Romanticism
Concepts and Beliefs
Guiding Questions
 How did political events in America and France in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries affect English
Society?
 How did the industrialization of England revolutionize the
ways in which people lived and worked?
 What political and economic theories developed in response
to the changes brought about by England’s rapid
industrialization?
 What new values and responses to change did the Romantic
poets offer?
Social and Political Milestones
The American Revolution (1776-1783)
The French Revolution and the Era of Napoleon (1789-1815)
The Industrial Revolution in England
Quick Write: What do you know about these events?
7 Critical Elements
¢ Started being used to describe specific pieces in 18th century
¢ Originally referred to characteristics of romance
¢ Opposed to classics
¢ Early 19th century the official Romantic period was established
¢ A fundamental component of Romanticism is the belief that man is inherently good
¢ People have a good sense of moral judgment
¢ Man can be swayed/molded towards perfection
¢ Gothic romance- love, death, supernatural
The Early Romantics
 The Romantic Period (1798–1832) was a time marked by turmoil in Europe. King George III
lost control of the American colonies. The gap between the rich and the poor widened
dramatically. The French Revolution inspired fear and resentment between the classes. With
the decline of agriculture, the cities were overpopulated and the living conditions were dismal.
As a result, there was an escalating focus on making money and protesting injustice. It was a
time of high anxiety and great change.
 The writers of this period are called Romantic not because they focus on romantic love, but
because they are idealists. Romantic writers use their work as relief from the world’s troubles,
often focusing on the joy and beauty of nature, the power of human feeling, and the escapism
of the fantastic and the supernatural. Romantic writers emphasize liberty and equality, and
they frequently harken back to “the good old days” when life was simpler and more peaceful.
Some of the writers even use the language of years or decades earlier to create a sense of the
past. Because some of this antiquated language may be more difficult to read, take your time
and pay close attention to the notations in the margins of your textbook. They will help you
understand the unfamiliar phrasing.
 The first generation of Romantic poets (1798–1805): Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge.
The Beginning
 During the spring of 1798, two young English poets sold some of
their poems to raise money for a trip to Germany. Each had
published books of poetry, but their new joint work was to be
anonymous. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the younger of the pair,
told the printer: “Wordsworth’s name is nothing…mine stinks.”
 Soon after they left England, their book, Lyrical Ballads, with a Few
Other Poems, appeared. Among the “few other poems” was
Coleridge’s long narrative The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (see page
765) and a last-minute addition, Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a
Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (see page 736). Both of these
works are now among the most important poems in English
literature.
William
Wordsworth
William Wordsworth revolutionized the poetry of his
time. Unlike his predecessors, who focus on wit and
reason, Wordsworth embodies the Romantic ideal.
His poems are designed to evoke feeling, sometimes
tranquil and serene, sometimes forceful. They touch
on human truths and reveal the connections between
us all.
Wordsworth’s poems often depict scenes of the
countryside and a simple life, and he praises the glory
and the magnitude of nature.
Wordsworth also writes with more accessible
language, believing that language, too, should be
natural, rather than artificial and ornate.
“Lines Composed A Few Miles Above
Tintern Abbey”
 As you read “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” notice the
sound imagery, such as the rolling waters and the rustling of the leaves that
soothe the speaker when he’s surrounded by the din of the city. Notice, too,
the personification of the trees and the simile that compares the speaker to
a young deer bounding through the forest. These kinds of images reinforce the
glories of nature and escaping the oppressive world of the modern city for a
simpler time.
 In terms of its structure, this poem also employs sound devices
like alliteration (“a sense sublime / of something”) and blank verse that
reflect the soothing, peaceful atmosphere. The informal language and freeflowing organization of this poem are precursors of the stream-of-consciousness
narrative we see often in modern literature.
 For this poem, your group will do a close-poetry reading outline
Stages of Analysis
Part 1: Is it Romantic?
Part 2: TPCASTT
Part 3: Individual Close Reading Paragraph. How does the
poet create the speaker, the attitude towards the subject, and
the purpose of the poem through stylistic devices.
The World is Too Much with Us
Allusion
An allusion is a reference to a person, place, thing, or event
that is recognizable from literature, history, religion,
mythology, politics, sports, science, or popular culture.
