The Lamb: the paganism in
William Blake’s poem
By Marina Silveira Lopes
and Emmanuel Gonçalves Guimarães Lisboa**
Abstract: this work examines the poem The Lamb by the British poet William Blake. It is divided into three parts: firstly it considers the relevance of literary critical analysis, then, it makes
some considerations about the poem itself and, finally, it tries an interpretation of it.
Commentary
Commentary is understood as the background of
the poem. According to Antonio Cândido1 it is the
historical-literary context in which the author is inserted.
We deal here with a poem translated from English
into Portuguese. It is a hard and thankless task because it is well known that there are insurmountable
syntactic, semantic and orthographic differences between the British Isles language and the Lusitanian
Portuguese. A very trivial example is the possibility
of changing the positioning of the phrase elements
in Portuguese whereas in English there is no such flexibility. On the other hand, in the original, we see
an idiom that allows multiple meanings for the same
word and in the translated text we have a language
that has a great deal of semantemes for the same meaning with different signification. All this difference
becomes much more complex when we are dealing
with a poem because it is almost impossible to dissociate this type of text from sound, rhythm, cadence
etc of the language in which it was written2.
Another aspect that contributes to make difficult such
analysis is the historical distance between the historical
context of the poem and now when we are analyzing
it. It is a text written in the XVIII century in England
and we are analyzing it in Brazil in the XXI century.
Taken into account such difficulties already mentioned by Antonio Cândido: “The commentary is a
kind of translation done before the interpretation, […]
The commentary is as much necessary as the text is
far from us in time and semantic structure”3.
We tried to find a translation that could meet our
analysis criteria. We did not find it, so we made our own.
To all elements of analysis pointed out by the
USP’s illustrious professor of Brazilian Literature we
added another to examine the poem. We emphasized
religion as an indispensable factor for the building of
the text. Religion is a factor that acts upon the artist’s
work whether he wishes or not. For Antonio Carlos de
Melo Magalhães “literature is the interpreter and the
archive of the religious memory and experience”4.
The manuals of literary studies place William
Blake5 in the British neoclassical literature6, but the
poet is much ahead of this literary school. It is possible to state that Blake is a romantic poet even if he
does not belong to the period called Romanticism.
We are dealing with an author who is mostly a dandy7 and who is pointed out by many authors as the
most complete artist of his time. Blake, besides being
a poet, was a painter and created a unique style not
only in the expression but also in the way of making
it. He created a painting style known as illuminated
printing that consists of engraving a drawing on a copper surface a technique very similar to the watercolor: in both it is almost impossible to touch up any
mistake. Examples:
Ciberteologia - Journal of Theology & Culture – Year II, n. 14
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Figure 1. Pietá.
Figure 3. God as an architect.
Figure 2. Pegasus.
Figure 4. The black dragon.
Ciberteologia - Journal of Theology & Culture – Year II, n. 14
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Figure 5. Lovers’ vortex.
Historical context
The England in which William Blake lived was the
one in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We
know that the Industrial Revolution was a movement
for change that started in the XVIII century and, according to the historian Eric Hobsbawn, “constitutes
the greatest change in history since the remote times
when the human being invented agriculture and metallurgy…”8 Although we know that the industrial revolution started, it is difficult to say when it ended,
or if it ended9. This revolution was not a revolutionary act in itself but a sequence of factors that led to
mechanization, development of technical industrial
production and communications. So much so that it
was one of the great fomentations for the ascension
of capitalism.
During this big change the philosophical thought
was erected on the Enlightenment. This intellectual
movement believes that reasoning was the great solution for society’s problems. It was about reasoning,
or better still, through the light of the reasoning that
everything was explained.
The time in which Blake lived was also marked by
an event that changed the course of History: the French Revolution from which the ideals of equality, fraternity and prosperity were disseminated, mainly in
Europe, and reverberated in America too. The French
Revolution influenced so much the poet that he dedicated one of his books to it: The French Revolution:
one poem in seven books. Out of seven books, only
one was written. It contains verses of political wor-
ding that at first glance seem to convey to the reader
all the enchantment that the Revolution generated in
the poet. But after the events that followed, it seems
that it was not fit for poetry10 anymore.
