The rhyme of the poem is: a-a-b-b, but in the first and last stanza is different, we have a-a-b-c

WILLIAM BLAKE

THE TYGER

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

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!

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?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

http://www.uv.es/fores/poesia/poesoe.html#tyger

The rhyme of the poem is: a-a-b-b, but in the first and last stanza it is different, we have a-a-b-c. The only stanzas without symmetry are which have this word, “symmetry”. But they have symmetry between them, because they are very similar and frame the poem.

The poet talks in the poem about an animal: the tyger. He talks about its symmetry, who made it and if the creator is satisfied with his creation.

We can understand this as a metaphor about nature and Man.

The author maybe is raising the question of God, specifically the human being.

Man has in his essence the symmetry, a fearful symmetry between good and evil.

If we analyze the poem little by little, we can observe that in the first stanza, the poet calls to the tyger, talking to it about its fearful symmetry as we have sayed before and he asks who could create it.

In the second stanza, the poet talks about the deepth, which could be the representation of hell, with all that is bad; and he talks about skies, God’s home, the place of good actions. And between them, is the Earth, where nature and humans live, with the mixing of both: hell and sky, good and bad. The stanza talks about a hand seizing the fire, because God made Man free , and he can choose the bad things.

In the third stanza, the author raises who created nature, and if he is an artist. He talks about the hand and the foot. He can refer to what part of the body God used for the creation of the world. We use the hand better, and with the hand we can perfect the thing that we do. But, if we use the foot, we do things not very well.

In the fourth stanza, the poet talks about the creation as a work of art. The creator used tools as if we were created in a divine forge, remembering us, maybe, Vulcan’s forge, where god forged lightnings for the great god of gods. But here, he refers to the same divine hand creating life, caring for all details. He mentions the brain as the organ of thinking, do us free to think and decide what way we want to choose.

In the fifth stanza, the author mentions other Gods works: stars and rain. He asks if God is satisfied with his work. The poet questions if the God that created the tyger, with a lot of defects, and fire in its eyes, can be the same God that created the Lamb. The Lamb here, can be Christ, the author talks here about a comparison of Man and the Messiah. If the poet is asking that God is satisfied with his work , maybe God made Christ to create something asymmetric, something that is near to him, to perfection.

In the last stanza, we can observe that it is a repetition of the first. But we have a big difference: here, the poet doesn’t say “could”, he says “dare”. The author wants to emphasize the idea of imbalance. Why God wants to do an animal good and evil? how can he dare do something that can be evil with the rest and with itself if he can do something perfect as the Lamb?

William Blake writes this poem with repetitions, to emphasize the symmetry, and uses a lot of questions, because in this way, he can emphasize the doubts that he has about life, nature and God.

In my opinion, this is an atemporal poem. It’s valid today too, because nowadays, the human is bad, Man is a wolf to Man, we use more times the bad part of us. Why can we be bad persons?

I think that, in conclusion about the poem, we can say: if God is perfect, why did he something imperfect?

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Blake’s picture: http://212.84.179.117/i/William%20Blake.jpg

Tyger picture: http://www.mac123.net/tigre.jpg

Academic year 2005-06 (may 2006)

amoncan@alumni.uv.es