William Blake is considered a creator of ôgreatö poetry, defined by Laurence Perrine (1982) as poetry that ôengages the whole personùsenses, imagination, emotion, intellect; it does not touch him merely on one or two sides of his nature,ö (239). In BlakeÆs Songs of Innocence and Experience we are treated to a pair of companion poems that try to resolve the polar opposites of human nature, good and evil. In The Lamb and The Tyger, Blake symbolizes human ôinnocenceö and ôexperienceö in the respective forms of a lamb and a tiger. However, we do not see Blake attempt to posit human beings in an eternal struggle between good and evil. Instead, BlakeÆs poems celebrate the good and evil within human experience and the tension produced by manÆs futile attempt to resolve such contraries of his nature. Yet in the appreciation of the innocence manifested by the creator as well as the experience, a creative force evolves in the individual that gains awareness that such contraries are the ôstuffö of life.
In The Lamb, Blake pays homage to the innocence of human nature during youth. Like we shall see the speaker do in The Tyger, this speaker is inquisitive. In The Lamb, the speaker wonders ôDost thou know who made thee, / Gave thee life, and bid thee feedàö (Blake 1). This questioning of the creative power or force behind life directly compares to the questioning of the speaker in The Tyger. In this poem Blake pays homage to the ôfearful symmetryö of the Tiger. If innocence represents belief in childhood and The Lamb, then experience represents doubt in adulthood and The Tyger. The speaker in The Lamb wonders if the lamb knows who made it because it is so wonderful and full of joy, life, and love. In The Tyger, however, we see the fearful nature of terror in the world. After experience, the speaker knows the contraries of evil and good exist in reality unlike when young and innocent. Nevertheless, this is not a co...