Heresy in Tyger! Tyger!

JBI, I'm not quite clear as to what point you think we're disagreeing on, since I agree with your above post. I wasn't really trying to give an in-depth reading of Experience, but merely frame it in a brief outline of Blake's overarching mythology. I did forget to mention that Blake's Orc was associated with Satan, the emotional/revolutionary force chained underground and oppressed by Urizen. However, Orc as a force of revolution in the early works did give way to Los in the later works, and while Blake may have hated the OT God, he was very sympathetic to Jesus as being a representative of the creative spirit (contrasted with Satan as the emotional/revolutionary spirit). I think his Milton was, in a way, the transitional point between these two characters, as the creative power of Milton/Los has to descend to craft Satan/Orc out of clay, ie, the creative spirit has to sculpt revolution and frame (not tame) emotion. I agree that Tyger, like most all of Blake's work, is not theological but philosophical. In fact, I did claim in a later post that Blake subsumed religion within his philosophy and mythology.

It seems to me "the Lamb" clearly has two meanings -- Jesus and the gentle beast so contrasted to the Tyger.

Here's my question: Does "When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears," refer to a particular biblical or mythological story? Does anyone know?

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

It seems to me "the Lamb" clearly has two meanings -- Jesus and the gentle beast so contrasted to the Tyger.

Here's my question: Does "When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears," refer to a particular biblical or mythological story? Does anyone know?

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I wondered about that myself. I didn't really understand it, but I suspect Blake did not write lines just because they scanned nicely. I suspect there was some esoteric meaning.

Of course, it is poetry. It is not only literal.

I'm no expert on Blake (except that I like his short poems -- I've never read his long ones -- and his drawings). I always assumed "The Tyger" was a companion piece to "The Lamb". I keep meaning to read "Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

LITTLE lamb, Who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight, 5
Softest clothing woolly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, Who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee? 10

Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek and he is mild, 15
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by his name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!


I have no idea if there's any biographical or theological justification for my assumption.

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Originally Posted by kev67

I wondered about that myself. I didn't really understand it, but I suspect Blake did not write lines just because they scanned nicely. I suspect there was some esoteric meaning.

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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?


I read the first two lines as a reference to the defeat of the rebellious angels. The angels couldn't die so their defeat resulted in them laying down their arms. I read 'His work' as a reference to both the tyger and the war, further associating the tiger with violence and contributing evidence to the 'good God, bad deeds' paradox. Did he smile at his success in quelling the rebellion? Was he proud of his creation? It also seems to tie the poem in with the then recent war of independence and ongoing French revolution.

However... the actual event occurs in The Four Zoas. Urizen says:

...I heard the mild & holy voice
Saying O light spring up & shine & I sprang up from the deep
He gave to me a silver scepter & crownd me with a golden crown
& said Go forth & guide my Son who wanders on the ocean

I went not forth. I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath
I calld the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark
The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away
We fell.

Although I couldn't begin to explain the significance of Urizen, criticism I've read says: 'Man, the image of God, is fourfold; God therefore must also be fourfold. As the trinity is reflected in the other three Zoas, Urizen must be (as Kelly Preston has suggested) that aspect of deity which, when fallen, becomes Satan'.

Blake frequently associated the stars with the clockwork nature of Newtonian physics, and Blake was openly hostile to the rationalism of The Enlightenment. He wrote in Lacoon that: "Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death." So the notion of the stars "throwing down their spears" and weeping is symbolic of something beautiful and awe-inspiring in nature (the tiger) overwhelming reason and affecting us on an emotionally profound level. I'm guessing that the "spears" are meant to evoke the association with armed guards who also keep a constant, consistent, clockwork-like watch without showing emotion. The spears can also be symbolic of a kind of emotional defense mechanism, so throwing them down can be read as symbolically casting away the thing that allows us to disengage emotionally.

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Originally Posted by MementoMori

Although I couldn't begin to explain the significance of Urizen, criticism I've read says: 'Man, the image of God, is fourfold; God therefore must also be fourfold. As the trinity is reflected in the other three Zoas, Urizen must be (as Kelly Preston has suggested) that aspect of deity which, when fallen, becomes Satan'.