Allusions are often used to lend deeper meaning to a literary
passage or work. In Wordsworth’s poem “The World Is Too
Much with Us,” the poet alludes to two sea gods from Greek
mythology—Proteus and Triton. By making reference to these
gods, Wordsworth underscores an earlier sentiment in the
poem. Look for this connection as you read.
Counterargument
This sonnet counterattacks the ferocious criticism that
Wordsworth was receiving from conservative reviewers,
especially Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review. Jeffrey accused
Wordsworth of using unpoetic language, but, even more, of
conspiring against society, brooding needlessly over problems
“instead of contemplating the wonders and pleasures which
civilization has created for mankind.” Jeffrey considered
Wordsworth an enemy of progress because of his “idle
discontent with the existing institutions of society” and his
yearning for an earlier, less civilized time when people lived in
harmony with nature.
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge
Personification
Wordsworth breathes life into his sonnet by
using personification, a kind of metaphor in which a
nonhuman thing is talked about as if it were human.
Look for details that personify the city, the sun, the
river, even the houses of London.
Point of View
Wordsworth chose to spend most of his time in the
English countryside, especially in the beautiful Lake
District where, he believed, nature had made him a
poet. First published in 1807, this sonnet shows that
Wordsworth the nature lover could be moved not only
by mountains and waterfalls, but also by the majesty of
a sleeping city—in this case, London. It is London seen
from a distance, and by a man happily journeying to
France. Here, London’s filth and poverty are disguised
and transfigured by the poet’s imagination.

Stages of Analysis
Part 1: Is it Romantic?
Part 2: TPCASTT
Part 3: Individual Close Reading Paragraph. How does the
poet create the speaker, the attitude towards the subject, and
the purpose of the poem through stylistic devices.
Samuel Coleridge: “Kubla Khan”
Background
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was known for his presentation of the fantastic, perhaps a product
of his addiction to opium. His poem “Kubla Khan” is an excellent example of mood, which
was a major concern of Romantic writers.
He claimed it was written in a reverie brought on by opium taken after he had read a
provocative passage in a seventeenth-century travel book. Coleridge asserted that he woke
from his dream and was interrupted by a visitor while composing the poem. After the
visitor departed an hour later, a mere fragment of his dream-poem could be reproduced,
he claimed.
“Kubla Khan” has a lyrical tone and manner that resemble a meditative ode. Full of mystery
and dread, “Kubla Khan” was composed at about the same time (late 1797 or early 1798)
as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Kubla Khan (c. 1216-1294), the grandson of Genghis Khan, was the Mogul ruler of
China.
Literary Focus
Alliteration—the repetition of a consonant sound in words
that are close to one another—can have several effects.
Coleridge uses alliteration throughout “Kubla Khan” to help
create the poem’s enchanted mood. Alliteration can impart a
musical quality to a poem, emphasize a particular line or idea,
or help establish a rhythm.
Rhythm and Rhyme Scheme: Coleridge is using iambs
(unstressed stressed), but his rhyme scheme is:
ABAABCCDBDB
EFEEFGGHHIIJJKAAKLL
MNMNOO
P Q R R Q B S B ST OTTT O U U O
Emerging from a Dream
“Kubla Khan” has always intrigued readers, including the poet Byron,
who, after reading it in manuscript, apparently persuaded Coleridge
to publish it in 1816. At the time, Coleridge added a prose
introduction that offered a rational account of the poem’s origins.
The poem you are about to read may challenge the limits of your
imagination. It is meant to be heard.
Fantastical and strange, it is like a vivid yet incomprehensible dream.
Coleridge, in fact, suggested that the poem came to him in a dream.
Like a dream, the poem contains allusions to the deepest human
desires—for pleasure, order, beauty, even chaos and war. It also
holds within it the moment when, upon waking, the vividness and
the supposed logic of the dream are suddenly—perhaps forever—
lost to the dreamer.
