pectations for a bad ending. In both “The Little Girl Lost” and “The Little Girl Found” poet William Blake used literal language to tell the story of Lovely Lyca, her parents and the big cats. It is told in the style of a folktale, as discussed by Propp (Rivkin & Ryan, 1998). One can apply Propp’s suggested technique of analyzing a tale, folktale or fairy tale to discern the morphology of the poems. However, Blake’s poems do break away from the expected pattern of functions with regard to the dramatis personae. All of the events leading up to the introduction of the lion and the lioness follow Propp’s pattern (functions one through six of the personae dramatis). The pattern then breaks away from what is expected. After Lyca’s parents exhaust themselves searching for their daughter the reader learns that the lion and the lioness, Lyca’s abductors, were actually protecting her. The supposed villain becomes the real hero of the story, making the poem surprising and enlightening, in that it teaches that one’s pre-judgements are not always valid....
