What Does The Tyger Mean

Through a mysterious tone, William Blake’s “The Tyger” reveals religion by using syntax and imagery. Throughout the story Blake uses literary elements to create the tone of the story. Blake first uses syntax to create a mysterious tone in the sentence, “Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” What Blake means by this is who made the Tiger. The author’s curiosity is shown throughout the poem.

The poem creates the theme that holding in anger may lead to awful consequences through first person point of view by describing the poet’s struggle to release his emotions that eventually cause him to hurt his enemy. For instance, after stating that he told his friend about his anger, and his anger died, Blake says, “ I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.” This quote from the poem shows that this is written in a first person point of view. The poet then goes on to describe how he watered down his anger, and it continued growing. At the end,

In the poems "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," William Blake uses symbolism, tone, and rhyme to advance the theme that God can create good and bad creatures. The poem "The Lamb" was in Blake's "Songs of Innocence," which was published in 1789. "The Tyger," in his "Songs of Experience," was published in 1794. In these contrasting poems he shows symbols of what he calls "the two contrary states of the human soul" (Shilstone 1).

Through this, Blake is showing the hypocrisy of religion, a theme commonly shown throughout “Experience.” Throughout “Innocence” a simple, child-like portrayal of religion is explored. This could show Blake as primarily a religious poet as there are common, simple themes running throughout many of his poems in “Innocence.” This simple view of both Christ and religion contrasts the complex metaphors used to represent religion in “Innocence.”

Repetition is another key poetic device used in the poem, and considering its effect on the reader gives insight as to what the speaker may be emphasizing as significant. The word “dread” is repeated several times throughout the poem, specifically in lines 12 and 15. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “feared greatly…dreadful, terrible.” Because this word is used so many times, it draws the reader’s attention and contributes even more to the imagery of the Tyger. The repetition of the first stanza forms a sort of introduction and conclusion. The few differences between them get the reader’s attention and point out significant ideas that go along with the meaning of the poem. The comma in line 21 shows hesitation, and the colon in line 22 commands the attention of the Tyger as the speaker

William Blake was a painter, engraver and poet of the Romantic era, who lived and worked in London. Many of Blake’s famous poems reside in his published collection of poems titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This collection portrays the two different states of the human soul, good and evil. Many poems in the Songs of Innocence have a counterpart poem in the Songs of Experience. The poem “A Poison Tree” is found in the Songs of Experience and it delves into the mind of man tainted with sin and corruption that comes with experience. In a simple and creative style, the religious theology of the Fall of Man is brought to life. The poem tells the story of how man fell from a state of innocence to impurity, focusing on the harmful repercussions of suppressed anger. Blake utilities many literary devices to successfully characterizes anger as an antagonist with taunting power.

Blake uses traditional symbols of angels and devils, animal imagery, and especially images of fire and flame to: 1) set up a dual world, a confrontation of opposites or "contraries" which illustrate how the rules of Reason and Religion repress and pervert the basic creative energy of humanity, 2) argues for apocalyptic transformation of the self "through the radical regeneration of each person's own power to imagine" (Johnson/Grant, xxiv), and 3) reconstructs Man in a new image, a fully realized Man who is both rational and imaginative, partaking of his divinity through creativity. The form of the poem consists of "The Argument," expositions on his concepts of the "contraries" and of "expanded perception" which are both interspersed with "Memorable Fancies" that explicate and enlarge on his expositions, and concludes with "A Song of Liberty," a prophecy of a future heaven on earth.

