Apparent Simplicity In 'The Tyger'

In the poem, Blake uses both form and content to communicate with the reader. The context tells us about the awesome and fearful nature of the creator. And the form shows us his mounting excitement as the poet moves forward with his questions. The tension, the excitement is highest in the fourth stanza, where the poet almost loses grammatical and syntactical precision and the questions gush out of his pen growing increasingly staccato. However, the speed is checked, the tension is toned down in stanza five, which is, perhaps, the most important stanza of the whole poem. In the sixth stanza, the admiration is repeated. But by replacing "could" with "dare", Blake introduces a note of incredulity along with awe.

In Blake's symbolism, Ð''tyger' is presented as untamed power, raw energy. In the poem, we see the tiger as the physical manifestation of such energy, which is fierce and beautiful at the same time.

The tiger is described in the poem as a vehicle for imagining the might of a being who can create the tiger. The tiger's bright yellow colour makes it look like a burning ball of fire amidst a dark jungle. The 'forests of the night' is a symbol of experience in Blake, and it also has evil associations. Therefore, the tiger is the bright flame of energy in the middle of a decaying world. In the very next line, Blake starts to ask questions about the creator. He asks:

"What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

Blake sums up the fierceness and beauty of the tiger in the two words Ð''fearful symmetry'.

The tiger's eyes are said to be fiery in the next stanza, and the poet asks what the being can be who is mighty enough to bring the fire from the Ð''distant deeps or skies'. Possibly, Blake here refers to Prometheus's act of stealing fire for humankind. And the image of fire is here used as a continuation of the Ð''burning' in the first stanza. Blake was influenced by the alchemical theory of Paracelsus. Perhaps that is why Blake changed the Ð''potter' image of the creator in the draft of the poem to the Ð''blacksmith' image.

Here the image is of a blacksmith who twists hot iron to give it shape. The tiger's heart, hands and feet are created thereby. The fierceness of the organs individually is not lesser than the whole creature. The fourth stanza harks back to the image of Los forging Urizen and Orc, into the chains of time and space in The Book of Los. According to Blake, Urizen is the first product of creation. He is reason and contemplation and is born out of the Universal Consciousness through introspection. 'In what furnace was thy brain?' is a direct reference to the alchemic theory.

The next stanza is the most complex. Here, the stars are the hosts of Urizen, who is reason and is the fallen God. And the Ð''spears' are their rays, cold as reason. According to Gnostic theory subscribed by Blake, when the decision to create the world was taken, the henchmen of Urizen, the secondary gods, who are the stars here, were afraid and they cried out. Also in Paradise Lost, seeing God's awesome power the other fallen angels were afraid, although they did not throw down their spears. Then Blake asks,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Here Blake tells us about the essential unity of God, the meeting of contraries, which makes God powerful and benign. For this reason, God remains beyond our understanding. Every phenomenon is a manifestation of God. Good and evil are both contained within God and occur as God's wish. Blake said that without going through experience, good or bad, man cannot reach self-realisation, which is the goal of all life. Thus, according to Blake's philosophy, without contraries there is no progression. And God is the Supreme Being, for in Him good and evil meet.