As said earlier in my introductory assignment, William Blake was one of the most remarkable poets

among the precursors of Romantic revival in India. His poetry is as delightful as it is challenging and its
wide appeal ranges from the deceptive cadence of his lullaby like songs and pastorals to the troubling
notes of tragedy of the lapsed soul and the stormy music of the prophetic works. Blake’s most widely
read poems are contained in “Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience”. The former collection is
marked by brightness and freshness, the latter by gloom resulting from experience of the evil that is a
there in life. The song of Innocence was published in 1789 followed by the publication of Songs of
experience lately. They were then bound together making Blake announcing the title “THE SONGS OF
INNOCENCE AND THE SONGS OF EXPERIENCE SHOWING THE TWO CONTRARY STATES OF HUMAN SOUL”.
He thus made it clear that he intended the readers to read the two sets in light of each other, in fact
several poems in the second set are conscious parallel to the poems in first having on occasions
sometimes even the same title.

On a cursory reading, his poetry almost seems like child rhymes, lullaby songs but there runs a deep
current underneath it. The simplicity of the poem hides the intense complexity of themes and issues that
his poems deal. Thus these lucid poems attempt to break the ‘ mind forg’d manacles of the society
created by the repressive decrees of church. His poems call for liberation of human energy and creativity
and criticize the contempory mood forged by the ideas of enlightenment.

“The Tyger” the poem around which my whole discussion will be central to “is the most tightly
structured of all Blake’s poems. Running into twenty four lines, the poem is an intensely creative work,
centered on creation: the very origin of this fearsome jungle cat. . The meter is regular and rhythmic
comprising of six quatrains in rhymed couplets. The poem is full of 13 rhetorical questions which
communicate awe as well as wonder but there are no answers .In that sense it is an experience
poem where the simple operations of fate are replaced by complex psychological phenomenon.

It is a poem of maturity, a child like vision sees the world as black and white, with maturity
comes the realization of the complexity that makes up the fabric of creation. The poem realises
that there is a room for pain and destruction alongside love and harmony. In that sense the
poem bears a similarity to Blake’s “The Lamb” which appears appropriately in the “Innocence
“part of the volume of the poems. Here the subject of contemplation shifts from the “Little meek
Lamb” to the “ferocious, burning bright”. In that sense the poem emerges out to be an antitype
of the sweet hymn of the tender, weak and vulnerable Lamb.

Blake captures the wildness of the beast- its burning eyes, its strength with his words. In the
first stanza, we meet “the tyger”. The luminous creature roams the forest at night. The poet is
struck by the beauty, strength and the balance of the beast and questions what inspiration us
behind its creation. Some scholars believe the tiger is Blake’s version of the angel Lucifer. Like
Lucifer, the the tiger works alone and inspires thoughts of death, it is also strength and beautiful,
as the bible portrays the fallen angel. The second stanza continues the powerful imagery,
comparing the fire in the tigers’ eyes and the fire used to create it, suggesting that the tiger is a
reflection of the fire of Hell. Also given is the image of wings; thus the reinforcement or possibly
an image inspired by Greek mythology” The Prometheus”.
Next, Blake poses more questions to the creator of the tiger, first pondering the two tiers of
strength needed to mastermind the mighty animal: 1) the architect who created the animal.
Images follow that remind the readers of a blacksmith shop. The verse turns to talk of a
hammer, chain and anvil used to forge the tiger thus indicating the force needed to put the
animal together. The poet finally asks the question that a ferocious and regal creature like the
tiger pleased or disappointed its creature. He asks outright if the same being produced “THE
TYGER AND THE LAMB”. Thus, the tiger initially appears as a strikingly sensuous image.
However, as the poem progresses, it takes on a symbolic character, and comes to embody the
spiritual and moral problem the poem explores: perfectly beautiful and yet perfectly destructive,

Conclusion

Thus, THE TYGER BY BLAKE is a highly symbolic poem where the tiger is the Christ and a messiah who is
not just meek but also angry and devastative. Here the tiger stands for experience. It is bright, energetic
and vital. It is familiar with its domain and is assertive in environment. While the Lamb merely follows
the flock, the tiger has learnt from experience and is autonomous. No longer following the crowd, the
tiger us a hunter directly in search of satisfaction. Knowledge has given the animal its power: the
intensity of which is visible in the beast’s bright eyes. Moreover, the forest is symbolic of
corrupted social conventions that try to suppress the good human potentials. In
the poem night stands for ignorance, out of which the forest of false social
institutions is made. Also, Blake has interestingly used paradox to highlight the hidden
message behind the poem: the fact that God had to use his strength to ‘twist’ the muscles while
making the tiger’s heart, which is supposed to be the most delicate and fragile organ of the
body, compliments the question which is asked throughout. Why would the Maker who made a
thing as sweet and innocent as the lamb, take pleasure in creating the tiger, which would devour
and ravish it? . Structurally the poem is inherently dualistic. “The bright and “the night” contradictions
themselves symbolize an active uniting of opposites. Thus the focus of the poem can be on the balance
that is there in the universe. If there is good, there is bad; if there is life, there is also death; if there is
light, there is also darkness. This is the dichotomy of creation; God has created the world in
such a way that it balances itself, as can be gleaned from his creation of the tiger to balance the
docile lamb. Thus the God of love (Lamb) and the god of wrath (tiger) is both one god, for the
creator has the capacity to absorb all paradoxes. Destruction is inevitable if renewal has to
come.