Review of William Blake's "The Lamb"

 What is The Lamb?

 William Blakes poem "The Lamb" is one of my favorite poems.  The two stanzas contrast themselves magnificently and tell a beautiful story by doing so. The poem begins with the question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?” (The Lamb) The speaker, a child, asks the lamb about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its particular manner of feeding, its “clothing” of wool, its “tender voice.” In the next stanza, the speaker attempts to answer his own question: the lamb was made by one who “calls himself a Lamb,” one who resembles, in his gentleness, both the child as well as the lamb. The poem ends with the child bestowing a blessing on the lamb.
 The poem is a child’s song, in the form of a question and answer. The first stanza is all physical and descriptive while the second focuses on the spiritual matters and contains explanation and hypothesis. The child’s question is simple on top, yet still complex. The question (“who made thee?”) is a simple one, and yet the child is also tapping into the deep and timeless questions that all human beings have, about their own origins and the nature of creation. (Moore)The poem’s form contributes to the effect of naivety, since the situation of a child talking to an animal is a believable one. "Yet by answering his own question, the child converts it into a rhetorical one. The answer is presented as a puzzle or riddle, and even though it is an easy one—child’s play—this also contributes to an underlying sense of ironic knowingness or artifice in the poem."(Moore) The child’s answer, however, reveals his confidence in his simple Christian faith and his innocent acceptance of its teachings.
The lamb of course symbolizes Jesus. The traditional image of Jesus as a lamb underscores the Christian values of gentleness, meekness, and peace. The image of the child is also associated with Jesus: in the Bible, Jesus displays a special love for children, He gives explicit guidelines for His feelings towards children. These are also the characteristics from which the child in the poem approaches the ideas of nature and of God. This poem, like many of the Songs of Innocence,accepts what Blake saw as the more positive aspects of conventional Christian belief.The companion poem to this one, found in the Songs of Experience, is “The Tyger”; taken together, the two poems give a perspective on religion that includes the good as well as the bad. These poems complement each other awesomely and give insight into Blake's mind. They offer a good instance of how Blake himself stands somewhere outside the perspectives of innocence and experience he projects.

Work Cited

Andrew Moore. " Poems by William Blake - study guide." Universal Teacher UK.
                Universal Teacher UK,  Web. 15 May 2012.
Linda R. Ranieri. " Explication of William Blake’s "A Poison Tree" (1794)." Wcupa.
                Cedar Crest College and West Chester University, Web. 15 May 2012.