The Tyger Poem Review and Analysis

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.

Frighteningly beautiful and destructive, Blake’s tiger becomes the main symbol for his questions into the presence of evil in the world. For example, The reference to the lamb in the final stanza, “ Did he who made the lamb make thee?” reminds the reader that a tiger and a lamb have been created by the same God, and raises questions about the implications of this. Is there a purpose beh...

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...ake such a creature as the tiger, but who would perform this act. This is a question of creative responsibility and of will, and the poet carefully includes this moral question with the consideration of physical power. The repeated use of word the “dare” to replace the “could” of the first stanza introduces a dimension of aspiration and willfulness into the sheer might of the creative act.

The Tyger is full of words that seem more advanced than the elementary vocabulary in The Lamb and that carry unpleasant connotations such as “distant deeps” or “dreadful terror. “These words not only enforce the idea that not all of creation is good but also add a sense of fear to this side of it by voicing the speakers own fear of it and stirring up negative emotions within the audience. Blake creates this alarm to bring home his personal doubt about some of God’s creation.