THE LAMB – WILLIAM BLAKE

“The Lamb” is one of the most famous poems written by William Blake
contained in the collection “Songs of Innocence”. It has a simple form,
consisting of two stanzas, each with five rhymed couplets.
In the first stanza the poet asks the lamb if it knows who created it, who gave it
life and feed it. The lamb is then described in its natural environment, running
beside streams and through fields. Whoever made the lamb gave it its coat,
which is made out of soft white wool. The lamb’s noises make the valley
happy. The poet then asks again: Who made the lamb?
In the second stanza, the poet offers to tell the lamb the answer. The creator
has the same name as the lamb. This creator is gentle and kind, and he was
once a small child. The poet, too, is a child, and both he and the lamb share the
name of their creator. The poet then asks God twice to bless the lamb.
There are many literary devices to enable the writer to present its ideas and
feelings. The lamb is a metaphor of Jesus Christ because he goes humbly to be
sacrificed for mankind while the lamb and the poet represents innocence and
religion. In line 5-6 the lamb is personified as having clothes while in line 7 it is
personified by having voice. The repetitions of “Little Lamb” at the start of
many lines creates an anaphora. There are many assonances (of “e” in line 4)
and alliterations (of “l” in line 11 and 12, of “h” and “m” in line 15).
I think that even if this seems a simple poem, Blake was able to deal about
important themes in a formidable way. First the religious aspect is revealed
when the lamb becomes a metaphorical image of Jesus Christ who gave
humanity many gifts and has sacrificed his life to absolve mankind of the
universal sin. The other important theme is the innocence, the poet uses a
child’s point of view but it is very limited since he isn’t truly aware of the total
reality of human experience. He will lose innocence when he will grow up.