save
us, while in The Tyger there is a Paradise Lost allusion because Blake includes Satan as being
involved in the creation of the tiger, in line 5-6 he mention deeps, that is an allusion to hell and
sky, allusion to heaven, the creator of the tiger could reside in both places so we don’t know who
the real creator of the tiger is, in fact the creator question isn’t answered. We have the image of
nature, the lamb lives on a field near a stream (ruscello) is beautiful, quiet, peaceful, the tiger lives
in a dark forest, fearful place and violent. There are two contrary states of the soul that are
innocence and experience. Innocence became really important in romantic period, so the poet
speaks like a child !
WORDSWORTH
He was born in 1770 in the Lake District, he left England when he graduated for a walking tour of France,
Alps and Italy and he was enthusiastic about the idea of democracy, and he embraced some revolutionary
ideas of the French Revolution, in 1791he visited France and he was engaged with French Revolution, he
went there when Britain was engaged with the war with France and during his stay in France he fell in love
with a woman and they also had a daughter, due to the ongoing war he was forced to came back to
England so he left his family. After returning to England he published two long travel diaries, “An evening
walk” and a “The Art of Sketching” in 1793. In 1795 he met Coleridge and a great friendship started, they had
similar ideas on love and poetry and they used to take long walks together by this time Wordsworth had became
disillusioned with revolution, the ideas had degenerated into terror in France with Robespierre. Politically wiser he
became a conservative. In 1798 he published, with Coleridge the Lyrical Ballads, and the year after he settled in the Lake District
with his sister Dorothy in a cottage. He then got married with a woman called Mary Hutchinson and they had 5 children. In 1801 the
preface to the Lyrical Ballads was published, considered Manifesto of English Romantic Poetry.