The Tiger

[LiasisChildreni]

Hi All

I was just wondering if I could hear your interpretations of the poem "The Tiger" by William Blake, as I have heard some wild ones!

Thanks

[Vronaqueen]

i just studied this poem in one of my classes and i did hear some interesting aspects. but my view is that the tiger was a creation of the devil, and because it is so drastically different from the lamb, a poem it is often paired with, and that the tiger is so much more strongly written, that evil will ultimately win over good. Also, in the second to the last stanza, when he is describing the fight in heaven, "when the stars through down their spears" he means that the devil truly won that battle, not god

[Dare2Dream18]

I actually have to disagree with that, I believe that William Blake was saying that yes the tiger is a predator by nature but that's just it, by nature, nature is not evil, a tiger probably doesn't wake up and think,' how many other animals can I inflict pain upon today.' A tiger simply does what it needs to survive, yes it is fierce, yes it hunts and kills, and yes it has power that a lamb does not, but that does not mean that at the end of the day evil wins. It seems as though he is asking his readers what do you believe, or maybe he is questioning his own faith, because he never answers the question in his poem. As for the quote ,' When the stars threw down their spears,' if you read on it sounds as though the stars were witness to his, whoever his is, creation.

[Bandini]

Isn't the 'Tyger' (in part) a metaphor for the industrial revolution - hence all the hammers, anvils, furnaces etc? The insistent rhythm could also be seen as echoing the relentless drive of industry.

[Grumbleguts]

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794


This poem is a direct counterpoint to the poem 'The Lamb' in 'Songs of Innocence'. In that poem a lamb (often seen as a metaphor for an innocent child) is asked if it knows who made it and is compared to Jesus, the 'lamb of god'.

In this poem Blake asks what kind of god could have made the fearsome tyger and compares it with his previous gentler work. He directly references the earlier poem in the line, 'Did he who made the Lamb make thee?' He is comparing the tyger to a mighty and fearsome god by way of contrast to the lamb/Jesus comparison.

There are other counterpoints between the two collections but this is the most direct. The first book (songs of innocence) is involved with images of innocent youth and bucolic scenes. The second is more about experienced manhood and the harsher realities of the world.

I would recommend that anyone wishing to study or understand this poem should also read at least some of the poems in both volumes in order to place it in context.

[chmpman]

Didn't Blake shift some of his poems from printing to printing? Was this one that remained in its original context in relation to the Lamb?

[Dare2Dream18]

As to what Grumbleguts said yes i do agree and i have read many of Blake's works, he is my favorite poet, i believe in understanding the context of a poem in reference to what the poet meant when he wrote it, but what does it mean to you personally. If you were to have just seen this poem today and read it for the first time, how would you percieve it.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I really don't know how I would react to the poem were I reading it for the first time. I have known it since I was about 9 years old, when I recited it in school assembly - its words are carved in my brain along with all of their attendant associations. I will defer to Grumbleguts's judgement as to its meaning though - he is the biggest Blake fan I know and besides, it's in keeping with my own view of the poem.

[MikeK]

My favorite line in this poem has always been "Did he smile his work to see?". Many poems, of course, deal with evil and either ask or (try to) answer the obvious questions: What is evil? Why does evil exist? etc. Blake, in this wonderful line, adds a unique twist. Concerning He who made evil, what did He think of his handiwork? What was His reaction? Did He smile? It's a great line in a marvelous stanza in a marvelous poem. That one line adds so much depth to an already wonderful poem. And that line and stanza are so beautiful just linguistically.

Does someone know another poet who deals with that question (of evil) in quite that way (Did he smile his work to see)? Off-hand, I can't think of any other examples.

[earthboar]

In this poem Blake asks what kind of god could have made the fearsome tyger and compares it with his previous gentler work. He directly references the earlier poem in the line, 'Did he who made the Lamb make thee?' He is comparing the tyger to a mighty and fearsome god by way of contrast to the lamb/Jesus comparison.

