William Blake: THE LAMB

letteratura inglese

William Blake: THE LAMB

The Lamb speaks about the creation and the figure of the poet.

The poem consist of 2 stanzas which are related to each other because the first is a question about the c 242c29c reation, while the second is the answer.

The theme of the poem is the identity of the creator of the lamb and the poet speaks directly with the animal and he presents various actions of the lamb.

The first stanza opens with 2 questions that the poet repeats in lines 9 and 10: Blake asks at the lamb if it knows who made it but it isn't the lamb which answer, the poet himself does it.

The lamb is described as the animal of innocence, like the creature in which there are no troubles, no tensions.

The lamb could stand both as a real animal as a symbol, in fact some natural details make you think of the real animal.

So the lamb is the symbol of God's innocence and God's love for his creatures.

In the second stanza the poet says that the creator is the lamb because he's tender, sweet and innocent, he's a little child ( Jesus).

There's also an identification of the poet with the child and the lamb; the poet creates a sort of medieval chain: in this case the poet identify himself with the creator, so he's the child, the child is the lamb and the poet is the lamb.

Finally we can see that creator-lamb-poet have in common the innocence.

It's composed by 2 stanzas and they have the same number of lines (10).

The rhyme scheme is AA-BB-CC-DD-..( Rhyming couplets).

We find an anafora in lines 11-12 and 19-20.

The poet uses a simple lexis and syntax.