The poetry of this period, mainly in English, had a
poet that carried in himself the character of the times
not only in his biography but also in the text: Alexander Pope11. According to the reviewer Anthony
Burgess12, poetry is not written in the XVIII century’s
England without Pope’s rhythmic, aesthetic and spiritual influence.
If Pope was the biggest influence in England, in
France it was Voltaire. The Brazilian reviewer Antonio
Cândido, in his classic work Formation of Brazilian literature, draws our attention to the rationalism boom
in the work of three writers: Sade, Bocage and Blake:
“It is not to be wondered at that this dynamic century
barely enclosed by the Horatian ideal of golden mediocrity bursts here and there in Bocage’s work, in
Marquis of Sade’s and Blake’s”13.
William Blake is the “burst” that will contribute
for the advent of the Romantic poetry and with it the
poet’s return to his soul and the questioning of his
existence.
Religious context
Since the XVI century differently from the rest of
Europe Catholicism was not England’s formal religion. This English religious reformation started during
Henry VIII’s kingdom but it was under Elisabeth I that
it was consolidated and instituted as an independent
Ciberteologia - Journal of Theology & Culture – Year II, n. 14
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religion from Catholicism. The Anglicanism became,
then, England’s formal religion.
In England there was another important religion:
the Calvinist Protestantism. Calvinism was intrinsically linked to businessmen who viewed this religion
as possible answers to the questions about God and
profit. The historian Antonio Pedro says in his History
of Western Civilization: “The capitalistic spirit of the
Calvinist religion agreed with the bourgeoisies’ aspirations”14.
There was also a third religion in XVIII century’s
England: Catholicism. The Roman Apostolic Catholic
Church, almost hegemonic in the world, in England
was the religion with the fewest number of followers.
The historian Eric J. Hobsbawn points out the fact that
the Catholic religion was a rural religion followed by
the poorest people in England during the Industrial
Revolution15.
The poet William Blake was born in a Catholic poor
family. He was educated and grew up in London’s Catholic poor boroughs. He became a poet in a context
where there were no known poets who did not belong at least in appearance to Anglicanism. An example is Pope who was influenced by the Enlightenment
but due to patronage declared himself an Anglican.
However most of the time he kept himself far from
religious questions unless his patron instigated him to
treat such subjects. Blake is a poet with no patron. He
pays publication with his private funds and follows a
faith since childhood but does not agree with it.
For any writer in his position it would have been
much easier to solve his problem of disagreement
with the Catholic faith once “[…] the des-Christianization of man was spread among the educated classes in the end of the XVII century or at the beginning
of the XVIII”16.
But not for Blake. The poet never doubted the existence of God, not even was able to believe that the
misery and sufferings of human beings were divine
intention or punishments. The author also could not
find answers in the Enlightenment’s pure and simple reasoning. He faced then a serious problem and
professor Haroldo de Campos already said that the
best poetry is created from serious problems. Thus we
view William Blake’s poetry as the search for understanding God in its possible relationship with human
beings in their different stages in life. The next part of
this work is dedicated to a bibliographic return to the
poet through such interpretation.
William Blake (1757 – 1827)
The first book published by William Blake was Poetical sketches which was sponsored by some friends
of his and had a small distribution in England. Blake’s
first ideas for poems appeared in this book where he
designs his linguistic style that is going to be characterized by a language very much close to people, in
a very musical poetic rhythm and with a questioning
thematic of the institutions instilled with the idea of
fugere urbem17.
Later on he dedicates himself to the Book of Thel,
a brief poem in which his own mythology and symbology start to appear. At the time he undertakes a
unique literary work. It is a book permeated by engravings and illuminated printings that integrate the
poetic text. It is Songs of Innocence, a book of a very
limited edition because it was a handicraft fully made
by the author and his wife. Five years later Blake goes
back to the same process and creates Songs of Experience which is inseparable from Songs of Innocence.
As we said before, it seems that both books integrate
each other by weaving a set of paradoxes and antitheses using a language with a popular rhythm and
cadence.
Other works by the poet that are relevant for this
work are: Auguries of Innocence, The French Revolution, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and his last
book Jerusalem Invocation.
