Question

Find five examples of Blake’s use of questions in the poems "The Lamb" and "The Tyger,” and compare their tone.

Answer 1

In the Lamb the entire first stanza consists of questions which only have one Dost thou, but it is applied to the other lines also. In the Tyger, the five questions can be What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

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?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

The tones are different insofar that the lamb has gentle questions and beautiful and timid descriptions, while the tyger questions are frightened and amazed that something so fierce exists. The main question in both is how the same god can make both something as gentle as a lamb and as fierce as a tiger.

Answer 2

1. Little Lamb who made thee? (from "The Lamb")

2. Dost thou know who made thee? (from "The Lamb")

3. What immortal hand or eye,/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry? (from "The Tyger")

4. In what distant deeps or skies,/ Burnt the fire of thine eyes? (from "The Tyger")

5. On what wings dare he aspire?/ What the hand, dare seize the fire? (from "The Tyger")

The tone of the questions in "The Lamb" is more innocent and shows a sense of wonder. Blake maintains this innocent tone by using words like little and Lamb and by repeatedly asking the lamb if it knows the identity of its maker. These questions and words suggest the smallness and helplessness of both the subject and the speaker.

In "The Tyger," Blake creates a more forceful tone through use of words such as fearful, fire, dare, and seize. In "The Tyger" the poet uses rhetorical questions to create a sense of wonder but also a sense of fear and awe.

PLATO