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Urizen is Blake's allegorical character that tries to understand/frame the world in a completely rational, clockwork, scientific, lawful manner. He's representative of the Enlightenment movement and people like Newton, which is why he's often depicted with a compass, or with a net in an attempt to ensnare the world. Urizen also has a darker side, and that's being a type of oppressor who chains Orc (emotion) underground and banishes Los (creativity) and even his own Emanation, Ahania (pleasure). To Blake, The Enlightenment was robbing people of emotional and creative outlets, and Urizen was the embodiment of that. Names are also important in Blake, and Urizen is one of his simpler ones, basically a near homophone for "your reason," but probably pronounced a bit differently. It's also important to distinguish in Blake between the Satan he associates with revolutionary emotion and creativity (such as Milton's Satan), and the Satan that he believes is the true evil deceiver. Urizen belongs to the latter type of Satan, Orc to the former. Orc, unlike Urizen, is given much more sympathy by Blake, even while Blake is also aware of his destructive power. He rarely grants anything positive to Urizen, though.

Thaks for your explanations. I did a little research myself, and came up with this:

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The two lines quoted above constitute the crux of the poem. “The stars” can be taken as the rebel angels. Therefore lines 17-18 above can be interpreted when the rebel angels in Heaven surrendered to the power of God, which is represented by the tiger in this poem, and when they wept with humiliation (and when God proceeded to create the earth and its inhabitants—among them the tiger). The reference in lines 17-18 is, therefore, to the defeat of the rebel angels led by Lucifer (Satan), after which came the Creation. It is thought that the lines quoted above refer to the fall of the angels as described by John Milton in Paradise Lost:

They, astonished, all resistance lost,
All courage, down their weapons dropt.

In Blake conception, when the fallen angels were driven into hell, they “watered heaven with their tears” leaving them behind as stars. All of this has obvious relationship with the fall of man, and the introduction into the world of death, and such terrors as the tigers. The angels and man have fallen into Experience.

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Isn't the Star reference straight out of Milton?

Sandman, Urizen I was to understand is not an aspect of Satan, but rather one of Old Testament Jehovah. I saw them as opposites. But then again, this is all cloudy with A Marriage Between Heaven and Hell - which basically simply puts the Satanic as the ideal.

As for the lamb, I suspect Blake regarded his early work as that of a hypocrite's. He basically has the first Chimney sweep wait for death in order to get some sort of release - all found in god. The Second Chimney Sweeper is far more potent.

If we take the lamb, it praises the lambish kind of qualities. I think the later blake had difficulty accepting this - as the French Revolution proved the lamb need not wait to be lead to the slaughter.

Isnt a bit because the "Songs" are somehow incomplente if we think how Blake considered the human life stages? There is a third stage, where the innocent reacts to the experience and achive some "progress"? In this sense, the Lamb is only inactive because her time of action didnt arrive?

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

Thaks for your explanations. I did a little research myself, and came up with this:

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Blake had a tendency for transfiguring such metaphors in his own work so that they both retained an element of their meaning in their original context, but also took on new/alternate meanings in his own work. It's one thing that makes his work so incredibly dense and rich with meanings. This is a long way of saying that I don't think here that these two possible meanings--the stars as the fallen angels and the stars as clockwork nature--are mutually exclusive. This kind of ambiguity abounds in Blake.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Sandman, Urizen I was to understand is not an aspect of Satan, but rather one of Old Testament Jehovah. I saw them as opposites. But then again, this is all cloudy with A Marriage Between Heaven and Hell - which basically simply puts the Satanic as the ideal.

