When I started this project, I decided to pick the poem, The Tyger, by William Blake. It reads as follows:
I picked this poem because I remember my dad saying that this was his favorite poem, and when I looked it up, I knew it would be a good choice for this assignment. The basic idea of this poem is that the narrator is speaking out loud, either to, in my opinion, himself or God. He asks about a Tiger (I initially thought the spelling Tyger was a rhetorical choice, but that is the English spelling of the word in 1794, when the poem was written in England), and questions its features. He notes how the tiger “Burn[s] bright | In the forests of the night?” questioning the odd colors the Tiger displays in comparison to other animals that have more muted, neutral colors. The next line, “What immortal hand or eye, | could frame thy fearful symmetry?” is what leads me to believe that the narrator is speaking to God, as the reference to immortality seems to create an exalted tone, and the imagery of “frame thy fearful symmetry” reminds me of the a representation of God as building all living creatures out of clay, shaping and forming them into the figures we see today. Much of the difficulty for me in this essay comes from understanding the time period and the life of William Blake, because without that information the poem becomes infinitely more difficult to comprehend. Blake wrote this poem in tandem with another, named “The Lamb”, a poem in which a child is visualized holding a lamb and wondering to God about how it came to be. He wrote both these poems in 1794, when poetry and art in general were in a romantic period, which moves into the ideas of nature and humans’ place in natural beauty. When reading the poem, it seems that Blake is trying to convey the ideas of origin and creation, and how humanity is incapable of understanding the reasoning behind God’s creations.. The 3rd and 4th stanzas share this idea, as Blake states “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? | What the hammer? what the chain, | In what furnace was thy brain? | What the anvil? what dread grasp. | Dare its deadly terrors clasp?” The listing of the parts of parts of the figure-maker, its shoulder, heart, hand, and feet, seem to create the sense that the once who made the Tiger is incomprehensible to the human narrator. Additionally, the syntax, like hammer, chain, furnace, and anvil, create the idea of a blacksmith or tool-maker, which in Blake’s time seems to shadow God’s process in making the Tiger. These stanzas create the feeling that the narrator can’t comprehend how the Tiger came to be, and repeat use of “what” seems to elevate that feeling of raw fear and ignorance. This idea was incredibly difficult for me personally without understanding the context of Blake, his time period, and how people in his time view God. In understanding those aspects, the poem becomes easier to understand.
When reading this poem, there isn’t too much to be scared of in terms of the meter and rhyme scheme. It follows an AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJAABB form in terms of the rhymes, and everything fits other than eye and symmetry, which I’ve chalked up to the 1794 English people saying symmetry as (sim-uh-tri). The poem also isn’t Iambic, and the stressed syllable seems to be the “downbeats” (TYger TYger BURNing BRIGHT). However, there was a structural choice that Blake made that I had to re-read the poem to fully understand. The is a tonal shift in between the 4th and 5th stanzas, as the first 4 stanza seem to create the sense that this Tiger, a being created by God, cannot be understood by the feeble human mind, and as they try to rack their brains to find meaning in the form of the Tiger, they will only be met with confusion. However, the 6th stanza moves away from the point of view of the human narrator, and towards the idea of cosmic powers and Gods, when Blake says “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?” The “he” in this stanza refers to God, proven when relating “him” to “the stars” and “heaven”, which make it easier to understand Blake. Once I noticed this shift, I was better able to understand that the poem initially speaks on the inconceivability of creation and origin, specifically through the lens of fear and confusion, but then moves into a more starstruck and awe-filled view of the world and its creations.
All in all, this poem was difficult at the beginning, but thanks to the strategies we learn in class, and some relevant research on the background of the authors and the world he lived in, the poem starts to become clearer and clearer, until it finally burns bright.
My annotations and the downfall of my mental stability
Gabe, I enjoyed reading your blog! I thought that this was a very interesting poem to read as I have never heard of this poet before, so it was a great new style to experience reading. I love that you picked this poem because of your dad mentioning it, I think that’s a great motivation to want to tackle a difficult poem. I also like how you took us as readers through your entire process of analyzing the poem by stanzas, as it really broke down the poem in a way that made it easy for me to understand the message of the poem and what it was attempting to convey. The message of this poem being centered around the themes of humanity, origin, and creation is interesting to me, and unlike any other type of poem I’ve ever read before. I think a poem with such complex themes itself takes the difficult of the poem to a whole new level, so I think it’s really outgoing of you to choose such a difficult poem for this assignment. Overall, really nice job!
Hi Gabe,
Great poem choice! While I’ve definitely seen this poem referenced in books, movies, and even various trivia competitions, I’ve never actually read the poem in its entirety until I read your blog just now.
I think you bring up a great point about the importance of knowing the context of a poem in order to properly analyze it. There’s no way you could’ve deciphered the poet’s intentions and the overall meaning of the poem without knowing some of its history. The fact that it was written together with “The Lamb” and that both were written in the Romantic era is key to understanding the ideas and values that Blake was trying to get across. It’s clear that doing more research is an important step in the analysis of any poem.
Also, as a side note, it’s so interesting to me that “tyger” was the original English spelling of the word “tiger.” I also previously thought that the spelling was a rhetorical choice- perhaps Blake wanted to make tigers seem even more exotic than they already were in 1790s England? But no, I guess that’s just how it used to be spelled.
Nice job with your analysis, thanks for sharing 🙂