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What Does The Tyger Mean

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An Analysis of William Blake’s “The Tyger” William Blake is known for two collections of poems, those collections are Songs of Innocence (1789) and it was added onto with Songs of Experience (1794). It is from those collections that he draws out his innermost thoughts on life often looking at “a being of God” or “the very human existence.” In his poem “The Tyger” he used numerous literary devices that center on divine creation ultimately putting beauty and destruction hand in hand, it does this through the lens of a Romantic Era poet. To first understand the poem by Blake it must first be dissected. The first stanza had a set of word choice that gave a question that was expanded upon by each stanza following the first. This question was: What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? (lines 3-4). It is from that moment that the poem eludes to a being above through the use of the word “immortal”, and considering the others works done by Blake it can be assured that this being that is eluded to as a crafter is God. The word choice gave way to another intriguing piece of evidence for Romanticism and that was the use of the words “fearful” and “symmetry” together. Symmetry in art forms beauty. It is said that the more …show more content…

This stanza was vaguer than the stanzas previously because it refers to a more broad choice of words, however two words add substance to the thesis and they are the use of “shoulder” in line 9, and the use of “dread” in line 12. The shoulder reference refers to the strength and symbol of strength and muscle needed to build something so beautiful and so deadly. The dread reference points out the unknown or fear building in what is unknown which points towards the idea that Blake was putting fear and beauty together as one in this

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