英文诗歌分析全文

1 "The Lamb" is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. Like many of Blake's works, the poem is about Christianity. The whole collection is pervaded with a breath of simplicity and fancy.

Poetic structure

1rhyme scheme: AA BB CC DD AA AA EF GG FE AA

“The Lamb” has two stanzas, each containing five rhymed couplets. 2The layout is set up by two stanzas with the refrain: "Little Lamb who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?"

In the first stanza, the speaker wonders who the lamb's creator is; the answer lies at the end of the poem. Here we find a physical description of the lamb, seen as a pure and gentle creature. In the second stanza, the lamb is compared with the infant Jesus, as well as between the lamb and the speaker's soul. In the last two lines the speaker identifies the creator: God.

Rhetorical devices

1 The poem begins with the question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?” The speaker,

a child, asks the lam

b about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its particular manner of feeding, its “clothing” of wool, its “tender voice.”

2 In the next stanza, the speaker attempts a riddling answer to his own question: the lamb was made by one who “calls himself a Lamb,” one who resembles in his gentleness both the child and the lamb.

Repetition in the first and last couplet of each stanza makes these lines into a refrain, and helps to give the poem its song-like quality. The flowing soft vowel sounds contribute to this effect, and also suggest the bleating of a lamb or the lisping character of a child’s chant.

Theme

1 The lamb is a common metaphor for Jesus Christ, who is also called the "The Lamb of God"

2 Blake in the songs of innocence，with childish life's point of view，shows a full of love and kindness, compassion and happy world. The poem has just 20 lines, but depicts the character of gentleness vividly.

3 The poet’s description about the lamb’s kindness and gentleness, aims to express their feeling of life and nature, and the yearning for the universe and harmonious understanding.

4 He not only sings praise of gentle lamb, but also the mystical power that can create the lamb. Here the God, Jesus and the Lamb are just the one thing.

The Tyger

Tyger! ︳Tyger! ︳ burning ︳bright

In the ︳forests ︳ of the ︳ night,

What im ︳ mortal ︳ hand or ︳ eye

Could ︳ frame thy ︳fearful ︳ symmetry?

Analysis: In the this verse, the author compares the fierceness of a tiger to a burning presence in dark forests. He wonders what immortal power could create such a fearful beast.

* Line 1 is an example of synecdoche(提喻), a literary device used when a part represents the whole or the whole represents a part. In line 1 "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright" alludes to the predator's eyes.

In what ︳distant ︳ deeps or ︳ skies

Burnt the ︳fire of ︳thine eyes?

On what ︳ wings dare ︳ he as ︳ pire

What the ︳ hand, dare ︳seize the ︳fire?

Analysis: Here the poet compares the burning eyes of the tiger to distant fire that only someone with wings could reach. The poet wonders where such a powerful fire could have come

And what ︳shoulder, ︳ and what ︳art,

Could ︳twist the ︳ sinews ︳of thy ︳heart

And when ︳thy heart ︳ began to ︳ beat,

What dread ︳ hand？and ︳ what dread ︳feet?

Analysis: In the third stanza we have a metaphor giving us a vision a skillful and powerful blacksmith creating the tiger's beating heart awakening a powerful beast. The phrase “...twist the sinews of thy heart" is also an allusion to a hardheartedness that a beast of prey must have towards the creatures it kills.

What the︳hammer?︳what the ︳chain?

In what︳furnace︳was thy ︳brain?

What the︳anvil?︳what dread ︳grasp

Dare its ︳deadly ︳terrors ︳clasp?

Analysis: This verse continues the allusion to a creator, who, having made the fearsome beast, must confront with the sheer terror of a tiger's nature

When the ︳stars threw ︳down their ︳spears,

And wa ︳ter’d hea ︳ven with ︳their tears,

Did he ︳smile his ︳work to ︳see?

Did he ︳who made ︳the Lamb ︳make thee?

Analysis: In the fifth stanza,the author, with beautiful rhetoric (personification),describes a marvelous creation process likening starlight to a symbolic destructive process.

The author wonders whether the creator of the fierce and predatory tiger could make the docile, gentle lamb. He sees a conflict between the creation of heartless, burning predator and its potential victim, the lamb.

Tyger! ︳Tyger! ︳burning ︳bright

In the ︳forests ︳of the ︳night

What im ︳mortal ︳hand or ︳eye

Dare ︳frame thy ︳fearful ︳symmetry?

Analysis: The final verse is but a reprise, almost a chorus. It serves the purpose

of repeating the wondrous question of the tiger's creation and gives the reader

another chance to enjoy the rhetorical and already answered question, "What immortal

hand or eye?"

The answer lies in the reader's interpretation of creation: Did God create the fearsome along with the gentle? Why does He allow the tiger to burn in the dark forest,

while the lamb gambols in the glen under the stars of that very creation? The author

leaves it up to the reader to decide. The important thing is the question, not the answer.

Background information: The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake.

It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794. The Cambridge Companion to William Blake (2003) calls it "the most anthologized poem in English."

解析题目：His choice of "tyger" has usually been interpreted as being for effect, perhaps to render an "exotic or alien quality of the beast", or because it's not

really about a "tiger" at all, but a metaphor.