The poet William Blake will be reference and enigma for several generations of artists. Poets so far apart
in space and time such as John Keats, William Wordsworth, Dylan Thomas and Jim Morrison dedicated
themselves and were influenced by Blake. Even great
English prose writers were influenced by his work. Today according to many literature historians it is one of
the greatest in its language being compared in importance to William Shakespeare.
The Poem
The poem examined is The Lamb. Although we
found several translations, we decided to use one
made by us. It follows the poem and our translation:
Ciberteologia - Journal of Theology & Culture – Year II, n. 14
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The Lamb
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I’m a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
O cordeiro
Pequeno cordeiro, quem te criou?
Tu não saberias quem te criou?
Deu-te vida e alimento mandado
por todas as campinas, por todos os regatos
Ofertou vestes ao teu prazer,
Vestes finas! de pura lã a resplandecer,
Deu-te suavidade à voz.
Para alegrar da montante à foz?
Pequeno cordeiro, quem te criou?
Tu não saberias quem te criou?
Pequeno cordeiro, te contarei
Pequeno cordeiro, te contarei
Pelo Mesmo nome Ele é invocado
O próprio Cordeiro é consagrado
Muito afável, Ele é manso,
Tornou-se uma pequena criança
Eu uma criança, tu um cordeiro,
Por um único nome somos chamados.
Pequeno Cordeiro, Deus te abençoe!
Pequeno Cordeiro, Deus te abençoe!
Formal aspect of the poem
The poem The Lamb consists of twenty verses that
are divided into three stanzas being two of eight verses and the third and last of four verses. Its metrics
alternates six or seven syllables permeating a rigorous
scale of rhymes disposed as follows: AABBCCDD/
AAAAEEFF/EEAA.
As to the rhythm, we see in the two first stanzas
that the first two and the last two verses are trochees18
which are grouped in three sounds, and in the middle
stanzas are trochaic tetrameter; only in the last stanza
we see a rhythmic unity made by the three trochees.
This poetic scale is very similar to the popular poetry with didactic character. In Portuguese language
the equivalent verse can be the bigger roundel with
trochaic stress19. In our translation we tried to concentrate on the contents because the formal scale was
minimized due to linguistic differences.
However it is essential to point out the relationship
between form and contents in the examined text once
it is a sequence of metric, rhythm and popular rhymes, facilitating the memorization of the text by the
reader and giving it a teaching character.
Analysis and interpretation of the poem
In the poem contexture we have an important reference to the Bible: “The lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world” (John 1,29). In this gospel Christ
is since the beginning presented as the one who will
save humankind through his sacrifice. John’s gospel
presents a Christ who is aware of his mission, convinced by it and agreeable to it.
Blake uses again the Biblical text in a clear reference to the message that the lamb will save the world.
He gives a new meaning and interprets the Biblical
passage in a time analysis that imprints his religiosity
and gives his own Christ’s symbolization.
Ciberteologia - Journal of Theology & Culture – Year II, n. 14
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Thus, we have a game that is set up as follows:
The lamb is in the poem’s title and according to the
entry in Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant’s dictionary, it is the archetypal symbol present in three
great religions: Christianism, Judaism and Islamism,
marked by a similar meaning in all of them as we can
see below:
[…] appears in its immaculate and glorious whiteness
as a spring transfiguration; it incarnates the triumph of
victory’s renewal, the continuous renewal of life over
death. It is precisely this archetypal function that makes
the lamb par excellence the propitious victim, the one
that has to be sacrificed in order to ensure its own salvation20.
The poem is not limited to praise the lamb; it is a
didactic-reflective poem in conformity with the standard Anglican catechism at the time. In a framework
permeated by rhetorical questions William Blake
builds a lamb that is three without being threefold
meaning trinity, but three starting from one and not
three that are one.
The first rhetoric question is asked by the poetic
subject21 to the lamb (animal):
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
After asking the character, the poetic subject makes
a list of qualifying actions of this not revealed creator
yet (verses 3 to 8). The subject goes back to the same
question in verses 9 and 10.
In the first and in the beginning of the second stanza, we have just the poetic subject’s discourse about
the creation of the lamb. Starting from the third verse
of the second stanza we find the revelation of the poetic subject, a revelation that is very much dramatic
and that happens as follows:
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
We notice in these verses a means to keep the
reader’s attention: to create a matter-of-fact suspense
in the text which is soon broken when we find the use
of capital letters for the pronoun in verse 13:
For He calls Himself a Lamb
The capital letter is used here as also in the English
text. An important point is the regress of the Lamb that
being consecrated leads us to the idea of immolation
and innocence.