Breaking it Down: Stanza One
It begins as a dream stimulated by Coleridge’s reading of Samuel Purchas’ 17th century
travel book, Purchas his Pilgrimage, or Relations of theWorld and the Religions observed in all Ages
and Places discovered, from the Creation unto the Present(London, 1617). The first stanza describes
the summer palace built by Kublai Khan, the grandson of the Mongol warrior Genghis Khan
and founder of the Yuan dynasty of Chinese emperors in the 13th century, at Xanadu (or
Shangdu):
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Xanadu, north of Beijing in inner Mongolia, was visited by Marco Polo in 1275 and after his
account of his travels to the court of Kubla Khan, the word “Xanadu” became synonymous
with foreign opulence and splendor. Compounding the mythical quality of the place
Coleridge is describing, the poem’s next lines name Xanadu as the place
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
This is likely a reference to the 2nd century geographer Pausanias’ description of the River
Alpheus in Description of Greece.
What are other features of this landscape?
Breaking it Down: Stanza Two
According to Pausanias, the river rises up to the surface, then descends into the earth again
and comes up elsewhere in fountains -- clearly the source of the images in the second
stanza of the poem:
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Where the lines of the first stanza are measured and tranquil (in both sound and sense), this
second stanza is agitated and extreme, like the movement of the rocks and the sacred river,
marked with the urgency of exclamation points both at the beginning of the stanza and at
its end:
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Highlight the “Agitated” and “Extreme” Words—How do these
develop a shift in tone?
Breaking it Down: Stanzas Three and
Four
The fantastical description becomes even more so in the third stanza:
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
What other fantastic images are there in this stanza?
And then the fourth stanza makes a sudden turn, introducing the narrator’s “I” and turning
from the description of the palace at Xanadu to something else the narrator has seen:
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Some critics have suggested that Mount Abora is Coleridge’s name for Mount Amara, the
mountain described by John Milton in Paradise Lost at the source of the Nile in Ethiopia
(Abyssinia) -- an African paradise of nature here set next to Kubla Khan’s created paradise at
Xanadu.
How does the song reflect the emergence of Coleridge’s poem?
Breaking it Down: The Final Stanza
To this point “Kubla Khan” is all magnificent description and allusion, but as soon the poet actually
manifests himself in the poem in the word “I” in the last stanza, he quickly turns from describing the
objects in his vision to describing his own poetic endeavor:
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
This must be the place where Coleridge’s writing was interrupted; when he returned to write these
lines, the poem turned out to be about itself, about the impossibility of embodying his fantastical
vision. The poem becomes the pleasure-dome, the poet is identified with Kubla Khan -- both are
creators of Xanadu, and Coleridge is apeaking of both poet and khan in the poem’s last lines:
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Wordsworth advocated “the spontaneous overflow of powerful
emotions”—Use the chart to fill in how the Final Stanza
reflects this ideal.
Kubla Khan: The Literary Criticism
 Focused on the influence of opium on its dreamlike qualities
 Language and meter are too intricate for it to have been
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created by the fevered mind of a sleeping poem
Is the poem truly a fragment? Does the fifth stanza sum up
the poem?
Does the poem have no veritable meaning (T.S. Eliot)
Or is it an allegory (a symbolic story) about the creation of
art?
Or is it a reflection of how, like Xanadu, art offers a refuge
from the chaos?
Stages of Analysis
Part 1: Is it Romantic?
Part 2: SOAPS Outline
Part 3: Individual Close Reading Paragraph.
How does the poet create the speaker, the attitude towards the
subject, and the purpose of the poem through the images and
the choice of words he selects?
Rime of Ancient Mariner
“Rime of Ancient Mariner”
 Coleridge’s most famous poem is “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner.” This literary ballad contains adventure, happiness,
sadness, anxiety, regret, fear, and forgiveness, among other
emotions. That is true Romanticism, to combine so many
aspects of human feeling in one work and to depict an exotic
adventure through the supernatural and the fantastic.
 Coleridge’s use of rhyme and ballad stanza structure makes
the long poem easy to read. Think of each part as a chapter in a
book.
 After we complete Stanza 1 and 2, you will be assigned Stanzas
3-7
 Your group will create a paraphrase and a Picture Book for the
sections of the poem which you will present to the class with
key lines and summary of the section.
“Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Background
 Coleridge wrote The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner as part of the collaboration
with Wordsworth in 1797–1798.
 As Coleridge later recalled, some of the
poems in this volume were intended to
present ordinary people and events in a fresh
and interesting way.
