What Does The Tyger Mean

The poem, The Tyger, contrasts innocence and experience, and good and evil. The description of the tiger in the poem is as a destructive, horrid creature. The original drawing on the poem shows a smiling, cuddly tiger which is quite the contrast to the tiger described in the poem. This picture might suggest a misunderstanding of the tiger and perhaps the fears that arouse from the poem are unjustified. This poem contrasts the tiger with a lamb which often symbolizes innocence, Jesus, and good. The tiger is perceived as evil or demonic. Blake suggest that the lamb and the tiger have the same creator and in a way states that the tiger might also have the ability to have the benign characteristics of the lamb. The tiger initially appears as a beautiful image but as the poem progresses, it explores a perfectively beautiful yet destructive symbol that represents the presence of evil in the world. In the poem, Blake writes: " What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry (4-5)." It is hard to determine if the tiger is solely evil or good.

Donne's view of death is that it is an insignificant thing that has no power over people. By saying "One short sleep past, we wake eternally" (13), he illustrates that he believes that there is some sort of afterlife. In fact, he says that the time that death has power

Everything in the universe has an opposite. This provides a balance, a push and pull, to the world. Because of this truth, no thing that exists is entirely one thing or the other. Every animal, object, and event that has ever existed may have had bad effects in one situation, but good effects for another situation. And every human, by extension, has aspects about them that can be viewed as both good and evil. In his poems, “The Tyger” and, “The Lamb”, author William Blake explores the ideas of duality, and how each thing must have an equal opposite. He uses both these poems to further ruminate on this dichotomy and brings up many questions in the context of religion. He seeks to point out that in the Christian belief system, all things viewed as good and bad in the world have apparently come from the same thing: God, and yet God is seen as being entirely good. But if that is the case, then how can God be all good if all the evil things come from him as well? Is anything then truly evil? Or does it just seem that way from one perspective? Blake uses these two poems in conjunction with one another to make the reader question these things and think about what good and evil actually mean.

Blake’s poem has a theme of spirituality, peace and creation. These ideas are created by words used such as “God”, “bless thee”, and “give thee life”. (Gualdoni) The description of the stream where the lamb is at expresses the kindness of God’s creation. (Moore)Blake also used allusions in his poem to help represent the themes. Christ is often referred to as a shepherd in the bible which displays spirituality. The lamb by itself is a symbol of peace, meekness, and sacrifice. Together the lamb laying with the lion is also a sign of peace.(Gualdoni) Blake uses a metaphor to compare Jesus to a lamb. Jesus was God’s sacrifice to creation, he was the sacrificial lamb, and Jesus was sacrificed on the cross to create more peace in the world.

To him, Death is merely lowly character that flaunts off its strength and has no power or influence of its own, like an arrogant slave. In his poem, he refers to death as “dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell”. Even though Death does garners fear in others and is prideful in its capabilities, it actually can only rely on despicable means to manifest itself. Donne considers death as a short sleep, which people will awaken from to a new life after death, whether in heaven or in hell. Donne plays up Death’s role as unimportant and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and believes that the fear that people feel from Death unwarranted. His view of death contrasts that of Emily Dickinson

Donne’s tenth sonnet, and perhaps the most famous of his Holy Sonnets, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee”, is more of a comfort to his readers than the previously discussed sonnet. He makes death, the inevitable time at which God will judge an immortal for his sins, as something not be feared. Donne personifies death as somebody with an abundance of pride but states that it really is not so. He continually belittles this person, “Death”, by concluding that it doesn’t have any actual power. Man can achieve the same state of being through sleep or a potion. In the final, triumphant lines of this sonnet, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, / And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die”, Donne concludes that when he reaches heaven, the way in which he died on earth ceases to matter.

The Bible states, “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16). William Blake wrote poems about this very subject. In his twin poems, “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”, Blake uses different literary techniques such as sound, imagery and symbolism to echo the common theme of creation along with how it is viewed differently.

“The Tyger” is a lengthy poem with detailed ideas of the creation of the creature known as a tiger. The poem has a wonder tone to where he questions the reasoning of why the Tyger is what it is. The theme also connects very strongly with the tone in question the person who made the Tyger. The first stanza opens the central question: "What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" The second stanza questions "the Tyger" about where he was created, “In what distant deeps or skies.” the third about how the creator formed him, the fourth about what tools were used. “What the hammer? what the chain,” The fifth stanza goes on to ask about how the creator reacted to his creation. Finally, the sixth restates the central question also changes his questioning of who, to a stern wondrous of whom the creator is.

