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The Tyger

William Blake's poem "The Tyger" confronts the question of how a God could create both beauty and violence in the world, as seen in the tiger. Through a series of questions about who could design such a terrifying creature, the poem explores the coexistence of good and evil. It references the tools of a blacksmith to suggest the tiger's deliberate and powerful creation, leaving the reader to wonder at God's intentions and nature. By comparing the tiger to the lamb from Blake's other poem, it highlights the complexity of divine creation and will. The poem ends as it begins, with unanswered questions about God that force the reader to grapple with life's mysteries.

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1K views

The Tyger

William Blake's poem "The Tyger" confronts the question of how a God could create both beauty and violence in the world, as seen in the tiger. Through a series of questions about who could design such a terrifying creature, the poem explores the coexistence of good and evil. It references the tools of a blacksmith to suggest the tiger's deliberate and powerful creation, leaving the reader to wonder at God's intentions and nature. By comparing the tiger to the lamb from Blake's other poem, it highlights the complexity of divine creation and will. The poem ends as it begins, with unanswered questions about God that force the reader to grapple with life's mysteries.

Uploaded by

jazib1200
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Tyger represents an intense, visionary style with which William Blake confronts a

timeless question through the creation of a still-life reverie. To examine The Tygers
world, a reader must inspect Blakes word choice, images, allusions, rhyme scheme,
meter, and theme. The Tyger seems like a simple poem, yet this simple poem contains
all the complexities of the human mystery. The first impression that William Blake gives
is that he sees a terrible tiger in the night, and, as a result of his state of panic, the poet
exaggerates the description of the animal when he writes:
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night
The opening question enacts what will be the single dramatic gesture of the poem, and
each subsequent stanza elaborates on this conception. Blake is building on the
conventional idea that nature, like a work of art, must in some way contain a reflection
of its creator. The tiger is strikingly beautiful yet also horrific in its capacity for violence.
What kind of a God, then, could or would design such a terrifying beast as the tiger? In
more general terms, what does the undeniable existence of evil and violence in the world
tell us about the nature of God, and what does it mean to live in a world where a being
can at once contain both beauty and horror? Immediately after seeing the Tyger in the
forests, the poet asks it what deity could have created it:
What immortal hand and eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The word immortal gives the reader a clue that the poet refers to God. Then, in the
second stanza, the author wonders in what far-away places the tiger was made, maybe,
referring that these places cannot be reached by any mortal. In the third stanza, the poet
asks again, once the tigers heart began to beat, who could make such a frightening and
evil animal. Next, in the forth stanza, William Blake asks questions about the tools used
by God. And he names the hammer, the chain, the furnace, and anvil. All these elements
are used by an ironsmith. The tiger initially appears as a strikingly sensuous image.
However, as the poem progresses, it takes on a symbolic character, and comes to
embody the spiritual and moral problem the poem explores: perfectly beautiful and yet
perfectly destructive, Blakes tiger becomes the symbolic center for an investigation into
the presence of evil in the world. Since the tigers remarkable nature exists both in
physical and moral terms, the speakers questions about its origin must also encompass
both physical and moral dimensions. The poems series of questions repeatedly ask what
sort of physical creative capacity the fearful symmetry of the tiger bespeaks;
assumedly only a very strong and powerful being could be capable of such a creation.

What the hammer? what the chain?


In what furnace was thy brain?
The smithy represents a traditional image of artistic creation; here Blake applies it to the
divine creation of the natural world. The forging of the tiger suggests a very physical,
laborious, and deliberate kind of making; it emphasizes the awesome physical presence
of the tiger and precludes the idea that such a creation could have been in any way
accidentally or haphazardly produced. It also continues from the first description of the
tiger the imagery of fire with its simultaneous connotations of creation, purification, and
destruction. The speaker stands in awe of the tiger as a sheer physical and aesthetic
achievement, even as he recoils in horror from the moral implications of such a creation;
for the poem addresses not only the question of who could make such a creature as the
tiger, but who would perform this act. This is a question of creative responsibility and of
will, and the poet carefully includes this moral question with the consideration of
physical power. Note, in the third stanza, the parallelism of shoulder and art, as well
as the fact that it is not just the body but also the heart of the tiger that is being forged.
The repeated use of word the dare to replace the could of the first stanza introduces
a dimension of aspiration and willfulness into the sheer might of the creative act.
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
The reference to the lamb in the penultimate stanza reminds the reader that a tiger and
a lamb have been created by the same God, and raises questions about the implications
of this. It also invites a contrast between the perspectives of experience and
innocence represented here and in the poem The Lamb. The Tyger consists
entirely of unanswered questions, and the poet leaves us to awe at the complexity of
creation, the sheer magnitude of Gods power, and the inscrutability of divine will. The
perspective of experience in this poem involves a sophisticated acknowledgment of what
is unexplainable in the universe, presenting evil as the prime example of something that
cannot be denied, but will not withstand facile explanation, either. The open awe of The
Tyger contrasts with the easy confidence, in The Lamb, of a childs innocent faith in a
benevolent universe. The meekness of Blakes lamb makes his fearful and deadly
tiger appear all the more horrific, but to conclude that one is decidedly good and the
other evil would be incorrect. The innocent portrayal of childhood in The Lamb,
though attractive, lacks imagination. The tiger, conversely, is repeatedly associated with
fire or brightness, providing a sharp contrast against the dark forests from which it
emerges Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In the forests of the night. While such
brightness might symbolize violence, it can also imply insight, energy, and vitality. The
tigers domain is one of unrestrained self-assertion. Far from evil, Blakes poem
celebrates the tiger and the sublime excessiveness he represents. Jesus was all virtue,
wrote Blake and acted from impulse, not from rules.

William Blake never answers his question about the unknown nature of god. He leaves it
up to the reader to decide. By beginning and ending his poem with the same quatrain he
asks the question about god creating evil as well as good, again. In conclusion, a reading
of The Tyger offers different thematic possibilities. The poem seems to change as the
reader changes, but the beauty of the words and meter make this poem an astonishing,
enjoyable excursion into the humanity of theology. Moreover, the poem is quotable in
various situations, and it leaves a permanent impression on the reader. Therefore, The
Tyger by William Blake emerges from creations cold, clear stream as a perpetual
inspiration a classic. In my opinion, William Blake wrote the poem with a simple
structure and a perfect rhyme to help the reader see the images he wanted to transmit.
Above all, the description of the tiger is glaringly graphic due to essentially the contrast
between fire and night.

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