The Tyger Blake Flashcards
Summary
“When the stars threw down their spears”
Personification = Ambiguous line, has connotations to the battle between some of God’s angels and God himself
Resulted in Satan being banished from heaven
Creates a sense of heightened, almost theatrical drama that feeds the tense and threatening atmosphere surrounding the tigers existence.
“What immortal hand or eye,/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Rhetorical Questions – Blake asks why God, as an all-powerful creator, would create both fearsome and joyful parts of existence (e.g., the tiger vs. the lamb).
Life’s mysteries: Why create evil (e.g., human cruelty)?
God’s design is beyond human understanding—evidence is visible, but full comprehension is not possible.
Blake questions: What kind of God would create the tiger?
The tiger represents nature at its finest, with evil matching good, reflecting divine complexity.
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,/ In the forests of the night;”
Epizeuxis (Repetition) – “Tyger Tyger” emphasises the tiger as the central figure, reinforced by apostrophe (direct address).
Alliteration – “burning bright” creates a striking visual of a vivid, moving flash of colour—both beautiful and terrifying.
Psychoanalytic Theory (Freud) – The “forests” symbolise both the tiger’s literal habitat and the human subconscious/unconscious.
Symbolism of Night – Represents moral corruption, obscuring vision and judgement, much like the dense forest.
Feline Imagery – The tiger exists only in an environment fitting its fearful and powerful nature.
Alternative Interpretation – The tiger contrasts brightly against the dark forest, making it a symbol of defiant brilliance.
Marxist Interpretation – The forest represents London, a place of terrible corruption, suffering, and squalor, exacerbated by the rise of the Industrial Revolution.
“Did he smile his work to see?/ Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
Anaphora
Summarises the poem’s other questions, making these two particularly crucial.
Blake questions if God takes pride in his creation, or if he deliberately created evil.
Is God compassionate or does he create evil for amusement?
No clear answer, but contrasts with the biblical idea: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
Biblical Connotations – Suggests free will allowed evil into the world, but this isn’t explicitly stated in the poem.
Structure
Structure – Six quatrains.
Refrain – Mirrors the first stanza, framing the poem with the central question: What kind of God would create the tiger, and by extension, fear and evil?
Repetition reinforces symmetry, essential to the tiger’s creation.
The tiger is a product of artistry, skill, and imagination, with its aesthetic beauty reflecting careful design.
Symmetry reflects God’s logic in creation, mirrored in the tiger’s form.
Tone Shift – The final stanza changes from asking who could create the tiger to who would dare to, highlighting the courage required for creation.
Rhyme
Trochaic rhythm – Lacks unstressed syllable, making it catalectic.
Missing syllable creates tension, reflecting the intense conditions of the tiger’s creation.
Iambic meter – Adds variation, mimicking a heartbeat: And when | thy heart | began | to beat.
The meter is propulsive and engaging, drawing readers into vivid imagery and moral questions.
AABB rhyme scheme – Rhyming couplets in each stanza.
Provides momentum and prevents abruptness despite the poem’s rhetorical questions.
Couplets reinforce symmetry, reflecting Blake’s view of divine design—God has a plan, even if not fully comprehensible to humans.