 Others, such as Ancient Mariner, were to
present supernatural characters and events,
yet in such a way that would induce the reader
to “procure for these shadows of imagination
that willing suspension of disbelief for the
moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”
The Ballad
Coleridge’s literary ballad imitates the
traditional folk ballad in both subject
matter and form. Like the old folk ballads
(see page 130), his sensational narrative
blends real with supernatural events. It
also uses simple language, a good deal of
repetition, and strong patterns of rhythm
and rhyme.
Coleridge was a skilled poet, and to avoid
monotony, he often varies
his meter and rhyme scheme. He also
uses sophisticated sound devices
like internal rhyme (“The guests
are met, the feast is set” )
and assonance(“’Tis sweeter far to me”).
To give his ballad an archaic sound, he uses
language that was old-fashioned for his day.
Mariner: Reading Focus
ARGUMENT
“How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the
cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she
made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific
Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner
the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.”
Themes in “Ancient Mariner” and Frankenstein:
 The Natural World: The Physical
 The Spiritual World: The Supernatural
 Liminal Space: Between two realms: reason & imagination,
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dreaming & waking
Duty to Others
Religion
Retribution
The Act of Storytelling
Ancient Mariner: Part One
Wedding (Natural) World
Sea (Supernatural) World
 3 Guests going to a
 Opening Journey
 SUNNY BEGINNING
wedding
 1 guest listens to the story
 The wedding itself serves
as a counterpoint to the
mariner’s story
(Personification of the Sun)
 STORM-BLAST: Sailors escape
 SNOW-FOG: “Land of ice and
of fearful sounds”—the arrival
of the Albatross
 CONFESSION: “I SHOT the
ALBATROSS”
Connection to Letters: Consider that Coleridge read this poem to Mary Shelley,
how does the opening letter in Frankenstein create two worlds—Robert Walton’s
childhood and his desire to be a sailor?
Part Two: Individual v. Group
Blamed for killing the
Albatross
Praised for kill the
Albatross
 Crew turns against him
 Fog clears: “thus make themselves
 Mariner: “I had done a hellish thing”
accomplices in the crime”—Crew
approves
 “I had killed the bird that brought
the fog and mist”
 Fair Breeze continues
 Killed the bird “that made the breeze to
blow”
 When weather turns again, no breeze,
“water, water, every where nor any drop to
drink”—The Mariner notes: “instead of the
cross, the Albatross about my neck was
hung”
Connection to the Letters: How does Mary Shelley expand on the relationships between the
crew? How does she explore the “suspension” of the journey (Letter IV)? How does
Frankenstein, the character set up the Albatross around his neck? (Letter IV)
Group Work Focal Points
 Part 3: Things get much worse for the crew, but the glimmer of
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hope on the horizon brings a skeleton ship with two figures ,
sentenced to LIFE-IN-DEATH for killing the albatross
Part 4: Wedding guest reacts with fear, Marnier tells of the
decaying of his shipmates and his own wish for death, has a “nature”
moment and the curse is broken
Part 5: Sleep (Dream State of the Body)—the “dead men rise” and
sail the ship at night and then the Mariner hears two voices
Part 6: The Angels’ Dialogue and Imagines the dead are on the
deck, reflection on the curse and the wind eventually gets him
home
Part 7: Greeted by the Hermit, Ship sinks and Mariner is rescued,
Mariner tells his tale to the Hermit (absolved of his guilt) but finds
he has to keep telling the story. Wedding Guests exit the church.
Homework:
 Plot out key points (use web links to Gustav More for pictures for your Part)
and write down key lines you could use in your Mariner Group Work—Due
Next Class
 “On Going on a Journey” Blog—Complete Analysis Log and Key Quotes—
Due Next Class (Blog Prep) –Focus on reasons to go alone, reasons against
going with someone else, and how going to a foreign country is different
Upcoming Major Assignments:
 Read Frankenstein Chapter 1-4 (24 pages): Complete Episodic Notes and
Character Analysis on Victor Frankenstein (due Thurs. Jan. 31/Fri. Feb.1)—
Think about Frankenstein’s Grief
 Read the specific Poetry Group Poems and Lesson Plan Directions from
Romantics and Victorians –Complete SOAPS and DIDLS for both poems (due
Mon. Feb. 4/Tues. Feb. 5)
Intro into “Going on a Journey”
 Throughout the essay he creates a series of oppositions, mainly rural vs. urban
Quick Bite:
 In this essay, Hazlitt examines the joys of walking in nature by oneself. Many of his reasons reflect
the Romantic ideals and the Romantic writers of the day, which he often cites, and Coleridge he
discusses as the one person that he would not mind on a journey through nature, if he must have
company.