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I think it was Frye that first pointed out that Blake had two mutually exclusive ideas of Satan, the first being the ideal of Milton's character, the romantic revolutionary, and the second being the true evil deceiver as he was meant to be in The Bible. Urizen was certainly the OT Jehovah, but, to Blake, that character WAS the true evil deceiver version of Satan. IE, Blake's OT Jehovah was the real ultimate enemy of man; The Satan of The Bible, as opposed to The Satan of Milton. One thing that makes some of Blake's late work tricky is parsing exactly which version of Satan he's referring to in each context.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Blake had a tendency for transfiguring such metaphors in his own work so that they both retained an element of their meaning in their original context, but also took on new/alternate meanings in his own work. It's one thing that makes his work so incredibly dense and rich with meanings. This is a long way of saying that I don't think here that these two possible meanings--the stars as the fallen angels and the stars as clockwork nature--are mutually exclusive. This kind of ambiguity abounds in Blake.

I think it was Frye that first pointed out that Blake had two mutually exclusive ideas of Satan, the first being the ideal of Milton's character, the romantic revolutionary, and the second being the true evil deceiver as he was meant to be in The Bible. Urizen was certainly the OT Jehovah, but, to Blake, that character WAS the true evil deceiver version of Satan. IE, Blake's OT Jehovah was the real ultimate enemy of man; The Satan of The Bible, as opposed to The Satan of Milton. One thing that makes some of Blake's late work tricky is parsing exactly which version of Satan he's referring to in each context.

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No doubt, my point was in the fact that the even the Urizen/ORc split is not as clear cut in these early works. I have no doubt that Blake resolves many of these conflicting tendencies in the later prophecies, but by Experience I don't think he actually has a clear answer between the Lamb and the Tyger. I have a hunch the Tyger's fearful symmetry was something he could not frame himself - the god and bad seem so entwined here that it is hard to actually understand a clear answer, much like the French revolution.

Good and bad are hard to parse during the French Revolution. In that sense, the great glories of liberty led to the violence of revolution. The same lauded heroes of liberty in his unfinished works on the two revolutions, America and France, are the Tyger incarnate. Los the creative power is a later development. The Lamb is basically a beast waiting for reincarnation and salvation. In that sense all of Innocence seems to be traditionally christian in the sense that the victim awaits the second coming for justice. The Chimney sweep dies, but he will be saved.

The Experience poems seem to conflict with this. There is the dream of liberty, but the danger of the Tyger. London and the Tyger thus make an interesting contrast - is Blake advocating as breaking of the Mind-forged Manacles of institutions in the form of the unchainable (the Tyger incarnate) or not? He seems to offer no answer, but certainly the lamb is not an answer either. Waiting is out of the question, but the Tyger is violent and evil, despite brilliant, free, unrestrained and magnificent.

I suspect he painted the Tyger unimposing for a specific reason of dodging the question of Heresy though. He seems to have tried to live relatively quietly.

I do think that Blake at the time of Experience did not have his philosophy worked out completely, and thus there is greater ambiguity between good and evil, the lamb and the tyger, Orc and Urizen, etc.. As for whether he's advocating "breaking the Mind-forged Manacles," I think he was, but that his enthusiasm for these revolutions were tempered with the awareness of the potential destruction. He realized society needed order, but, at the same time, order had been corrupted, and that the corruption had to be burned away before it could be rebuilt, and the only way to do that was to unleash Orc/The Tyger.

I think that positive/negative duality in figures like The Tyger, Orc, and the revolutions, in general, is what necessitated his focal shift towards Los. As I said earlier, in Milton: A Poem, the Milton character is the equivalent of Los who descends to hell, towards Orc/Satan, and must shape him out of the clay. So, for Blake, creativity became the means by which to harness and control the revolutionary power of Orc, and the Tyger, while keeping in check the more negative aspects. Los definitiely seems to be the missing piece to Blake's philosophical allegory in those early works, and his absence likely accounts for much of their ambiguity.

The painting of The Tyger is another interesting aspect of that poem that's too little discussed. As you said, the meekness of his visual depiction hardly matches the ferociousness of the verbal description. There's often an interesting interplay/counterpoint in the Illuminated works between imagery and words, which may be why many Blake scholars turn to The Four Zoas for the most coherent and complete renderings of his later philosophy.