In Songs of Innocence and Experience, examine Blake's twin poems 'The Tiger' & 'The Lamb' as 'two aspects of God and two states of man.'

The series of poems that seemingly oppose each other or at
least discuss big questions in different ways that characterise this excellent
collection of poems serve to present the two states of innocence and experience in their
full glory. The state of innocence is implied throughout "The Lamb" as being one that is
characterised by a child-like trust in God and the divine, emphasised by the simple
rhyme and rhythm that the poem adopts. It is key to note that in this poem, the question
of who created the lamb is one that is answered explicitly and
clearly:

He
is called by thy name,

For He calls himself a
Lamb.

He is meek, and he is
mild;

He became a little
child.

Notice how the speaker
explicitly identifies both himself and the lamb he addresses with the figure of Jesus
Christ, the Lamb of the Passover, showing how they symbolise their creator's innocence
and purity.

However, the key difference between "The Tiger"
and "The Lamb" is the way in which "The Tiger," throughout the poem, asks the question
of who could have designed and made such a powerful and frightening figure. Crucially,
this question is never answered, which is important because the speaker of the poem is
struggling to understand how the creator of the lamb could also have made the
tiger:

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?

Can the tiger, a
fearsome creature of the night, a ruthless predator, have the same source as the cute
fluffy little lamb, which is taken as a symbol of
innocence?

Thus it is that these two poems approach big
questions regarding the dual nature of God. On the one hand, God is characterised by
benevolence and goodness, as shown through his creation of the lamb. However, much more
disturbingly, God is also the creator of the tiger, a ruthless killer and a dangerous
predator. Can God be the source of both good and evil, and why does God allow evil if he
is good?

Secondly, note the way that these two poems can
also be applied to the dual nature of humanity, characterised by innocence and
experience. The speaker in "The Lamb" is an innocent child, whereas the speaker in "The
Tiger" is an adult with full awareness of the complexity of the world and the big
questions that have no easy answers. The first speaker represents the state of innocence
where we are able to accept simple answers; the second sees that when we reach a stage
of experience there are no answers to such complex questions.