The poem “The Tyger”, written by William Blake, was effectively described and delivered through the usage of sound devices. The most prominent sound device used throughout this poem is rhythm. Throughout each verse and stanza, the poem continuously follows the AABB pattern with its rhythm. This is exemplified through the following stanza:

Is death a slave to fate or is it a dreaded reality? People differ on the opinion of death, some people view death as a new beginning which should not be feared, while many people perceive death as an atrocious monster. Death be not proud, by John Donne is a poem that challenges death and the idea of its ferocity. Donne’s work is greatly influenced by the death of his countless family members, friends and spouse. Donne was not only a poet, but he was also a priest in the Church of England, so his interest in religion and his belief in eternal life after death, also contributed greatly to his work. The poem Death be not proud, is a metaphysical poem about death, in which John Donne undermines, ridicules, and determines the meaning of death, according to his perspective.

William Blake’s poetry is considered through the Romantics era and they access through the sublime. The Romantics poetry through the sublime is beyond comprehension and spiritual fullness. A major common theme is a nature (agnostic religion). In William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” he describes the tiger as a creature that was created by a higher power some time before. In Blake’s poem he questions, “What immortal hand or eye/ Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” (Blake 22-23). He describes the tiger as a form of symmetry that can be seen as evil, yet have intriguing features such as those that make the tiger a beautiful creation. Blake also questions if that the higher being who created the tiger also created all else around the world such as a human being. Blake shifts his first stanzas from the tiger to the creator. Not only is he questioning who created the tiger, but he is also describing the beauty and evil of the world. The beauty that the Romantics believe in is nature and one evil seen through the world is materialism that distract humans from the beauty of nature 's gifts. He believes that people lose touch with spirituality when haven’t given to nature. Blake also illustrated his own works through

William Blake’s The Tyger, in my opinion, is an intriguing poem that looks at the idea of how God is a mystery and how humanity is at a loss to fully understand his creations by contemplating the forging of a beautiful yet ferocious tiger. Blake begins the poem by beginning a conversation with the tiger and almost immediately begins his questions of who could make such a fierce creature. He wonders if God could really create such a creature or maybe it is a creature produced from a darker source. Blake also refers to the tiger as a form of art, almost as if the creator made the tiger perfectly. The image of a blacksmith is also given through the poem as Blake refers to a blacksmith’s common tools and

Theology is actually one of the many topics that frequently appears in a variety of work of English poet William Blake. A brief overview of some of the author's more noted works such as "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", "The Book of Thel", and Songs of Innocence and Experience readily attest to this fact. In Songs of Innocence and Experience, however, a number of the author's poems seem to integrate a decidedly Christian worldview within their text and the cosmology presented to readers through these works. This proclivity of Blake's is particularly salient in "The Chimney Sweeper" and "The Lamb". In fact, one can argue that most of the fundamental beliefs that Christianity is based upon are found within these poems, which serve as excellent examples of the author's tendency to write poems that adhere to a decidedly Christian viewpoint.

William Blake was known to be a mystic poet who was curious about the unknowns in the world, and strived to find all the answers. Does God create both gentle and fearful creatures? As a questioned asked in the poem “The Tyger” William Blake pondered on why an all-powerful, loving God would create a vicious predator, the Tiger, after he created a sweet, timid, harmless animal, the lamb. The theme of this poem surrounds this idea of why the same creator would create both a destructive and gentle animal. This issue is brought up and discussed through rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism.

Over time, man Christians who have a firm foundation in the Bible begin to develop and express their own theories. William Blake was one of these people. While he wrote many things, the poems “the Divine Image” and “the Human Abstract” from his books Songs of Innocence and of Experience hit on a deeper level inside of Christianity. When reading the works of others it is important to know what the actual gospel truth is and then what the poet’s truth is. These lines are blurred in these two poems. If a Christian is able to distinguish the God spoken truth from Blake’s own belief’s then these poems provide the reader with a short pastoral message on God and who people are. When properly read and cross-referenced with the Bible, these two poems can provide both comfort and guidance, as well as a warning, to its Christian readers.