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[ericcoliu]

Review of The Lamb by William Blake

Poem Lyrics of The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!


Review

The Lamb is narrative in style, written in the form of question and answer from the perspective of a child-speaker. The first stanza begins with the question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?” The child-speaker asks the little Lamb the big question about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its manner of feeding, its “clothing of delight,” its “tender voice.” In the second stanza, the child-speaker attempts to answer his own question: the little lamb was made by one who “calls Himself a Lamb,” and one who is “meek” and “mild.” The poem concludes with the child-speaker conferring a blessing on the little Lamb.

Structurally speaking, The Lamb consists of two stanzas, each containing five rhymed couplets. Repetition in the first and last couplet of each stanza makes these lines into a refrain, and it helps to give the poem its song-like quality. It has a generally light, upbeat, and pastoral feel. The style of the poem is simple and direct, but the language and the rhythms are well crafted, and the ideas it explores are deceptively complex.

Throughout the poem, the beauty of nature is pervasive; Blake uses pastoral symbolism to depict nature as innocent, meek, and mild. The little Lamb, seen as a representative of nature, is described as “tender,” “soft,” “woolly,” and “bright;” the “vales rejoice” at the little Lamb’s beauty and innocence. The Lamb infused with an idyllic aura reveals how highly Blake values nature, which is a characteristic of Romanticism as a poetic movement.

The question -- who made thee -- the child-speaker raises is a simple one, and yet he further taps into the profoundly existential question of human origins and the nature of creation. The answer the child-speaker comes up with is possibly inspired by Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild. It was one of the most popular Christian hymns of Blake’s day, which was written in 1742 by prominent hymn writer Charles Wesley (1707–1788):

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
look upon a little child;
pity my simplicity,
suffer me to come to thee.

Fain I would to thee be brought,
dearest God, forbid it not;
give me, dearest God, a place
in the kingdom of thy grace.

Lamb of God, I look to thee;
thou shalt my example be;
thou art gentle, meek, and mild;
thou wast once a little child.

Fain I would be as thou art;
give me thine obedient heart;
thou art pitiful and kind,
let me have thy loving mind.

Let me, above all, fulfill
God my heavenly Father's will;
never his good Spirit grieve;
only to his glory live.

Thou didst live to God alone;
thou didst never seek thine own;
thou thyself didst never please:
God was all thy happiness.

Loving Jesus, gentle Lamb,
in thy gracious hands I am;
make me, Saviour, what thou art,
live thyself within my heart.

The child’s answer reveals his native confidence in his simple Christian faith and his total acceptance of its teachings. Thematically speaking, in addition to relating the Lamb to nature, Blake relates the Lamb to God, employing more traditional Christian imagery. The Lamb is about Christianity, a Christian poem written from a perspective of traditional Christianity.

First of all, the subject matter is drawn from the Christian tradition. The poem starts with a question about the Creator and it concludes by affirming the Lamb’s role in creation, which is one of the main themes expressed in the Book of Isaiah and the Gospel of John.

Secondly, the pastoral scene portrayed in the first stanza, which is embodied in the imagery of The Lamb's feeding “by the stream and o'er the mead” suggests God's kindness in creation, and more importantly, it has an echo of similar descriptions in the Book of Psalms, especially Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want", and the parables of Jesus.

Thirdly, when answering the question in the second stanza, Blake does not directly name Jesus as the one who made the “Little Lamb.” Instead, he uses two biblical motifs -- the lamb and the child -- to imply his answer.

For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I, a child, and thou a lamb.
We are called by his name.

Here, Blake makes two comparisons. He compares the Creator first to a lamb and then to a child. Both of these comparisons are rooted in Scripture, especially in the Johannine tradition.

Finally, through the hymn lyrics of Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild and the traditional Christian teachings, children are told that the lamb symbolizes Jesus – the Lamb of God. The biblical image of Jesus as a lamb emphasizes the Christian virtues of gentleness, meekness, and peace-loving. In the four Gospels of the New Testament, the image of the child is always associated with Jesus; Jesus displays a special affection for children, claiming that hidden things are revealed to little children and that we need to change and become little children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The scriptural depiction of Jesus in his childhood shows him as guileless and vulnerable. These are characteristics from which the child-speaker approaches the ideas of nature and of God.

In a nutshell, The Lamb describes the innocence and joy of the natural world, advocates free love and a closer relationship with God, and it dramatizes the naive hope and innocent confidence in the form of question and answer that inform the lives of Christian children of Blake’s day, inviting a contrasting reading against the perspective of "experience" represented in the poem The Tyger. Contrary to The Lamb's firm belief in the basic teachings of traditional Christianity, The Tyger consists entirely of unanswered questions, and it involves a sophisticated acknowledgment of what is unexplainable in the universe, presenting evil as the prime example of something that cannot be denied, but will not withstand facile explanation, either.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Review of The Lamb by William Blake

Poem Lyrics of The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!


Review

The Lamb is narrative in style, written in the form of question and answer from the perspective of a child-speaker. The first stanza begins with the question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?” The child-speaker asks the little Lamb the big question about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its manner of feeding, its “clothing of delight,” its “tender voice.” In the second stanza, the child-speaker attempts to answer his own question: the little lamb was made by one who “calls Himself a Lamb,” and one who is “meek” and “mild.” The poem concludes with the child-speaker conferring a blessing on the little Lamb.