That Blake questions what kind of god would make the tiger is an astute observation, Grumbleguts. In fact, Tyger and other poems reveal that Blake held a heretical understanding of the God-hierarchy, that is making a resurgence in this era, and is more clearly explained in the Gnostic texts which appeared at Nag Hammadi in 1945, the translations of which are even now being expanded in greater depth. The fact that god would create both tiger and lamb suggests that it had to have been a lesser god that forged the world, and our physical self. Not evil, but certainly without perfect wisdom. Even less wisdom than a human (an "awakened" human, that is. One who, in a lightning flash of inspiration, realizes his inherent spirit self, thereby achieving instant gnosis for the rest of his mortal days). It is like two neighbors, neither evil but one certainly more enlightend. The first tends to his garden with every organic consideration, eliminating the pesty bugs with conscience, and pulling every weed with diligence. The other neighbor sprays RoundUp over the whole, killing everything indiscriminately. He uses insecticide, killing cucumber beetle, slug, and every other creeping thing, whether harmful or not. Obviously, both gardens are lush and fruitful, yet one raises more problems with each spraying, and eventually, years down the road, the system collapses into total loss. One of these gardeners is enlightened, the other perhaps never will be, nor does he care to know. Maybe he will live the rest of his days not caring to learn something different. Maybe he will resent and persecute the organic gardener.

Consider this piece, also by Blake, in context with Tyger:

"The Awakener is come outstretch'd over Europe: the Vision of God is fulfilled:
The Ancient Man upon the Rock of Albion Awakes,
He listens to the sounds of War astonish'd & ashamed..."

...and, of course, when we read the preface poem to Milton, so commonly called, simply, Jerusalem (I love the Emerson, Lake & Palmer version):

"And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountain green?"

...we understand that The Awakener is Jesus, not the man who died on the cross, but the Christ who was sent by the Heavenly Father to awaken the clay form of man to the breath of the Holy Spirit that illuminated him. This is what sets us apart from the Tyger.

What is so awesome about Blake is that he dares question that the Almighty, YHVH, is the creator of earth. He implies that a lesser god, one capable of designing death and horror, inseparable from the beauty, is the real Architect of Malkuth, the world. It is classical Gnostic theology, and in fact, Blake was canonized as a Saint by the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, part of Crowley's OTO. In his own time, he was a Dissenter, Moravian, and they considered themselves followers of the earliest beliefs of Christianity. But, we could go on and on about Blake's progressive perspective, his unorthodox genius. He was an abolitionist and vegetarian. So were a great many like him, in different ages. Blake was an archetype: a Gandalf the Wizard, a Bodhisatva.

His poetry is simply rife with allusions to Gnostic Christianity:

"The Feminine separates from the Masculine & both from Man,
Ceasing to be His emanations, life to themselves assuming...(etc)" -- verse 90, Chapter 4 of Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion

What I love about Blake is his verse couches a profound grasp of the relationship between Heaven and Earth (or God and Humanity). But to those who don't get it, and may never get it because they are without knowledge of their divine origin, it is simply childish and sophomoric rhyme.

[jimbobsmoothie]

take into consideration the society in which blake lived and the way it affected him, his religion features strongly in all of his works. He was riddiculed and seen as insane (well he did say he saw angels)
By saying 'did he who make the lamb make thee' questions not only religion as seperate good and evil, but the way society conducted itself. Basically is he saying that God is not as we have been led to believe through religion all good? Don't forget satan came from God, whatever exists within him was but there by God, therefore does evil stem from him?

[rabid reader]

Isn't the 'Tyger' (in part) a metaphor for the industrial revolution - hence all the hammers, anvils, furnaces etc? The insistent rhythm could also be seen as echoing the relentless drive of industry.

In my Art History class two years ago thats exactly how our teacher interputered it. He said that Blake was saying that dispite what we think we can make we can never develop or make something that simulates the primortial beauty of the tyger.

