“The Lamb” by William Blake (1789)

“The Lamb” was first published alongside “Night” in Blake’s Songs of Innocence. Since many of Blake’s poems in this collection are quite short, and since Blake often relies on idiosyncratic metaphors, it is essential to compare his works with one another. In “The Lamb,” Blake draws a fairly traditional connection between Christ and the image of the lamb, which further develops in “Night.” The themes of divine grace and meekness are also explored in this poem. Blake’s speaker states outright that Christ “calls himself a Lamb: / He is meek & he is mild” (Lines 14-15).

“The Tyger” by William Blake (1794)

From the Songs of Experience section of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, “The Tyger” is perhaps Blake’s best known poem. Like many poems in Songs of Experience, “The Tyger” reflects the sentiments of the poems in Songs of Innocence, but colors them in a darker, more mature way. “The Tyger” focuses on a carnivore, an animal that must resort to violence in order to live. The tiger’s “night” (Line 2) is much different than the same time in “Night.” The speaker shows reverence for the tiger but is forced to wonder, “[d]id he who made the Lamb make thee?” (Line 20).

“Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is another poet associated with the British Romantic movement. About a generation younger than Blake, Coleridge was one of the first people to champion Blake’s otherwise unknown poetry. Coleridge’s own work shares many of Blake’s techniques—both often use personification to represent natural forces, for instance. Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” also presents night as a period of calm and peace rather than of darkness and mystery.

“Night” by Helen Hoyt (1920)

Helen Hoyt is an American Modernist poet who has a much different relationship with night than the Romantics that preceded her. More like “The Tyger” than like “Night,” Hoyt’s speaker places emphasis on the “Vastness, empty, stark” (Line 8) normally associated with night. Hoyt’s depiction of night as a dangerous and terrible force is perhaps a more common approach.

The “Preface” to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth (1800)

William Wordsworth is perhaps the poet most frequently associated with British Romanticism. Part of the reason for this association is this famous preface to the collection Lyrical Ballads, which is often read as the foundational text of the Romantic movement. In it, Wordsworth develops ideas central to the nascent genre of poetry and art that Blake is most-often associated with. Though Blake was critical of Wordsworth’s poetry, Blake’s emphasis on nature and its relationship to the divine shares many influences with the works of Wordsworth and later Romantics.

"Legacy of the Romantics" by Stephanie Forward (2022)

Romantic scholar Stephanie Forward explains who the Romantic poets were and what they stood for, with a focus on how Romantic "freedom and independence [...] challenged the way people looked at the world, emphasizing the integrity of the individual and refusing to bow to convention." The focus that “Night” lends toward meek creatures and “mild spirit[s] (Line 31) resonates with Forward’s understanding of the Romantic period.

“William Blake” by The Editors of Art in Context (2022)

Though Blake is perhaps best remembered for his poetry, his visual artwork took the greater part of his time and attention during his life. Blake worked as a professional engraver from the age of 21, and his craftsman’s work ethic and social class resulted in a prolific body of work. Since the 1960s, Critics have slowly warmed to Blake’s visual art, and he is now regarded as one of Britain’s most notable artists.

This article by the editors of Art in Context situates Blake’s visual art in its larger context. The article also discusses Blake’s primary patron, Thomas Butts, who allowed Blake to explore a variety of subjects and styles.