THE TYGER
– William Blake
INTRODUCTION
This is One of the most famous and Impressive of William Blake’s poems. The poem is written in sharp Contrast with ‘The Lamb’. There is a question about the Creation. How can we understand the God who created the innocence of the lamb and the fury (anger, wrath) of the tiger? In this poem the poet searches for a definite (exact, specific) clue (sign, hint) regarding the origin of the tiger? The poet searches contains six quatrains in rhyme couplets. The meter is regular and rhythmic. A string (thread) of questions contributes to the expression of a single, central idea.
SUMMARY AND EXPLANATION
The poem begins with the following lines,
Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night
Then the poet asks the fearsome (terrifying, terrible, fearful) tiger what kind of divine being could have created it:
“What immortal (everlasting, endless, eternal) hand or eye
Could irame they fearful symmetry (regularity, balance)?”
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Each later stanza contains further questions:
1. From what part of the cosmos (space, universe) could the tiger’s fiery (burning, scorching) eyes have come
2. Who would have dared to handle that fire?
3. What sort of physical presence, and what kind of dark craftsmanship, would have been required to “twist the sinews (muscle)” of the tiger’s heart?
4. The Speaker wonders how its creator would have had the courage to continue the job once he saw the beating of the horrible heart of the tiger.
The speaker wonders at the look of a tiger. He asks a quesion about the creator of the tiger. The speaker is overwhelmed (overpower, beat) with ihe beauty and the aggressiveness (fierceness, violence) of the tiger. The mind of the speaker is forced to explore (discover) the realm (kingdom) where his sense cannot assist (help) him.
Then the poet talks about the making of the tiger. The muscles of tiger’s heart and deadly terrors of the tiger’s brain make the poet wonder at the strength and daring of the power that created the tiger. The hammer, the chain, the furnace (heater), and the anvil that have been used to create the tiger must have been very dreadful (terrible, horrible). The creation of the tiger requires the extra ordinary skills. The Creation of the tiger was so extra ordinary that the angels, threw down their spears. They wept as this type of merciless (cruel, pitiless) beast has been created. They did not understand the purpose of the God behind this creation. This line has another interpretation (understanding, explanation) also. This line is very symbolic. This refers to the defeat of the rebel (revolutionary) angels. After their defeat, the God created the earth.
Then there is a question
“Did he smile his work to see?”
If the creator smiled at his creation, what was the reason? Was it a smile of satisfaction? Did it satisfy his cruel nature? The speaker even does not know if the same power created both the tiger and the lamb. The poem ends with same four lines with which it began but with a change in a word. “Could” of the last line is replaced by “Dare”.
Tiger ! Tiger ! Burning bright
In the forest of the night, What Immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Tyger deals with, the problem of evil, Blake could not consider evil in an abstract manner. According to him the evil force is the wrath of the God. The Tyger symbolizes the punishment (penalty) of sins. In more general terms, the tiger telis us the undeniable (irrefutable, Indisputable) existence (survival, life) of evil and Violence in the world and also tells us about the nature of God. It also indicates the thing that in this world a Creature can at once contain both beauty and horror.
CONCLUSION
The tiger initially appears as a strikingly (outstandingly, remarkably) sensuous (deep, intense) image. However, as the poem progresses. it takes on a symbolic character, and represents the spiritual (holy, religious) and moral (good, ethical) problem the poem explores (discover). The Tiger of William Blake becomes the symbolic center for an investigation into the presence of evil in the world.