The Poems of William Blake

the lamb and the tyger

What is the effect of the rhetorical questioning in each poem? what is the mood sustained by the repetion of the anaphoric "what"?

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I think the effect is that we can understand the poem on a metaphorical level even before we understand it on a literal level. The questions support the metaphysical ideas that Blake wants to illustrate without actually having to write them down. This is really a masterpiece of prose.

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