Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Tyger is a poem by William Blake first published in 1794 in his poetic collection Songs of Experience. He published Songs of Innocence in 1789 and then both the collections were merged and published together as Songs of Innocence and Experience in 1794. As the name suggests, the two poetic collections offer two opposite aspects, childhood vs. adulthood, life vs. death, freedom vs. imprisonment, and innocence vs. experience. The Tyger from Experience is intended as a companion poem to "The Lamb," from Innocence. The contrast between the two poems and the two books is important. The speaker of The Lamb is an innocent child who sees evidence of a loving God everywhere. The speaker of The Tyger is unspecified and anonymous but he expresses such universal concern that it appears as if he is an experienced adult representing the whole of humanity. The speaker of The Tyger wonders about all the fear and mystery that life actually brings. Both the poem (The Lamb, and The Tyger) together explores and questions God's intention and motivation for creating both the "Lamb" and the "Tyger."
Blake used the archaic spelling ‘Tyger’ instead of ‘Tiger’ to suggest that God created the lamb and the tiger much before He made humans. The poet suggests that there has always been a symmetry, if there is good, there must be evil too. The Tyger represents the destructive side of God which is necessary to maintain the balance.
Structure of The Tyger:
The poem is 24 lines long and composed in 6 four-line stanzas (or quatrains). The meter is regular and rhythmic throughout the poem in all 6 stanzas but it is complex. It appears like torchaic but it is not because none of the lines of the poem ends with an unstressed syllable. The rhyming scheme of the poem is consistently AABB. Blake wrote the poem in rhyming couplets. Thus, each of the six quatrains has two rhyming couplets.
Blake used Metaphor, Imagery, Symbolism, Apostrophe, Repetition, Personification, Enjambment, Allusion, and Alliteration in the poem.
The poem explores the themes of Creation and the Nature of God, Duality and Co-existence of Good and Evil, Innocence and Experience, Moral Ambiguity, and the existence of Contraries and Paradoxes.
Summary of The Tyger:
Stanza 1
Lines 1-4
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
The speaker begins by praising the tiger as he is amazed by the beauty and fierceness of the tiger. He uses Apostrophe by asking a fearsome tiger what kind of divine being could have created it: “What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame they fearful symmetry?” Neither the tiger nor the creator could answer him. However, the question is not ‘Who created the fearsome tiger.’ Rather, it is about the nature of the creator who also created the lamb. The child speaker of the poem 'The Lamb' can identify God as the creator of the lamb because the small creature seems to represent joy, love, and freedom. But the tiger is just opposite to the lamb. Only God could create such symmetry. God created the tiger too who represents fear, violence, and tyranny, but it is hard for humans to understand the motivation for this symmetry. The fearful symmetry suggests allusion, one referring to the tiger, and the other referring to the symmetry that the creator maintained by creating the tiger and the lamb.
Blake used Metaphor (burning bright) which refers to the tiger’s bright yellow fur as it roams freely in the forest at night.
Stanza 2
Lines 5-8
“In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?”
The speaker continues Apostrophe by casting more rhetorical questions. He questions the inspiration of the creator. He focuses on the fiery eyes of the tiger. The poet is astonished by its color and stature. He questions, which wings inspire him to create such a wonder and what type of hand has the power to seize such ‘fire’. The speaker is mesmerized by his fiery eyes. He feels that the fire in his eyes came from a distant heavenly body such as hell or heaven. In this stanza, the speaker uses Imagery (hands, wings, and fire) to suggest the supernatural being who created the tiger.
Stanza 3
Lines 9-12
“And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?”
In this stanza, the speaker, who is mesmerized by the fearsome tiger wonders about the supernatural being who created the tiger. He imagines the physical attributes of the supernatural power contemplating his various physical features. That supernatural power could be the Christian God, or nature itself.
Stanza 4
Lines 13-16
“What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?”
In the fourth stanza, the poet again uses allusion. In this stanza, the speaker wonders about the tools the supernatural power might have used to create the tiger. He mentions ‘hammer’, ‘chain’, ‘furnace’, and ‘anvil’. These are all industrial tools, which allows the stanza to build the noisy and fiery atmosphere of a metal workshop. These tools symbolize a certain type of creativity, in which skill and vision alone are not enough. Rather, the creator also needs willpower and bravery to build meaningful creations.
These tools allude to the Industrial Revolution England was going through during that period. The lamb, the fields, and the pastoral settings suggest peace, calm, innocence, and serenity. The tiger, the factories, the chimneys, and the Industrial Revolution symbolize fear, tyranny, and evil. But there is moral ambiguity, there is symmetry. These symbols are used to suggest that artistry, ugliness, and danger all exist nearby, that the good and evil, are contrary to each other, but they are bound to co-exist.
Stanza 5
Lines 17-20
“When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
In this stanza, the poet makes a reference to John Milton’s Paradise Lost in the first line which alludes to the fall of the archangel Satan. Then the speaker questions if God smiled after seeing what he made (the tiger). The speaker then makes the suggestion that the creator of the tiger is the same who made the lamb. Here, the lamb can be referring to Blake’s previous poem The Lamb from Songs of Innocence, and it may also be referring to Jesus Christ (the Lamb of God), sent by God on earth.
Stanza 6
Lines 21-24
“Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”
The last stanza is almost a repetition of the first stanza, however, there is a difference. In the first stanza, the speaker used ‘could’ but in the last stanza, he used ‘dare’. The speaker has settled with his rhetorical question of who made the tiger and now suggests that who other than God could dare to do so. He now not just wonders who ‘could’ create this fearsome beast—but who would ‘dare’. If he wasn’t God, was he Satan?
William Blake used many symbols in this poem. He mentioned the Lamb in the fifth stanza and, the whole poem is about the tiger. While the lamb seems to suggest that God is Ioving and tender, in line with the idea of a fatherly God overseeing his flock, the tiger symbolizes the destructive, punishing, and evil side of God. The poem suggests that God created the tiger, but the poet leaves space for the possibility that Satan made the tiger (Fire from hell). Even then, God is responsible for the creation of the tiger because God made heaven, earth, and hell, god made Satan. The tiger is therefore symbolic of God's ability to be violent and frightening which is contrast with the characteristics of God who created the lamb. This suggests that God is both, the perisher and the protector.
Another symbol is fire which represents the fur of the lion, the tiger is thus symbolized as dangerous and destructive. However, fire also symbolizes the creativity of artists, craftsmen, blacksmiths, and inventors. The fire represents the harsh conditions that are necessary for making a marvelous creation, like the tiger.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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