Figurative Language & Blake’s “The Lamb” – Detailed Study Notes

Literary study assumes: the closer we look at language, the fuller a poem’s force becomes.
- Especially true for poetry where meaning is densely packed.
- Readers “produce” meaning by working through figures of speech.
Figurative process = mental work needed to interpret tropes.
- Complex, largely unconscious, but constantly active in everyday language.
- Greek root of “figure/trope” = “turn / twist.”

Appears in Blake’s “Songs of Innocence.”
Surface level: child‐speaker teaches a lamb about its divine creator (Christ).
Dual function:
- Celebration of innocent theology.
- Critique that innocence oversimplifies complex theological issues.
Simple vocabulary masks a dense network of figures that exceed the child’s intentions.

Metaphor: “ $\text{clothing of delight}$ ” → wool is to lamb as clothing is to humans.
- Transfers ideas of warmth, beauty, humanity, God‐given gifts.
Personification: echo = the valley’s rejoicing.
- Extends human emotion to nature, creating a harmonious Eden.
Implied metaphors of God as giver/host:
- Life, food, wool described as gifts; stretches “proper” meaning of giving.
Apostrophe: entire poem addresses a lamb (non-responsive being).
- Turns an ordinary speech act into an imaginative event.

Metaphor: compressed analogy; meaning transferred via shared category.
Simile: explicit comparison; uses markers like as, like; tighter control, less excess.
Personification: human qualities → non-human entities.
Apostrophe: direct address to absent/inhuman target; sub-category of personification.
Metonymy: substitution based on contextual association (e.g., “the crown” = king); situates us in historical world rather than deep logic.
- Absent in “The Lamb” because Blake asserts essential identity, not mere association.

Appears figure-free, answers first stanza’s questions directly: Maker = Christ.
Actually creates the figurative category Christ → Lamb → Child.
- Shows how literal statements still invite figurative thinking.
“Primal” words (“tell,” “call,” “bless,” “lamb,” “child,” “meek,” “mild”) carry dormant tropes through etymology.

Bless ← Old English blōd (“blood”): ritual sprinkling for purification.
- Fits poem’s sacrificial subtext (Christ = Lamb of God).
Meek / Mild once meant “soft, slippery” (tactile).
- Physical softness → psychological gentleness = latent metaphor.
Make derives from “knead / press” (shaping pliable matter).
- Irony: Christ both maker (active) and lamb-stuff (passive).

Even “proper” meanings rely on categories & contrasts within the language system.
- $\text{bless} \neq \text{curse}$ → both exist only by mutual opposition.
No intrinsic link between word and object; meaning is arbitrarily assigned.
Therefore every utterance is already figurative; poetic tropes merely foreground this truth.

Language = system through which experience gains meaning.
- Shapes perception, imposes values (e.g., female ↔ chick, bitch, fox).
Repetition naturalizes figurative associations until they seem “proper.”
Philosophical & scientific “concepts” are tropes with technical prestige.
- Example: “idea” ← Greek for “to see.”

Dream mechanisms mirror tropes:
- Identification (metaphor): latent idea represented by structurally related image.
- Displacement (metonymy): meaning shifted to associated but safer detail.
Confirms figurative activity in unconscious cognition.

Figures = engines of eloquence; persuade by emotional resonance, not formal logic.
Dominant groups shape language to preserve interests.
- Gendered animal metaphors fortify male dominance.
Advertising as modern rhetoric:
- McDonald’s “hot vs. cold” burger box ads splice reunion imagery (kid/dog, skaters, Romeo & Juliet) with sandwich assembly.
- Viewer forges category “joyful reunions,” transfers warmth to product, feels participant in meaning‐making.
- Political ads deploy flag or Statue of Liberty to conflate patriotism with consumption.

Spectacular tropes expose the system’s constructedness; can undermine self-evidence of “truth.”
- Valley rejoicing → forces reader to notice mythical thinking.
Competing value systems can invent counter-metaphors.
- E.g., depict tech workers eating “integrated-circuit sandwiches” to mock consumerism.
Language is a battleground; critical awareness lets us choose or create the categories we live by.

While reading poetry (or any discourse):
- Identify each trope and ask what transfer of meaning makes it work.
- Trace etymologies; dormant figures matter.
- Consider cultural, psychological, political stakes of the categories invoked.
Remember: $\text{Interpretation = Co-Creation}$ .
- Your act of categorizing completes the poem/ad/argument.
Use figurative awareness to question dominant narratives and to craft persuasive, ethically grounded communication of your own.