Tiger , The Analysis

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forest 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 seize the fire?

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

.: :.

Hi!!.. I'm _ _. _ from PCSHS....help me please in this poem..."The Lamb" and "The Tiger"...Tnx:D
Pray 4 yah!!

| Posted on 2009-10-27 | by a guest

.: :.

Hi my name is austin and i am also working on a project... Help!

| Posted on 2009-04-23 | by a guest

.: :.

Hi Emily, I have a daughter your age and I teach at a school. I think your analysis is spot on. If you have done the industrial revolution in history (my subject) you can comment about Blake likening the Tiger and the Lamb with the good and bad brought about by the industrial revolution. Don't forget people worked very long hours in the factories and the cities were filthy, very crowded and full of disease, much more unhealthy than the countryside where the workers for the factories had come from. Average age of death in Manchester at this time 23 years. I think he is saying that God has made a terrible thing (in Blake's eyes)yet it is beautiful and fearful. God is either capable of mistakes or has made this beautiful deadly creature for reasons that are beyond man's understanding. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work.
Mark

| Posted on 2009-04-14 | by a guest

.: :.

Hi! i am Emily. i am 13 years old and doing a report on a poem of my choice. i choose this one. This was what i thought the poem was about:
I think that William Blake is talking about god. He is explaining how great yet terrible the tiger is. He ask the reader what kind of immortal creature (meaning god) could make such a thing. At the end he compares the tiger to a lamb by asking if the same god created them both.
Please comment on my analysis if you can. i would really like to hear feed-back! Thank you!

| Posted on 2009-04-06 | by a guest

.: :.

The Tyger represents the raw, unadulterated forces of Nature. Wild. Untamable. The potential for destruction, yet also mesmerizingly beautiful for it simply IS. What immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Did the same God who created Law and Order, Rules and Civilization, also create such an icon of Wildness and Destruction?
It is a glimpse of the real nature of the World, beyond all the rules and forms of Men (the hammer and chains of human society, used to keep men down, small). Like spotting a wildfire deep in the heart of a forest, yet with a living consciousness.
Blake railed against the British reserve and conservatism. This poem expresses his soul-felt calling to BE as fully present in the World, with all of our flaws and passions, as possible. That God desires men to be passionate and not subservient and submissive. It is a theme that he carries throughout much of his work - that our true natures are large, wild, and yearning to be free of the strictures we have placed upon them.

| Posted on 2009-03-19 | by a guest

.: :.

maybe you guys are taking this poem way to seriously, not all poems have to have some secret meaning to it i made one out of nothing ,semi long and rambled through part, but it was still enough to inpress the9th grade teacher at our school and im in the seventh sixth at the time. anyways my point is it may not be some comparing oposing opposites, maybe he was trying to explain a problem without explaining it, or just wrighting to clear his mind like i did, then again you maybe right who knows

| Posted on 2009-02-22 | by a guest

.: :.

what does : What tjhe hammer? what the chain,
mean

| Posted on 2009-01-19 | by a guest

.: :.

I think that Blake was like any of frusrated people who didnt get a satisfactory philosophy about life.

| Posted on 2008-11-25 | by a guest

.: :.

I read this poem at age 16. The first book that hooked me into being a reading addict at the first lines I had read.. TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,-... Blood and Chocolate. A good small book to start off young aged readers. Also, Silver Kiss is nice. I found Blood and Chocolate under my desk in High-school. A true god sent.

| Posted on 2008-11-13 | by a guest

.: :.

The Tyger by William Blake is a poem that expresses how much William Blake hates the industrial revolution: What immortal hand or art could twist the sinews of thy heart? means what god could allow something like this to start and spin out of control? Twist the sinews basically means to make the muscle and bone. The Tyger is also asking if god is really perfect to let such a thing happen? Who created the tyger? God, the devil or a combination of the two. He thinks the combination. And what shoulder and what art refers to opposites: brains and brawn. God and the devil are opposites. It is also literal though, in that you need smarts and strength to create the industrial revolution. The tyger also refers to how beautiful and evil the tyger is, it is good, because of improvement in technology, or is it awful because of pollution (though he didn't know this) and weapons. It also wonders if perhaps we stole technology from god when it refers to Prometheus and Icarus. And, at the end of the poem, wondering when the world finally (not yet) saw the worst side of the revolution, was this greater being pleased? How could someone who created love and peace create this tiger of beauty, power, destruction, and dependency?

| Posted on 2008-10-21 | by a guest

.: The Tyger Analysis :.

