Analysis of The Lamb by William Blake.

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The Lamb by Blake, published in 1789 in his collection Songs of Innocence, is filled with religious sentiments. The speaker in the poem is a child, the representative of innocence. This poem is actually a counterpart to Blakes’s poem “The Tyger” in Songs of Experience, where we can find several inverted parallels. The lyric is counterpart to the tiger. “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” represent the two contrary states of the human soul. The lamb represents innocence and humanity whereas the tiger represents a fierce force within man.


The speaker, who is a child addresses a Lamb, probably wandering in the meadows. The lamb is a baby lamb because the child calls him Little Lamb. The child asks who made the little lamb in a typical child’s tone, rhythm and diction. He asks him several questions, like who gave it life and food, from where it got its wool and a tender voice which makes the valleys rejoice. Though these questions are rhetorical questions, the poet aims to make his readers open their minds and to see the beauty of God’s creation. The questions asked can be summed up into a single question, that is who is responsible for creating it(lamb).


In the second stanza the speaker gives answers to the questions asked. The creator of the little Lamb is a man named Lamb. The answer is vague and not direct, but we are able to understand that he is referring to Jesus Christ. The soul intention of the poet is to heighten the beauty of God’s creation. The verses are like an Hymn of God, praising his creation of not just the lamb but all things on earth. In fact the very existence is enough to answer the question of “who made it”. The reference made to the Lamb can be traced in the Bible in John 1:29, where Jesus Christ is called the “Lamb of God”.


In the second stanza there’s an identification of the lamb, Christ, and the child. Christ has another name, that is, lamb because Christ is meek and mild like lamb. Christ was also a child when he first appeared on this earth as the son of God. And the poem conveys the very spirit of childhood purity, innocence, and tenderness, as well as the affection that a child feels for little creatures like the lamb. There are also overtones of Christian symbolism suggested by Christ as a child. The pastoral setting is also another symbol of innocence and joy. In the description of the lamb, we can find many symbols of Christianity.  The lamb has got not ordinary clothes but clothes of “delight”. The lamb stands for the innocent state of the soul, a dweller of the world of innocence, purity, naturalness, and spiritual, original and natural being. The word ‘woolly’ also reminds us that Christ was born with soft woolly hair. The brightness may also be an indication of the halo or shining on the pure being. The voice could also be the word of Christ or that of the visionary and creative being, the poet and the prophet.


The lamb, child and Christ three are representatives of the innocence of childhood and the new creation of God. The little child and the little lamb both are young and hence have no taint of the vices lurking in the adult world and is the most representative poem of the poems of ‘innocence’. The child has not yet been corrupted by the world of conventionalised pretensions called religion, culture, society and state and other codified systems. This overtly simple poem also subtly approaches the subject of creativity and the creator. While the speaker is speaking about a real physical lamb on the surface of it, the subtext of the poem derives from both Christian and classical mythology. The child is the symbol of Christ, the physical incarnation of the deity. The fact that it has been sent to feed among the meadow and along the stream indicates that it is to live by natural, instinctual means, or the Divine law of nature.

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