For example, in “Infant Joy,” Blake demonstrates the child’s eye and sense of wonder that we find in the incorruptibility of infants. Blake presents a truly pure creature in the first stanza:

Allusion is also an important part of this poem because of the way the author uses it to connect to the outside works that may also encourage the reader to think in a certain way that goes along with the themes of the poem. The first allusion, found in lines 7 and 8, are to the Greek gods Icarus and Prometheus. This allusion requires the readers to think about gods and religion, which is a major part of the theme of this poem. Another allusion I see is in line 20, which refers to another one of Blake’s poems, “The Lamb.” This allusion is significant because the speaker asks, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (20) And he wonders whether or not the same creator who made something so gentle and pure could also make such an evil animal. The allusion itself brings the reader to think about the other poems and to contrast the two completely

In today's modern world the tiger, the largest member of the felid (cat) family, is often revered as a fearsome and beautiful animal who's brightly colored and pattern fur attracts poachers throughout southern Asia. In William Blake's poem, The Tyger from the Book of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the "tiger" is more than just an animal with large claws and teeth. William Blake uses the tiger as a symbol which represents the fierce some force of a human's soul, Blake's own personal philosophy, and the counterpart sister poem to "The Lamb." Some would say "The Tyger" is a romantic poem written by William Blake before his time of romantic literature. The "Tyger" becomes a symbol for the extremeness force in the human soul.

Blake was engaging a belief in which people should look within themselves, instead of looking for God on some remote pedestal. When asked by a friend about the divinity of Jesus, Blake responded “He is the only God; And so am I and so are you!” In this response, Blake is turning accepted ideas on their head and saying humans have this enormous capacity for greatness, which in a way makes them divine. Engagement with elements of mysticism was apparent not only in “Proverbs of Hell” but in a majority of William Blake’s work. It is perhaps his particular childhood and mystic abilities that influenced Blake’s work in an effort to change societies perceptions by forcing them to critically analyze the world around them and themselves. Once man looks inside himself and discovers what they are truly capable of, as Blake notes in “What is now proved was once only imagin’d.” (line 35), the abilities of man seem immeasurable as “One thought, fills immensity” (line

is a representation of the relationship between creator and creature. This poem may be one of his more popular poems from The Songs of Experience. In the poem, Blake writes about how the Tyger was created by the same immortal being who created the sheep. In this case, Blake is referring to God creating both good and evil in the world. Blake depicts this by this excerpt from the poem, ?the contrast between fire and night ? [which] corresponds to the contrast of yellow and black stripes ringing the Tyger itself [sic].?8 John E. Grant comments that William Blake?s poem is ? ? horrifying, as well as awesome, to think of an animate thing being hammered into shape in the smith.?9 Through this statement, Grant is referring to the creation of Tyger and the rest of humanity by God. The hammer merely being an instrument of creation.10 It is strange how much Blake speaks of God and creation as a whole, as he was not religious or a believer in one God, creator of the

Blake first outlines his concept of the poetic genius in his writing, All Religions Are One demonstrating his belief “That the Poetic Genius is the true man” [Principal 1st:1-2] reflecting the idea the poetic genius needs to be utilized to fully realize the goal of the becoming a fully divine human being. Furthermore, Blake interprets “that the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic Genius” [Principal 1st: 2-5] reflecting the concept of the body being at one with the soul; the soul being the poetic genius. Therefore, the body wouldn’t exist without the accessing of the poetic genius’ imagination conveying a sense of unity between the body and soul. Moreover, Blake conveys a division between the two would cause a deviation from the truth reflect through the limitations of the five senses. Blake

Some of William Blake’s poetry is categorized into collections called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake explores almost opposite opinions about creation in his poems “The Lamb” and “The Tiger.” While the overarching concept is the same in both, he uses different subjects to portray different sides of creation; however, in the Innocence and Experience versions of “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake uses some of the same words, rhyme schemes, and characters to talk about a single subject in opposite tones.

The poem is composed of six quatrains, and each of these has two rhyming couplets. Each couplet represents a new idea and concept: they are short and blunt, and Blake utilizes unflinching diction to declare his point. The poem does not have many enjambed lines, and most of the lines are end-stopped. Because of the word choice, the couplets, and the end-stopped lines, the poem has a decidedly cynical and bitter feeling -- in Blake’s mind, this poem is the way humanity is. There is no arguing his points away, because he speaks the truth: “The Human