The Lamb

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1789

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Lamb as a Symbol of Christ

In traditional Christian symbology, the lamb represents Christ, emphasizing his innocence and purity. For instance, in the Gospel of John, the prophet John the Baptist announces the arrival of Christ by proclaiming, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Blake draws upon this biblical association in his poem, using the figure of the lamb to highlight the gentleness of the divine Creator. The poem’s first stanza lists the lamb’s attributes, from its “Softest clothing wooly bright” (Line 6) to its “tender voice” (Line 7). By assigning these welcoming characteristics to the lamb, Blake symbolically defines the nature of God as warm and tender. The reference to the lamb’s “tender voice” recalls the voice of Christ calling disciples to his flock. The lamb’s voice likewise “Mak[es] all the vales rejoice” (Line 8), evoking the joyful message of Christ proclaimed in the Gospels.

In addition to its associations as a gentle, pastoral creature, the lamb is traditionally known as a sacrificial animal. The ancient practice of animal sacrifice pervades the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, in which the sacrifice of a clean, pure animal (such as a lamb) symbolically makes atonement for sin. Christians view Christ’s crucifixion in the New Testament as the ultimate expression of God’s divine love: the sacrifice of his only son for the redemption of humanity. Although the poem does not make explicit reference to the crucifixion, the significance of Christ’s sacrifice resonates in the second stanza of the poem, in which the speaker notes that Christ “calls himself a Lamb” (Line 14). The capitalization of the word “Lamb” signals that Blake is using the term to refer to Christ’s epithet, Lamb of God, a name used in the Bible to distinguish Christ as God’s human offering. However, Blake’s implicit reference to Christ’s death does not detract from the jubilant tone of the poem. Rather, the speaker’s lens of innocence casts Christ’s self-sacrifice as the very act that unifies child, lamb, and God.

The Child as a Symbol of Christ

The speaker of “The Lamb” is a child, whom Blake characterizes as an innocent, joyful messenger of God. The child-speaker assumes the role of a preacher, instructing the lamb on its divine origins. This image of a child preaching recalls Jesus’ own preaching to his followers, whom the Bible occasionally refers to as his “flock” or his “sheep.” The notable difference, however, is that Blake’s speaker preaches to a literal lamb, an animal without understanding of human language. This choice of audience highlights the innocence of the speaker, who represents Christ in his willingness to share God’s message with those of seemingly lesser understanding. Blake makes the parallel between children and Christ explicit when the speaker recounts how Christ “became a little child” (Line 16). The reference to Christ’s incarnation acknowledges the innate innocence of the speaker and, by extension, all children.

Blake’s symbolic choice of a child as the poem’s speaker also had political significance in his historical context. Blake wrote this poem at the height of the British Industrial Revolution, a time when child labor was widely practiced in factories, mines, and textile mills—tools of industrialization that Blake referred to as “dark Satanic Mills” in his poem called “And did those feet in ancient time.” By endowing a child with the authority to deliver God’s message at a time when children were exploited as cheap labor, Blake aligns the child-speaker of the poem with the biblical Redeemer—one who shines light on the hypocrisy of his age and initiates a spiritual renewal.

Naming

The poem’s child-speaker repeatedly engages in the act of naming, a motif that has biblical resonance. In Genesis 2:20, God bestows upon the first man, Adam, the task of naming the creatures of the earth: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.” The child-speaker of Blake’s poem assumes the role of Adam by giving the lamb its name and defining its place in the order of being.

The child-speaker’s Adamic role first becomes apparent in the poem’s refrain, with its insistent christening of the “Little Lamb,” a designation repeated six times in the poem (Lines 1, 9, 11-12, 19-20). By repeating the lamb’s name, the speaker calls the animal addressee to attention and bestows upon the creature its uniqueness among all of God’s creation. However, Blake’s use of naming departs from biblical precedent in one notable way. Whereas Adam’s naming of the animals in Genesis establishes a hierarchy of being, placing the Creator above all and humans above animals, the child-speaker of Blake’s poem highlights the equivalence of these three tiers of being. The speaker preaches to the lamb that God “is called by thy name, / For he calls himself a Lamb” (Lines 13-14). Not only is the lamb made synonymous with God, but the child-speaker continues that God “became a little child” through Christ (Line 16). The speaker’s declaration to the lamb that “We are called by his name” (Line 18) groups together God, lamb, and child in the unique bond of a common name. Blake’s collapsing of traditional hierarchies has the effect of endowing all of creation with the innocence and purity of God.

The poem’s patterning of end-words in the second stanza also highlights the importance of naming in the poem. Blake rhymes the words “name” and “lamb” twice in the poem (Lines 13-14 and 17-18), and these are notably the poem’s only slant rhymes, thus drawing extra attention in a poem that is otherwise highly regular in its rhyme scheme. This sonic association between the act of naming and the poem’s titular creature suggests that names are important to God, because names are what reveal the symbolic and spiritual nature of all things.