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I’ve always use the title of a poem as an indicator of what to anticipate before reading it. But, in this case of William Blake’s poems, they are titled by two different animals. In Blake’s first poem, “The Lamb”, which is from his collection, Songs of innocence and the second poem “The Tyger” is from Songs of Experience they both reflect symbolisms. In “The Lamb”, and “The Tyger” Blake speaks with a powerful juxtaposition of nature. The innocent ‘lamb’ reminds me of a child and the powerful vicious ‘Tyger’ is the experiences of how a child can lose their innocence as they become adults. The poem's purpose is to be regarded in collation with each other. However, after completing both poems, they both seem to have more of a religious aspect. …show more content…
Both poems pose many questions, however, in “The Lamb”, the question are answered but, not in “The Tyger” poem. For example, when Blake’s speaker said, Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou knows who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. It sounds like a curious child and an adult having a conversation about who the creator of life is. After a series of questions, the “lamb” gets the answer to the questions, “ Little Lamb who made thee (Blake). The speaker said, Little Lamb I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, This answer takes me to the bible King James version in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”. The “lamb” or child find out that he or she is made in the image of God. Blake uses the innocent conversation to convey how God’s is worshiped in a child's eye. In comparison, Blake poem, “The Tyger” poses many questions as well for instance when the speaker says, Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The above stanzas is multifaceted in its clarity, but the notion of something being immortal yet, having a hand or eye like a man, as well as some sort of force having the ability to do things, immediately, I thought of God. The Tyger questions like in “The Lamb”, there is a curiosity in regards to who the creator of Tyger was? The unanswered question leaves us wondering, how many creators exists.
“The Tyger” poem also deals with the unknown. God is powerful, mysterious and sometimes scary. For example, In Psalm 25:14 it says,” The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him, and he will shew them his covenant.” In other words to love God is to fear him. Which is very similar to the Tyger. 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 Tyger like the lamb is made in the image of God. The speaker can't seem to accept that the creator who made the lamb created Tyger. In line 20, the reader says, “Did he who made the lamb make thee? That clearly, demonstrate doubt in speaker. How could God create an innocence lamb and then make such a dreadful
tyger. In conclusion, both of the poems link the animals' origins to address a greater theological question about the Creator's role in the world. The creatures in the poems define youth, and they provide a comparison between childlike innocence and the experience of age corrupting it. “The tyger speaker who questioned who the creator was appeared to have a more mature tone in comparison to “The Lamb” innocent childlike tone. “The Tyger” ends with the same stanza as the beginning Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
As an educated woman, she is fascinated by natural philosophy and, throughout her poem, discusses how she finds the glory of God in the world around her. She describes the solar system as a calculated entity, in which God has a hand in directing. She likens the earth to a “vast machine” and “adore[s] the God that whirls surrounding spheres” (Wheatley 12,14). This view of God as a tinkerer of the machinery of the universe was prevalent at that time, especially in the deist view of God as someone like a watchmaker. Central to this idea of God is the understanding that he is predictable and in
Blake’s poetry focuses on imagination. When Blake created his work, it gained very little attention. Blake’s artistic and poetic vision is reflected in his creations. Blake was against the Church of England because he thought the doctrines were being misused as a form of social control, it meant the people were taught to be passively obedient and accept oppression, poverty, and inequality. In Blake’s poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell, he shows that good requires evil in order to exist through imagery of animals and man.
The poem “The Tyger” by William Blake is a poem about two different personalities. The Lamb is the innocent mankind, whereas the Tyger is a much more wild, mysterious and ferocious animal capable of great good and terrifying evil. The author of this poem William Blake is a man who takes pride in knowing about his religion. He has written this poem in his collection of poems called Songs of experience. In this poem he talks about creation of evil. The poet uses a very powerful rhyming scheme along with a lot of Allusions referring to both Christian views of God, and Greek/roman God’s and Goddesses throughout the poem. The poem itself presents a sort of strange view on one central question that he repeats twice in the poem referring to the evil of the Tyger. “Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
The poem is fairly short and the language is figurative. The poet uses simile to compare death to a good nigh. There is also foreshadowing is the first verse. The poet opens the poem with "Do not go gentile into that good night" which right away indicates that the poet is referring to not taking death lying down. The reader is given a sense of growing old. In the first stanza of the poem describe old age, "Old age should burn and rave at close of day" As you get old there is a daily struggle against death; you should fight for your life and take it day by day. In the second stanza the poet says "Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lighting they don not go gentile into that good night" I thin what the poet is trying to say is even though you’re getting older and you know the time is coming you haven’t shown a sign of death you ‘re still have life so fight against death. Then in third stanza the poet describes someone who lived a good life but doesn’t want to let go "Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright their deed might have danced in a green bay, rage rage against the dying of the light." It was as if he was saying had he lived longer things could haven been better. In the fourth stanza " Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learn, too late they grieved it on its way, Don not go gentile into that good night. The poet is saying Sinners who led a bad life learn too late that they could have led a better life so they fight against death in hopes for a second chance. In he fifth stanza the poem talks of someone who has had a near death experience "Grave men, near death, who see with the blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, rage rage against the dying of the light.
