“The Tyger”
by
William Blake
“Ode to Nightingale”
by
John Keats
“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 seize the fire?
And
what shoulder, or 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.billmurphy.com/Poetry/Blake_Tyger.html
ODE
TO A NIGHTINGALE
MY
heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My
sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or
emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One
minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis
not through envy of thy happy lot,
But
being too happy in thine happiness,
That
thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In
some melodious plot
Of
beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest
of summer in full-throated ease.
O for
a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd
a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting
of Flora and the country-green,
Dance,
and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for
a beaker full of the warm South!
Full
of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With
beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And
purple-stainèd mouth;
That
I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And
with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade
far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What
thou among the leaves hast never known,
The
weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here,
where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where
palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where
youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where
but to think is to be full of sorrow
And
leaden-eyed despairs;
Where
beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or
new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away!
away! for I will fly to thee,
Not
charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But
on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though
the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already
with thee! tender is the night,
And
haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd
around by all her starry Fays
But
here there is no light,
Save
what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through
verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I
cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor
what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But,
in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith
the seasonable month endows
The
grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White
hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading
violets cover'd up in leaves;
And
mid-May's eldest child,
The
coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The
murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling
I listen; and, for many a time
I
have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd
him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To
take into the air my quiet breath;
Now
more than ever seems it rich to die,
To
cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While
thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In
such an ecstasy!
Still
wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To
thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou
wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry
generations tread thee down;
The
voice I hear this passing night was heard
In
ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps
the self-same song that found a path
Through
the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She
stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The
same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd
magic casements, opening on the foam
Of
perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn!
the very word is like a bell
To
toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu!
the fancy cannot cheat so well
As
she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu!
adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past
the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up
the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In
the next valley-glades:
Was
it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled
is that music:—do I wake or sleep?
http://www.bartleby.com/101/624.html
COMMENTARY
First of all, this commentary is going to focus on two
poems, the first work that I am going to treat is “The Tyger” by William Blake
and the second is “Ode to Nightingale” by John Keats. These poems belong to
Romanticism, since they are focused on the beauty of nature, an important theme
in this period.
“The Tyger” seems on the surface to be about a person
that wonders who was capable to create the tiger. By means of the title of the
poem, “The Tyger”, the reader knows that it is going to be about something
related with nature.
During the course of this poem we can see that most of
the verses of the poem are questions. All of them together form a central idea,
the motive why this poem was written.
William Blake opens the poem in the first stanza
asking the tiger who has created it. In the second, third and fourth stanza,
the author continues with his doubt. In the fifth stanza, the speaker asks the
tiger if his creator felt good when he saw the beast that he had created and if
he is the same one that created the lamb. The first animal refers to experience
and the second refers to innocence. With the innocence William Blake shows the
childhood and with the experience the adulthood. And finally, in the sixth
stanza the speaker returns to his doubt.
The meaning in the poem is straightforward because
while you are reading you can understand what the author is talking about and
referring to. We can say that Blake does not use an elaborate language. The
author dedicated the poem to nature, but he does not understand that our nature
could be created by the same immoral person. The tiger represents evil and the
lamb the good. The author transmits his doubt to the reader.
The poem is not autobiographical; William Blake is not
telling a story about him, the author is asking a tiger.
The tone of the poem is soft, because in all the poem
he is asking the tiger questions as if the speaker was sorry about the
existence of this beast.
“The Tyger” is written in a six stanza structure, each
stanza is four lines long and each line is composed by seven syllables. That is
to say that the meter is regular. The rhyme scheme is also regular AABB during
all the poem.
In the poem we can find some key images. The most
important is the personification that the author gives to the animal, the
tiger. We also could say that it is an allegory. The poet refers to the tiger
as if it was a person and successively the speaker is asking its questions. It
will be impossible that the animal answers them. Other key images are these
personifications: “the stars threw down their spears” (line 17) and “water’d
heaven with their tears” (line 18). Also in this poem we can see the pronoun
“thee” (line 20) and the possessive adjective “thy” (lines 4,10,11,14 &
24), those forms are very common in poetry.
“Ode to Nightingale” seems on the surface to be about
a person that is talking with a nightingale and he is expressing his feelings.
Only by means of the title we know that the speaker refers to a nightingale,
because during the course of the poem this name does not appear. We know that
the author is going to talk about nature.
The author opens the first stanza when the speaker,
who has taken a drug, not long ago, is addressing the nightingale, which is
singing. In the second stanza, the speaker is expressing his wish for wine and
after he finishes his works, he disappears with the nightingale “into the forest
dim”. In the third stanza, the speaker is telling the nightingale that everyone
dies, everyone is mortal. In the fourth stanza, the speaker tells the
nightingale to fly and he will follow it through poetry. I the fifth stanza,
the speaker says that he can not see what is at his feet and then talks about
the beauty of summer. In the sixth stanza, while the speaker listens to the
songs of the nightingale, he says that he does not fear death. I n the seventh
stanza, the speaker tells the nightingale that it was not born for death. It is
immortal (not like us) since its voice has been heard by all generations. In
the eighth and last stanza, the speaker has had a warning to back to himself
(to be alone) without the nightingale. But when the nightingale flies away he
does not know if all that has been true or false.
We can see that the speaker has the nightingale as an
idol because when he is with it, he feels good.
The meaning in
the poem is straightforward because while you are reading, you can understand
what the author is telling. John Keats does not use an elaborate language.
The poem could be autobiographical, because Keats is
telling a story that maybe could have happened to him. In the poem we can see
the possessive pronoun “my” appears four times, the personal pronoun “I”
appears nine times and the pronoun “me” once. All of these pronouns refer to
the speaker in the poem; he is talking in first person.
The tone of the poem is wistful and sad since you
think about the calm that is all around the world while the nightingale is
singing.
“Ode to Nightingale” is written in an eight stanza
structure, each stanza is ten lines long and each line is composed by ten
syllables, except the eight line of each stanza that has six syllables. The
rhyme scheme is regular, since it is ABABCDECDE during all the poem.
In the poem we can find an important key image, it is
the personification that the author gives to the nightingale. The poet is
talking with the bird as if it understood all that the speaker is saying.
These poems: “The Tyger” and “Ode to Nightingale!”
refer to nature, as I have said some lines before. The poets of this period,
the Romanticism, show us the beauty of the nature. Everything is beautiful,
wonderful… and it transmits you peace and calm.
“The Tyger” is focused on why this evil exists in the
world and “Ode to Nightingale” seems to be the good. Both animals are accepted
because the world should have a variety of everything.
In the poems of this period, I think, that the
personification of the animals is very common, as we can observe in these two
poems.
The authors immerse the reader in the treated theme
and at the same time the poem makes you think about what it is saying. They are
beautiful, simple and especially they have a simple theme. There is nothing
confusing or complex.
by Merce Quiralte Moragues.
(15 December 2005)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sources:
- Poet/Artist:
William Blake- Poertry and Drawing by William Blake, British Poet. Bill Murphy.
© 1997-2006. Visited 12 December 2006.
http://www.billmurphy.com/Poetry/Blake_Tyger.html
- 624. Ode to a
Nightingale. John Keats. The
http://www.bartleby.com/101/624.html
Academic year 2005/2006
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Merce Quiralte Moragues
mamerqui@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press