William Blake contrasts the beauty (symmetry) and dreadfulness/fearfulness of the Tiger. He does this to use the Tiger as an example for his overall question in the poem. He repeatedly asks, "who created the Tiger?" Throughout the poem he makes many allusions to God and the Devil. His questions ask, "who would dare create something so vicious yet beautiful as the Tiger?" This question is rhetorical, which means that he's really doubting the full benevolence or perfection of God. He does this through his example of the Tiger, but also through his allusions of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods: "What the hand dare seize the fire?" This allusion uses fire as an example (as Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.) Fire is beautiful, and it can cook and warm, yet it can kill and burn as well. This comparison is used similarly to the Tiger. He also makes a Christian allusion to Lucifer's rebellion against god: "When the stars threw down their spears, / And watered heaven with their tears, / Did he smile his work to see?" The second line of this quotation talks of the myth that when the rebel angels were defeated, their tears created the milky way. So it then asks if the creator (God or the Devil) smiled or was happy in this creation of the milky way, as the milky way is beautiful, but was created from a rebellion against God which created Hell.
The industrialized diction found in the fourth stanza has the same effect that the Tiger, fire and the milky way have. Anvils and Hammers or industry in general can help mankind creating beautiful art or useful tools, but industry can also create weapons.
One very important fact about William Blake is that he was very interested in Gnosticism. This poem directly reflects the Gnostic view of Abraxas (who is comparable to the Christian god). Yet Gnosticism believes that Abraxas is a combination of both good and evil, or God and the Demiurge (the Devil). They believe that Abraxas is imperfect, just as Blake is proving in this poem. He's giving examples of how the creator is imperfect or not fully benevolent.

| Posted on 2008-04-08 | by a guest

.: :.

The poem "The Tyger" is a criticism of the Industrial Revolution by Blake. Picture the caution stripes on a freight train, yellow and black. The Tyger is not an animal, that's why he spelt it with a 'y'. Symmetry refers to the fact that a tiger is the only perfectly symmetrical animal on earth, giving it a sense of awesome power and uniqueness. "on what wings..." and "what hand dare seize the fire" refer to Icarus and Prometheus, two Greek heroes. Icarus challenged the Gods by creating flight, and Prometheus gave mankind fire, and hence the ability of science.
"shoulder" and "art" are opposites, the first being strength, the second being knowledge. Blake is saying that to create such a 'creature' one must be extraordinary in both these things.
"and when thy heart began to beat" is the ignition, the beginning of the mass productions that spawned in England. The "dread hands" and "dread feet" shows the rapid progression to a full bodied creation. The poem then shows the 'tyger' that we (man) have created, and how we lost control of it. "in what furnace was thy brain?" shows it has a mind of its own, in a place no man can go to switch it off. This juggernaut that is plundering out of control composed of all things industrial; chains, hammers, anvils, furnaces.
"Stars throwing spears" is comets, a thing a mystery. They have always appeared at great events, like the fall of the Roman Empire. "did He smile" refers to mankind again, blake believed we made God from the good things we did. In this stanza, blake is asking if we a proud of what we have done, if we like the smog and the overpopulation and the horrific occurrences brought on my the industrial revolution.
The last stanza is there to reiterate his point, and leave you pondering this enigmatic poem. The "Dare" is a warning not to let such an atrocity happen again.

| Posted on 2005-07-26 | by Approved Guest

.: :.

The Tyger by William Blake is an expression of a question that many of us ask at some point in life: why is there pain, hardship, heartache, bloodshed, evil? Though it voices the question, The Tyger never answers it. How true of life; though we may ask the question, though we may shake our fist against an angry sky, though we may vent our rage and despair, though we may ask quietly, there is no satisfactory answer. It's about having your reason overwhelmed by the seeming contradictory beauty and horror of the world. And in the end, the sense of awe and fear defy reason.

| Posted on 2005-07-26 | by Approved Guest

.: :.

The Tyger by William Blake is an expression of a question that many of us ask at some point in life: why is there pain, hardship, heartache, bloodshed, evil? Though it voices the question, The Tyger never answers it. How true of life; though we may ask the question, though we may shake our fist against an angry sky, though we may vent our rage and despair, though we may ask quietly, there is no satisfactory answer. It's about having your reason overwhelmed by the seeming contradictory beauty and horror of the world. And in the end, the sense of awe and fear defy reason.

| Posted on 2005-07-26 | by Approved Guest