Structurally speaking, The Lamb consists of two stanzas, each containing five rhymed couplets. Repetition in the first and last couplet of each stanza makes these lines into a refrain, and it helps to give the poem its song-like quality. It has a generally light, upbeat, and pastoral feel. The style of the poem is simple and direct, but the language and the rhythms are well crafted, and the ideas it explores are deceptively complex.

Throughout the poem, the beauty of nature is pervasive; Blake uses pastoral symbolism to depict nature as innocent, meek, and mild. The little Lamb, seen as a representative of nature, is described as “tender,” “soft,” “woolly,” and “bright;” the “vales rejoice” at the little Lamb’s beauty and innocence. The Lamb infused with an idyllic aura reveals how highly Blake values nature, which is a characteristic of Romanticism as a poetic movement.

The question -- who made thee -- the child-speaker raises is a simple one, and yet he further taps into the profoundly existential question of human origins and the nature of creation. The answer the child-speaker comes up with is possibly inspired by Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild. It was one of the most popular Christian hymns of Blake’s day, which was written in 1742 by prominent hymn writer Charles Wesley (1707–1788):

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
look upon a little child;
pity my simplicity,
suffer me to come to thee.

Fain I would to thee be brought,
dearest God, forbid it not;
give me, dearest God, a place
in the kingdom of thy grace.

Lamb of God, I look to thee;
thou shalt my example be;
thou art gentle, meek, and mild;
thou wast once a little child.

Fain I would be as thou art;
give me thine obedient heart;
thou art pitiful and kind,
let me have thy loving mind.

Let me, above all, fulfill
God my heavenly Father's will;
never his good Spirit grieve;
only to his glory live.

Thou didst live to God alone;
thou didst never seek thine own;
thou thyself didst never please:
God was all thy happiness.

Loving Jesus, gentle Lamb,
in thy gracious hands I am;
make me, Saviour, what thou art,
live thyself within my heart.

The child’s answer reveals his native confidence in his simple Christian faith and his total acceptance of its teachings. Thematically speaking, in addition to relating the Lamb to nature, Blake relates the Lamb to God, employing more traditional Christian imagery. The Lamb is about Christianity, a Christian poem written from a perspective of traditional Christianity.

First of all, the subject matter is drawn from the Christian tradition. The poem starts with a question about the Creator and it concludes by affirming the Lamb’s role in creation, which is one of the main themes expressed in the Book of Isaiah and the Gospel of John.

Secondly, the pastoral scene portrayed in the first stanza, which is embodied in the imagery of The Lamb's feeding “by the stream and o'er the mead” suggests God's kindness in creation, and more importantly, it has an echo of similar descriptions in the Book of Psalms, especially Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want", and the parables of Jesus.

Thirdly, when answering the question in the second stanza, Blake does not directly name Jesus as the one who made the “Little Lamb.” Instead, he uses two biblical motifs -- the lamb and the child -- to imply his answer.

For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I, a child, and thou a lamb.
We are called by his name.

Here, Blake makes two comparisons. He compares the Creator first to a lamb and then to a child. Both of these comparisons are rooted in Scripture, especially in the Johannine tradition.

Finally, through the hymn lyrics of Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild and the traditional Christian teachings, children are told that the lamb symbolizes Jesus – the Lamb of God. The biblical image of Jesus as a lamb emphasizes the Christian virtues of gentleness, meekness, and peace-loving. In the four Gospels of the New Testament, the image of the child is always associated with Jesus; Jesus displays a special affection for children, claiming that hidden things are revealed to little children and that we need to change and become little children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The scriptural depiction of Jesus in his childhood shows him as guileless and vulnerable. These are characteristics from which the child-speaker approaches the ideas of nature and of God.

In a nutshell, The Lamb describes the innocence and joy of the natural world, advocates free love and a closer relationship with God, and it dramatizes the naive hope and innocent confidence in the form of question and answer that inform the lives of Christian children of Blake’s day, inviting a contrasting reading against the perspective of "experience" represented in the poem The Tyger. Contrary to The Lamb's firm belief in the basic teachings of traditional Christianity, The Tyger consists entirely of unanswered questions, and it involves a sophisticated acknowledgment of what is unexplainable in the universe, presenting evil as the prime example of something that cannot be denied, but will not withstand facile explanation, either.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[星子]

very good.

Thank you for sharing.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

very good.

Thank you for sharing.
_________________

[星子]

Hi Eric,

Through your essay I can see the culture in Christian is deep rooted in this poem.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Hi Eric,

Through your essay I can see the culture in Christian is deep rooted in this poem.
_________________

[ericcoliu]

Thanks for reading and commenting my writing.

William Blake is one of the major Romantic poets, whose verse and artwork became part of the wider movement of Romanticism in late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth century European Culture, which is deeply rooted in Christianity. His volume of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience is the embodiment of his belief that innocence and experience were “the two contrary states of the human soul,” and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Throughout his poetic work, Blake’s research and introspection into the human mind and soul has resulted in his being called, in Stanley Appelbaum’s term, the "Columbus of the psyche" because no language existed at the time to describe what he discovered on his voyages.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Thanks for reading and commenting my writing.

William Blake is one of the major Romantic poets, whose verse and artwork became part of the wider movement of Romanticism in late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth century European Culture, which is deeply rooted in Christianity. His volume of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience is the embodiment of his belief that innocence and experience were “the two contrary states of the human soul,” and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Throughout his poetic work, Blake’s research and introspection into the human mind and soul has resulted in his being called, in Stanley Appelbaum’s term, the "Columbus of the psyche" because no language existed at the time to describe what he discovered on his voyages.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

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