[JBI]

I don't say he is asking what kind of god, he is accusing god - hence the lines:

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make th

Blake is directly playing off of Milton here, who in turn is playing off of Isaiah, with this. The throwing down the spears is a reference to the uprising in Heaven, and the subsequent banishment of the rebel angels. Blake here is accusing God of perpetuating this resistance, this destruction, and is directly comparing it to the tiger, a being, in this case, of destruction, and a metonym representing many things, notably the wrong of society, the viciousness of people, and any such interpretation, as a metonym allows one to take things as far as they would like.

The last line, with the replacement of "dare" from "could" is a direct challenge. Blake is accusing God of creating evil, creating destruction, creating a beast only capable of bringing pain and death.


Also running through this though, is Blake's signature symbol that he uses for creation - fire - which plays a more central role in his later porphetic works. The fire in this case helps to enforce the industry attached to the creation of the Tiger - the Tiger then functions as a metonym for industry itself, and the drastic destruction that it had caused to the way of life in Blake's time, as the Industrial Revolution kicked off, with all its ugliness. The creation of the tiger represents the loosing of a force set off only to destroy, and Blake is pouncing on God, accusing him, and saying, if you made the lamp, why would you make the Tiger, whose purpose is to destroy the lamb.

The companionably with this poem and the Lamb isn't as direct as many readers, notably highschool readers, suggest. The passing of time, notably the bloody end of the French Revolution created a reaction in Blake that perpetuated a sort of darker tone, and a moving away from his earlier, innocent poems. The Songs of Experience hit harder with accusations, and statements of the wrongs of the world, and move away from all the optimistic hopes of his earlier work. If the poem works with the Lamb, it does so only as back drop. The poem is far more concerned with the Industrial and French revolutions, and with the realization that, if God exists, which Blake believed, that he could possibly sit there, and create all this destruction.

There is also the inherent reference to Genesis, and the notion that God creates in his own image. That seems to haunt the poem, suggesting that God has created men like this because he himself is like this. Blake tries to express that, but is hampered by the fact that he is within society, and therefore transfers everything to the Tiger, a destructive symbol, contradicting the innocent symbol of the lamb, with a fierce symbol of destruction and experience.

The devil only fits in here obliquely, as Blake regards the devil as, from the "stars threw down their spears" bit, to be a product, a result of God's miscreation, or God's destructive impulse in creation.

It is also interesting to note the print picture that goes with this. The Tyger is shown to be a little loopy, sort of droopy, soft, innocent looking beast. The interpretation I like best on that, is one that suggests Blake carved it on the plate that way, in order to soften his poem to his audience, and therefore not be called a heretic, or someone so radically out there that his works were indecent, or just plain old loony, which in many ways they are.

[Dipen Guha]

Life is madeup of opposites. The poem moves through a series of rhetorical questions postulating the destructive powe and stpendous energy of the tiger. From this we pass to contemplate the even more stupendous power of the Creator, who has made not merely gentle but also the fierce. Thus Blake challenges the concept of a kind and gentle God, and brings into focus the dual forms of the divine power. Similarly, we may deduce that man too, in fact, all creations, has the potential for gentleness on the one hand, and inexhustable energy and destructiveness on the other. We may have the anti-biotic but also the atom-bomb. Some critics suggest that Blake has in mind the tremendous potential of the human mind, if that power can be released from the inhibitations of authority and the restraints of reason. The total impact of the poem is one of the latent imaginative power and emotions. The language of the poem too has been analysed and commented upon as the most suggestive and poetic or imaginative phrases. For instance, "burning bright" may bring bring an immediate image of the two burning eyes of the tiger glowing in the night, but the fall-out may include qualities like anger, force, incacandescent energy, violent passion and even glory and beauty, which is an aspect of the divine. Again, the fearful symmetry of the tiger's heart also induces the concept of the greater power and creative energy of its maker.

[redsunlee]

Thanks for the suggestion, I wish it had worked.

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