 In the middle of the essay he explores what happens when someone goes with you and why it is a
distraction. In the middle of the essay he recalls the inns where he has stayed alone, recalling one
that he visited before meeting up with Coleridge.
 Hazlitt ends his essay by examining the experience one has when one goes to another country, as a
juxtaposition to the others.
Quick Write on Topic:
 Hazlitt begins his essay with the following line: "One of the pleasantest things in the world is going
a journey, but I like to go by myself."
 Make a Prediction:
 Position Reasons for Going Alone
 Negative Reasons for Going with Others
“On Going on a Journey”: EXPERT GROUPS
 Group 1: Reasons to Walk Alone (109-to “I begin to feel, think,
and be myself again”-top of 110)
 Group 2: Problems with Having a Companion except Coleridge
(mid 110-end of first paragraph on 112)
 Group 3: C/C Journey Alone vs. Journey Abroad (bottom 114-
115)
HOW DOES HAZLITT REFLECT THE ROMANTIC IDEALS?
“Rime of Ancient Mariner” Groups
 Facilitator: Keeps group members organized and on task. This person
assigns stanzas for students to practice reading aloud and to paraphrase
them.
 Recorder: This person is responsible to see that students write down their
paraphrased statements of their assigned stanzas on their copy of the
poem.
 Art Director: This person is responsible to see students create drawings or
directing the scene of appropriate events in their part of the poem,
including written stanzas on the drawing. Use the Six-Sequence (3 key
events per Part)
 You will create together: the direct quotes, the paraphase or play, and the
images (acting, drawn, or taken from Gustav More)
Themes to Consider in Your Parts
• The Natural World: The Physical v. The Spiritual World: The
Supernatural
• Liminal Space: Between two realms: reason & imagination,
dreaming & waking
• Duty to Others
• Religion
• Retribution
• The Act of Storytelling
• Connection to Frankenstein
Coleridge gives pre-explanations throughout the Parts. Use these to guide
your discussion of the key “tableaux” that you will present to the class. Make
sure they connect to the themes.
William Blake
Background
In the late 1700s, prices increased sharply and work became scarce. Blake saw
starving people rooting through garbage, homeless families sleeping in
doorways, and children begging on the streets or working at horrible jobs.
Most members of the upper class believed that they deserved their
comfortable stations in life, and that the poor must be innately evil, deserving
the hunger and appalling conditions that they endured.
Blake was said to be mad, not only because he saw visions, but also because
his poems cry out against the social problems he saw all around him: the
growing division between classes, the wretched working conditions, and
child labor. No one should go hungry, he said, in a land as green and wealthy
as England.
Quick Write:
What are the injustices of the modern world? What are the conditions for
the modern 12 year-old? Is this the same everywhere?
Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
Blake’s Poems: Innocence to Experience
 William Blake first published Songs of Innocence in 1789. In 1794,
this collection and Songs of Experience were issued together in one
volume, the title page promising a demonstration of “the two
Contrary States of the Human Soul.”
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Blake conceived the first of these states, “Innocence,” as a state of
genuine love and naive trust toward all humankind, accompanied
by unquestioned belief in Christian doctrine. Though a firm
believer in Christianity, Blake thought that its doctrines were being
used by the English Church and other institutions as a form of
social control: to encourage among the people passive obedience
and acceptance of oppression, poverty, and inequality.

Recognition of this marks what Blake called the state of
“Experience,” a profound disillusionment with human nature and
society. One entering the state of “Experience” sees cruelty and
hypocrisy only too clearly but is unable to imagine a way out. Blake
also conceived of a third, higher state of consciousness that he
called “Organized Innocence,” which is expressed in his later works.
In this state, one’s sense of the divinity of humanity coexists with
oppression and injustice, though involving continued recognition of
and active opposition to them.
