How is a positive relationship between man and God presented in Songs?

In ‘The Tyger’ Blake manipulates the pastoral genre to highlight the flaws in God’s expectation of man and thus reveals the negativity present in the relationship between man and God. Blake refers to famous incidents in the bible and ancient mythology in which people have been cast down and punished for their ambitions. ‘What the hand dare seize the fire?’ references Prometheus who was punished by the Gods of Olympus for bettering man by stealing their fire, while ‘When the stars through down their spears’ relates to the fall of the devil from heaven. Blake uses these to remind the reader of the numerous times when God has unfairly punished his own creations for their ambitions and flaws. ‘Did he smile his work to see?’ exaggerates this idea of a spiteful God who enjoys the abuse and damnation of the sinners. This in itself could be seen to illuminate the negativity of God’s relationship with man in his malice, however it goes further than this to prove that this God is unjust to make creatures and then punish them for the flaws he made them have; he made man ambitious yet punished him for his ambition. Blake, however was a religious man, and this poem is not so necessarily criticising the relationship between man and God; rather it exposes the fragility of the church’s depiction of such a malevolent and yet holy God. In this sense Blake suggests that an embracement of the true God leads to a positive relationship with him, only portraying the organised religion’s depiction of what the relationship should be in a negative light. Blake begins the poem ‘Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright/ In the forests of the night’ symbolising the tiger as a bright light in the darkness. The use of ‘burning’ could suggest that it is dangerous to the forest, like a fire, however it is more likely that Blake used this to describe the tiger as a torchlight leading the way through the dark. The church at the time imposed strict censorship and manipulated their presentation of God, depicting him as harsh and inciting fear in the public. Blake believed in a more benevolent New Testament God, and thus the tiger can be seen to represent the truth leading humanity through the darkness of the indoctrination of the church. He uses the tiger as a symbol of hope for man, while criticising not God but the church’s depiction of God for creating the darkness and for creating man to seem like such a wild unforgivable beast, hated by God for the smallest sin.

‘The Lamb’ in Songs of Innocence describes a much purer idyllic relationship with God. The poem uses a child as narrator, addressing a lamb about the questions of life and religion. The first verse describes the beautiful work of God, in itself rejoicing his creations on earth; ‘Gave thee clothing of delight/ Softest clothing wooly bright’ uses simplistic language that a child would possess to describe purely the lamb’s wool, and yet by calling it ‘clothing’ God’s deeds are personified into jobs like, in this case, a tailor. The use of words like ‘delight’, ‘softest’ and ‘bright’ further emphasise this idea that God looks after his creations and so provides the best for them. All this combined shows how God is caring and has a role of protecting and providing his creations, and so in turn has a positive relationship with man. The presence of the addressee as lamb has bibilical conotations of the baby Jesus, and thus through the addressing of child to lamb the connection through innocence between man and God is created in the poem. That the child can so easily speak to this metaphor for the Christ figure, shows the way in which a simple and honest relationship between man and God is presented by Blake as not only achievable but desirable.