The Meter: trochee tetrameter. (the poem is in trochaic tetrameter)

The poem is comprised of six quatrains (A quatrain is a four-line stanza) in rhymed couplets. The Rhyme Scheme： aa bb with a near rhyme(近似韵)ending the first and

last stanzas, drawing attention to the tiger's "fearful symmetry."

Rhetorical devices

1 Repetition of "Tyger" in line 1, "dare" in lines 7 & 8, "heart" in lines 10 & 11, "what" in lines12, 13, & 15, "Did he" in lines 19-20, and several repeats in stanzas

1 &

2 establish the poem's nursery rhyme like rhythm.

2Alliteration in "The Tyger" abounds and helps create a sing-song rhythm. Examples

include the following:

"b urning b right" (1) "f rame thy f earful (4) "d istant d eeps" (5) "w hat w ings" (7) "b egan to b eat" (11) "d are its d eadly" (16) "h e wh o" (20)

3 Symbolism：

(1) the tiger represents the dangers of mortality; (powerful force with terror,

mystery and violence eg: fearful symmetry, dread hand, obscure in symbolic meaning)

(2)the fire imagery symbolizes trials

(3) the forest of the night represents unknown realms or challenges;

(4) the blacksmith represents the Creator;

(5) the fearful symmetry symbolizes the existence of both good and evil, the knowledge that there is opposition in all things, a rather fearful symmetry indeed.

* Symbols

The Lamb: God

Distant Deeps: Hell

The Tiger: Evil (or Satan)

Skies: Heaven 4Metaphor: Compare the tiger’s eyes to fire.

5 Anaphora: Repetition of what at the beginning of sentences or clauses. (首语

重复法)

Example: What dread hand and what dread feet? / What the hammer? what the chain?

Theme

The poem is more about the creator of the tiger than it is about the tiger itself.

The poet was at a loss to explain how the same God who made the lamb could make the

tiger. So, the theme is: humans are incapable of fully understanding the mind of

God and the mystery of his handiwork.

COMPARISON between the lamb and the tyger

1 "The Tyger" is the sister poem to “The Lamb" “Songs of Innocence”, a reflection

of similar ideas from a different perspective, but it focuses more on goodness than

evil.

2 Both are creation poems

3 Structure of the “The Lamb” is more obviously singular when compared with the

complexity of “The Tiger,” whose complexity is achieved through layered questions

without answers, while the Lamb poses a simple, singular question and then directly

answers it.

The sick rose

O Rose, thou art sick. 啊玫瑰你病了

The invisible worm 那看不见的虫

That flies in the night 在夜里飞翔

In the howling storm 在呼啸的暴风雨中

Has found out thy bed 发现了你深红色

Of crimson joy, 快活的床

And his dark secret love 他黑色的秘恋

Does thy life destroy. 摧毁了你我的生命

Analysis

rhyme scheme: abcb (2 quatrains or 2 stanzas)

images: rose, worm, storm, bed

1 Line 1: The form of address—"O rose"—is called an apostrophe. The rose here

could be a metaphor for love or passion

2 Line 2-3: "Invisible" might be a metaphor for the worm's quiet act of destruction.

3 Line 4: The speaker mentions a "howling storm," which gives the poem a more ominous tone. "Howling" reminds us of dogs or wolves; the sounds of those animals are here

a metaphor for the storm

4 Line 5-6: "Bed" might refer to a plot of ground in which the rose is growing, which it's not a literal bed with pillows, but a metaphor for the plot of ground. Or bed can refer to the rose's petals, which is a place where insects rest or sleep. In addition, the worm manages to worm his way into the rose's bed, which suggests some kind of sexual act.

5 Lines 7-8: The speaker describes how the worm "destroys" the rose with his "dark secret love." It is an example of personification, where human characteristics or emotions (love) are attributed to non-human things (namely the worm).

The Rose The rose exists as a beautiful object that has become infected by a worm; also as a literary rose, the conventional symbol of love. It symbolizes innocence, nature and even pre-industrial England fall under this more encompassing category. The speaker opens by apostrophizing the rose, immediately setting a tone of despair that is intensified by the epithet of “sick”. The rose resides in a “bed”, which is a pun denoting both a flower bed and a human one. The sexual undertones are elevated by the evocation of “crimson joy”, which is almost paradox as the said color is distinctly sinister, often used to describe the appearance of blood and therefore tying into the poem’s suggestio ns of death. A literal death is not suggested, however, but a figurative one, as the rose's life is irreparably "destroy[ed]"

The Worm The worm, meanwhile, symbolizes the destruction of this unspoiled state, its appearance evoking biblical images of the serpent in Eden. Worms are usually earthbound, and symbolize death and decay, therefore suggesting that it symbolizes something more sinister than death - in this case, the fall of mankind. The “bed” into which the worm creeps denotes both the natural flowe rbed and also the lovers’ bed. The rose is sick, and the poem implies that love is sick as well, and it can also refer to the moral corruption. The “crimson joy” and the “dark secret love” imply both sexual pleasure and shame, which Blake thought was perverted and unhealthy.