The Lamb represents the childhood, both elements
of innocence not tainted by society yet. These elements go back to nature, stressing the poet’s romantic
character marked by the return to the pagan world22.
We have then three independent elements that are
part of a whole. Blake’s poetry is highly marked by
the idea that God is an entity as much as the human
being. In the examined poem we have three elements
that converge into one only. The poetic subject being
a lamb as much as Christ, the lamb is likewise a lamb
that is a lamb. Therefore there is a metonymy of Nature becoming manifest the idea of immanency.
In the finishing stanza we have a refrain that seems
to join the three elements: poetic subject, lamb and
Christ in just one lamb, but the poetic subject and
Christ are kept individually.
The Lamb and the Tiger
We could not leave out the famous poem The Tiger,
a similar text that is five years older than the poem we
are examining. They complement each other because in the first we have the exaltation of innocence
created by God that is part of nature; in the second
we have God creating wickedness and inserting it in
nature making it immanent too.
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The Tiger (1794)
O Tigre
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Tigre, Tigre, viva chama
Que as florestas da noite inflama.
Que olho ou mão imortal podia
Traçar-te a horrível simetria?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
Em que abismo ou céu longe ardeu
O fogo dos olhos teus?
Com que asas ousou ele o vôo?
Que mão ousou pegar o fogo?
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?
Que arte & braço pôde então
Torcer-te as fibras do coração?
Quando ele já estava batendo
Que mão e que pés horrendos?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Que cadeia? Que martelo,
Que fornalha teve o teu cérebro?
Que bigorna? Que tenaz
Pegou-lhe os horrores mortais?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Quando os astros alancearam
O céu e em pranto o banharam,
Sorriu ele ao ver seu feito?
Fez-te quem fez o Cordeiro?
Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Tigre, Tigre, viva chama
Que as florestas da noite inflama,
Que olho ou imortal mão ousaria
Traçar-te a horrível simetria
Tradução de José Paulo Paes
Bibliography
ARANTES, José Antonio. An obscure and brilliant prophet.
In: Cadernos entre livros: Outlook of British literature.
São Paulo, Duetto, 2007. v. 1.
SACRED BIBLE. Pastoral Edition. São Paulo, Paulus, [s.d.]
SACRED BIBLE TEB. São Paulo, Loyola-Paulinas, 1995.
BURGESS, A. British literature. Básica Universitária, [s.d.]
CÂNDIDO, Antonio. The analytical study of a poem. 4th
edition. São Paulo, FFLCH-Humanitas, [s.d.]
______. Formation of Brazilian literature. 5th edition. São
Paulo-Belo Horizonte: Editora Edusp-Itatiaia, [s.d.].
CHEVALIER, J. & GHEERBRANT, Dictionary of symbols.
18th edition. Rio de Janeiro, José Olympio Editora, 2003.
HOBSBAWN, Eric J. The era of revolutions. Translated by
Maria Tereza Lopez Teixeira and Marcos Penchel. São
Paulo, Paz e Terra, 1998.
LYRA, Pedro. Concept of poetry. 2nd edition. São Paulo,
Ática, [s.d.].
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MAGALHÃES, A. Carlos de Melo. Religion and literature:
perspectives of dialogue between Sciences of Religion
and literature. Religião & Cultura, v. III, n. 6, July-December 2004.
PEDRO, Antonio & LIMA, Lizânias de Souza. History of
Western civilization. São Paulo, FTD, 2005.
REVELATIONS. Part III of III. Magazine ORIGEM 3, June
2002.
SAINT AUGUSTINE. Confessions. São Paulo, Paulus,
1984.
SANTOS, Clarissa Soares dos. “Appraisal of poetry translation: an objective analysis of the translations of The
Lamb, by William Blake”. Available in http://www.maxwell.lambda.ele.puc-rio.br/cgi-in/PRG_0599.EXE/9364.
PDF?NrOcoSis=28849&CdLinPrg=pt>
Access
in
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7
VIZIOLI, P. William Blake: selected poems and prose. São
Paulo, Nova Alexandria,1993.