Blake: The Poison Tree
 In “A Poison Tree,” Blake expects his
readers to recognize the allusion to
the biblical story of Adam and Eve.
When Adam and Eve eat fruit from the
forbidden tree, they are cast out of
Eden. In the poem, the speaker’s foe
likewise eats the fruit of the poison
tree and dies.
 The tree is a symbol of the speaker’s
anger and hatred. By hiding his anger,
the speaker deceives his foe, and when
his foe partakes of this hidden rage, it
destroys him. There is a deliberate
cause-and-effect relationship in this
poem: Harboring anger leads to
destruction
Brief Analysis of “Poison Tree”
 Subject and theme:Wrath (anger) and desire to triumph over enemies;
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the dark side of human nature.
Key image:The tree which bears the poisonous fruit.
Technical features:
Simple narrative in form of parable; "wrath" a powerful Biblical term
for a deadly sin;
Tree suggests Biblical and mythical narratives;
Contrast between treatment of friend and of foe;
Repeated use of "And" or "I" to start lines;
Rhyme words in second stanza as metaphors of nurturing the desire to
harm;
Conclusion shows how horrible wrath can be - this is not a literal killing
but real spiritual and psychological harm are done.
Application to “The Chimney Sweeper”
 In these two poems, the first from Songs of Innocence and the second from Songs
of Experience, Blake speaks for the poor children of his day who were forced to do
backbreaking labor.
 In Blake’s London, buildings were heated by coal- or wood-burning fireplaces, so every
house had at least one chimney that had to be cleaned regularly. Poor children were
often used to do this dirty and hazardous work because they could fit into the narrow
chimney passages.
 In fact, some parents were so poverty stricken that they sold their children to “masters”
who managed crews of young sweepers. The work was dangerous, and the children
were badly treated by masters concerned only with profits.
 If you could cry out against an evil of our day—and get people to listen—which social
injustice would you protest? Take a few minutes to jot down your thoughts
Literary Elements:
Compare/Contrast: “The Chimney Sweeper”
Parallelism
When words, phrases, or sentences are arranged in balanced grammatical structures, they are said to
be parallel. Poets, dramatists, preachers, and speechwriters (whose work is meant to be spoken aloud) are
particularly likely to employ parallelism because the repetition it introduces enhances the rhythmic and emotional
effect of their lines and makes them easier to understand and remember. Blake’s use of parallelism contributes to
the childlike simplicity of the surface of his poems.
Focus Questions

The 1794 collection, remember, was called Songs of Innocence and Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the
Human Soul: explain how these poems show "contrary states".

How, in these two poems, does Blake explore different ideas about God and nature? Which do you find more
appealing (if either) and why?

Both poems use simple rhymes and regular meter. Does this mean the ideas in the poems are simple, too?
Give reasons for your answer.
Compare/Contrast Venn Diagram
Homework
 Complete Mariner if Needed
 Frankenstein Chap. 1-4 (17-42) DUE NEXT CLASS
“The Lamb”
Subject and theme: Lamb is symbol of suffering innocence and Jesus
Christ.
 Key image:The Lamb as seen through the eyes of a child.
Technical features:
 Repeated questions, directed to the lamb, but easier to answer than
those addressed to the tiger;
 Answers given in the second stanza;
 Idyllic setting of "stream and mead"
 Contrasts with "forests of night" (exotic and dangerous) in The Tyger;
 Suggests Biblical book of Psalms especially the 23rd psalm, with its
"green pastures";
 As well as making The Lamb, God becomes like The Lamb: Jesus is both
the "Good shepherd" and "The Lamb of God". Like the Passover lamb,
He is sacrificed to redeem others.
“The Tygre”
Subject and theme:Tiger as a symbol of God's power in creation
 Key images:The tiger as seen by Blake's poetic imagination: "fearful
symmetry"; "burning bright...fire";
"hammer...chain...furnace...anvil".
Technical features:
 Repeated (rhetorical) questions; contrast with meekness of The Lamb;
 Tyger is addressed directly;
 simple metre and rhyme;
 incantatory rhythm (like casting a spell);
 creation like an industrial process (fourth stanza).
“The Tygre” and “The Lamb”
 Review Brief Notes for Blake
 Poetry Elements Graphic Organizer
 Poetry Elements Questions from Writing About Poetry