William Blake

LIFE (1757 - 1827)
William Blake was born in London into a family of a tradesman. When he was twenty-one, he entered the Royal Academy of Arts. Then he left. In 1789 he himself published the illustrated volume Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake also worked on the “prophetic” poems. In these works he developed a personal mythology and used a set of symbols to criticize Christianity and to show man torn between the forces of nature and the power of imagination. He died in 1827.

ACHIEVEMENT
Blake was a contemporary of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. This is the reason why Blake devoted himself to the principles of liberty, justice and equality. Blake’s most important work is Songs of Innocence and Experience and some individual lyric poems from these collections, like The Lamb, The Tyger are among the best-known in the language.

Unlike the writers of the first half of the 18th century who relied on reason to understand reality, Blake relies on imagination and vision. It is only through imagination that one understands the injustices of the world and can rebel against them. Blake’s work rejects both the role of reason as a way to knowledge and the poetic ruled of classicists to follow his original style.
His simple language is based on biblical sources and on the English tradition of nursery rhymes. Blake’s first work of importance was a collection of poems: Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Innocence corresponds to the world of childhood and represents the compassion, love and sympathy. Experience corresponds to the world of adulthood: it’s in the world of experience that we encounter tyranny and injustice. Innocence and experience are states of mind that coexist, showing that human nature is both innocent and corrupt.

THE LAMB AND THE TYGER

The Lamb and The Tyger are both about the problem of Creation and the identity of the Creator. The two poems may seem to evoke two real animals, each with its own features and set in its natural habitat. But it’s clear that the lamb and the tiger are symbols. The lamb may represent the innocence of childhood, while the tiger symbolized the evil that comes from experience. 

In the poem The Tyger the symbolism becomes more complex. For example the word “burning” may evoke the image of the animal’s eyes burning with violence, but the addition of “bright” turns the tiger into something shining, which may symbolize the light of the genius overcoming the error and the ignorance represented by “the forest of the night”. The tiger is so beautiful and powerful that it could only have been created by God.
If the lamb partakes of the nature of God, the tiger also represents a quality of the divinity. And if the lamb represents the sweetness and meekness of Christ, the tiger represents the “other” Christ, who descended among men offering them a revolutionary and violent message of love.

The Lamb - Traduzione

Agnellino, chi ti ha creato?
Sai tu chi ti fece?
Ti diede vita e ti insegnò a nutrirti
Vicino al ruscello e sul prato;
Ti diede il vestiario della gioia, 
La più soffice viste lanosa e luminosa,
Ti diede una voce così tenera,
Facendo rallegrare tutte le valli?
Agnellino, chi ti ha creato?
Sai tu chi ti fece? 

Agnellino, te lo dirò io,
Agnellino, te lo dirò io!
Egli è chiamato col tuo nome,
Perché lui chiama se stesso agnello
Egli è mite ed è mansueto  
Egli divenne un piccolo bambino:
Io un bambino, tu un agnello,
Noi siamo chiamati con il suo nome
Agnellino, Dio ti benedica.
Agnellino, Dio ti benedica. 

The Tyger - Traduzione

Tigre! Tigre! Che bruci luminosa
Nelle foreste della notte,
Quale mano o occhio immortale
Ha potuto formare la tua spaventosa simmetria?

In quali lontane pronfondità o cieli    
Bruciava il fuoco dei tuoi occhi?
Su quali ali ha osato librarsi?
Quale mano ha osato afferrare il fuoco?

E che spalle, e che artificio
Riuscì a intrecciare i tendini del tuo cuore?  
E quando il tuo cuore cominciò a battere
Che terribili mano? Che terribili piedi?

Che martello? Che catena?
In che fornace fu la tua mente?
Che incudine? Che terribile morsa 
Osò i suoi mortali terrori afferrare?

Quando le stelle buttarono giù le loro lance,
Ed annaffiarono il cielo con le loro lacrime,
sorrise al vedere il suo lavoro?
Colui che fece l’agnello fece te? 

Tigre! Tigre! Ardendo lucente
Nelle foreste della notte
Che immortale mano o occhio
Osò forguare la rua pauosa simmestria?