Human Nature in The Tyger and The Lamb

            The majority of people believe that Romantism is connected with and limited by the topic of love. However, children`s innocence, adulthood`s corruption and nature`s beauty are also themes, the poets from the Romantic period are interested in. William Blake writes about those topics in his collections Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Many of the poems in Songs of Innocence have corresponding poems in Songs of Experience. The first collection shows the innocent child`s outlook on the world, whereas the latter depicts the view of the experienced adult. The poems from the two collections are written on the basis of contrary states and opposites. Such is the case with the poems The Lamb and The Tyger. They complement one another and through the essence of the creator, they show the true nature of man- blend of good and evil. My goal in this paper is to compare and contrast the language used, the images and symbols, as well as to pay attention to the metamorphosis of a child into an adult and thus to prove that a man is neither only good nor only bad, but a mixture of purity and severity as "God created man in his own image" (King James Bible, Genesis 1:27).
             Both poems are written in rhymed couplets and are structured like conversations with animals. The Tyger consists of six stanzas, each of them four lines long. It is "closed" by a frame, which aims to point out that the poet is equal to God. This poem is built on rhetoric questions, which make the poem sound more dynamic and as controversial as the nature of the human soul. To prove his point, William Blake uses different means of expressions. The epithets throughout the poem are contradictory, but the majority of them can be linked with darkness- symbolizing the dark side of man. On the other hand, The Lamb consists only of epithets denoting mildness and kindness. In both poems Blake uses repetition, but the purpose if opposite.