The Tyger Diction

In his lyrical poem, “The Tyger,” William Blake presents the conflict of dealing with the existential view of life and dramatises the mystery behind the creator of the world. Using a Tiger as his main subject, Blake’s poem revolves around the creation of it, where it was created, how, and most importantly who. “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” (3-4). Numerous extended devices are present within the stanzas as a way of answering his questions, but in turn, emphasise who created the Tiger. With more than 13 questions in this poem, Blake creates an apostrophe directed towards the Tiger and creates the poem as a lyric to express his thoughts. The first quatrain of the six, written as an AABB rhyme scheme simply describes part of the setting and displays the initial dissension of the poem. While the meter and rhythm of the poem are elusive (as it depends on

Christian imagery is seen with “...what distant deeps or skies/burnt the fire o thine eyes,” (4, 5) where the distant deeps allude to hell and the skies being heaven. Both have sources of which the fire of the Tyger could have been retrieved from: the fire of hell, or the ever-burning light of heaven. Following the first two lines, divine imagery is used with the words “wings,” and “aspire,” and follows with the phrase “dare seize the fire” (8). These actions describe an audacious creator Along with the pronoun “he,” the attributes of the Tyger’s creator are in question, such as how they could grasp such a blazing fire to forge the Tiger from. It is key to note that said in the trochaic rhythm (trochaic trimeter with an extra syllable), the central emphasised syllable is the word “dare,” which embodies a sense of might around the Tiger’s creator. This highlights the position of the Tyger’s creator; they are not only immortal but have strong warrior-like characteristics, like