<http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/britlit/97-98/
blake/POEMS.HTM#LAMB>. Access in 06/02/2007.
<http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/poetry/blake.
htm#lamb>. Access in 06/02/2007.
Notes
*
**
1
2
3
4
5
6
Attending her Master’s degree in Religion Sciences
– PUCSP.
Attending his Master’s degree in Religion Sciences
– PUCSP.
CÂNDIDO, Antonio. The analytical study of the
poem.
LYRA, Pedro. Concept of poetry.
CÂNDIDO, Antonio. Op. cit. p. 27.
MAGALHÃES, Antonio Carlos de Melo. Religion
and literature: perspectives of dialogue between
Sciences of Religion and Literature.
William Blake: English engraver and poet who was
born in 1757 and died in 1827. He was of humble
origin and most of what he learned was by himself;
he spent just a short period studying painting at the
Royal Academy of Arts. He was very much criticized
in his time and was a complete publishing failure in
the XVIII century’s England. With the Romanticism
Blake becomes a reference for poets mainly those
who adhered to the Byron’s aesthetics or ‘mal-dusiècle’. Among his important readers we can cite:
George Gordon Byron (England), Arthur Rimbaud
(France), Almeida Garret (Portugal) and Álvares de
Azevedo (Brazil).
Neoclassicism or Arcadian is a literary style that
dominates several countries during the second
half of the XVIII century and the first quarter of
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Ciberteologia - Journal of Theology & Culture – Year II, n. 14
XIX century. This literary school is very much
influenced by the Enlightenment, the Industrial
Revolution, the French Revolution and the United
States Independence. The neoclassicism appraises
a return to the classical literature emulating it as a
model for enlightenment and poetic correctness;
in the neoclassicism the Greek-Latin ideals are
disseminated linked to the philosophical thought
at the time. An important feature was the denial
of all religions in an anthropocentrism that for the
neoclassical artist would result in man’s complete
freedom. Important men in the field were: Alexander
Pope (England), Marchioness of Alorna (Portugal/
France) and Cláudio Manuel da Costa (Brazil).
According to the French poet Charles Baudelaire,
dandy is the opposite of flaneur. These are two
essential concepts for the reading of modern
arts. The dandy is the individual who as an artist
makes of himself a work of art. An example is the
novelist and playwright Oscar Wilde, known not
only for his literature but also for his extravagant
way of life. The flaneur is the individual who as
an artist is concerned with his art above himself;
as an example we have the expressionists who in
many cases not even signed their works. William
Blake, for example, coming historically before
Baudelaire’s concepts, cannot be defined as a
dandy but in his own way he fits in the concept.
HOBSBAWN, Eric J. The era of the revolutions.
HOBSBAWN, Eric. J. Op. cit.
ARANTES, José Antonio. An obscure and brilliant
prophet.
Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744): the greatest
rationalist English poet. His family was catholic
but he abandoned his religion and wrote the book
Essay on man, where he tries to explain God and
existential questions in a rational way. It is Pope the
poet that elects and creates followers. Main works:
Ode on solitude and Essay on man.
BURGESS, Anthony. British literature.
CÂNDIDO, Antonio. Formation of Brazilian
literature.
PEDRO, Antonio. LIMA, Lizânias de Souza. History
of Western Civilization.
See HOBSBAWN, Eric J. Op. cit. pages 239-255.
Idem, ib. p. 240.
In the neoclassicism there are three words of
command for the poet: carpe diem: seize the day;
inutilia truncate: dismiss uselessness; fugere urbem:
flee the town.
Trochee: a resource for rhythmic building that
means a symmetric use of one long syllable
followed by one short syllable; in this case the
8
19
20
21
22
poet uses this resource mostly in groups of three
syllables.
It is used in the “cordel” poetry.
CHEVALIER, J.; GHEERBRANT, A. Dictionary of
Symbols, p. 287.
A character that speaks in poetry when it is not
lyric-love, because then we have an “I” that is
lyric.
Perhaps the main feature of the pagan religiosity
is the divine immanence, that is, it is in the Nature
itself (what includes human beings) and manifests
itself through its phenomena. www.wikipedia.com
accessed in 07/27/07.
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