In line one, “Infinity, when all things it beheld,” Taylor implies that God is Infinite and has always existed. In line two, he suggests that everything that exists was created from nothing at all. In the third line, “Upon what Base was fixed the Lath wherein” he is asking upon what base was this earth built on, but he capitalizes the word Base as if to symbolize that the base or foundation is God. “He turned this Globe,” In the beginning of line four Taylor simply states that, “He,” once again capitalized referring to God, “Turned this Globe,” where he is
...gle and simple interpretation of the poem makes it a responsive target for repeated critical thinking, interpretation, and re-reading. “The Tyger” is an approachable but uncatchable piece of art.
William Blake’s 1793 poem “The Tyger” has many interpretations, but its main purpose is to question God as a creator. Its poetic techniques generate a vivid picture that encourages the reader to see the Tyger as a horrifying and terrible being. The speaker addresses the question of whether or not the same God who made the lamb, a gentle creature, could have also formed the Tyger and all its darkness. This issue is addressed through many poetic devices including rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism, all of which show up throughout the poem and are combined to create a strong image of the Tyger and a less than thorough interpretation of its maker.
“The Tyger” by William Blake redefines the use of metaphors using them in unique and complex ways. Within the first stanza of the poem Blake repeats “Tyger!” A few times to create this chant like reading of the piece. The reason he does is to, one, to set the character of the story and, two, to create almost a sense of mystery and an old world atmosphere. In that same line the words “burning bright” are used to describe to tiger appearance; however, it could be that he is referring to the coloring of the beast or possibly some sort of energy about animal. Then as he continues in the stanza to bring god into the piece by stating “What Immortal hand or eye. Could frame such fearful symmetry”. This is a direct question to the reader of what sort of other worldly being could create such a ferocious animal. He also uses the word “frame” in there almost as if he’s trying to frame a picture, to the reader. The picture of god
The state of innocence, once lost through experience, is never possible to regain. As in The Lamb, God is one in the same with the child. They both embody the same innocence. He became a child. But in The Tyger, man has corrupted what they believe to be God so He can fit into their world of experience. This God might be the tiger's (man's) creator, but he is no longer one with him like He is the lamb (child). Once innocence is lost, it's not possible to revive it to what it once was in childhood. Nothing lasts forever, even innocence in this "best of all possible worlds."
William Blake was born and raised in London from 1757 to 1827. Throughout his early years, Blake experienced many strange and unusual visions, claiming to have seen “angels and ghostly monks” (Moore). For those reasons, William Blake decided to write about mystical beings and Gods. Two examples of the poet expressing his point of view are seen in “The Tyger” and “The Lamb.” Both poems demonstrate how the world is and to sharpen one’s perception. People perceive the world in their own outlook, often times judging things before they even know the deeper meaning of its inner personification. Blake’s wondrous questions actually make an acceptable point because he questions whether God created the tiger with the same intentions as he did with the lamb.
William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” also asks the ultimate question “What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?/” (Blake lines 3-4). The tone of this poem is more of a horrific nature. The speaker seems as if he is trying to escape this horrendous beast, the reader can almost feel the panic and terror that the speaker seems to be going through. “Blake creates this effect by drawing on several poetic devices”(Furr). The first of these is trochaic meter, which gives the poem an underlying beat or chant like quality.
William Blake, one of the infamous English romantic poets, is most known for his romantic views on conventional scenes and objects, which were presented in his works The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience. The first collection was published in 1789, and addresses subjects such as suffering and death from the innocent and optimistic perspective of a child. The later collection addresses these same issues, but is told from the perspective of an experienced bard. The poems contained in The Songs of Innocence often have a counter part in the second collection that reflects a darker or more corrupted take on the same subject. For example, the purity presented in the creation of “The Lamb” is dramatically contrasted with its shameful counterpart “The Tyger”. In this essay, I will argue that William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” alludes to his belief in a darker side of creation and the implications of the Industrial Revolution, my argument is based on Blake’s use of rhetorical questions, word choice, and the poem’s context; specifically in the fourth and fifth stanzas. In the beginning of the poem the tiger appears as a striking and wondrous creature, however, as the poem progresses, the tiger takes on a symbolic meaning, and comes to be a physical manifestation of the spiritual and moral problem the poem explores: creation, divine and manmade.
William Blake, a romantic poet in the late 1700s, wrote a collection of biblical poems, called The Songs of Innocence and Experience. In this collection, Blake wrote a six-stanza poem consisting almost entirely of questions, titled “The Tyger”. Blake addresses this “Tyger” throughout the entire poem, beginning by asking who or what immortal creature made the Tyger. Blake then describes the Tyger as a fearsome and evil creature and tries to understand how the person who made the Tyger could have continued the process once it’s horrible “heart began to beat” (Blake 11). He compares the creator of the animal to a blacksmith, asking if the creator used an anvil and hammer to create the creature or other tools. Towards the end of the poem, Blake
" The poem is enveloped in a sea of naivety as well as humor as the speaker is. directly speaking with an animal seeking profound philosophical clarification concerning similar questions that all humans have. contemplated at one point in their life and have been unable to answer. I will be able to answer. The child's question: "Who made thee," is relatively simple.
The message that Blake wants to give us by his poems “The Tyger” and “The Lamb” is that God is the one who created both the tiger and the lamb. Despite their major difference, God knew what he was doing. He created tiger (mankind) with free will, in order for it to be free and live happily. The stage of life presented in this poem is connected to the birth. “Birth is the beginning of a hero’s life”. They have a choice since they are born whether to be good or evil.