Agard says in the poem, “And curving, like she bearing child” which tells us that the way the rainbow curves, looks like God is pregnant with a baby. Agard uses repetition by stating a number of times throughout the poem, she/he “got style”, meaning God, whether male or female, has got style. Agard could possibly be trying to say that the colours of the rainbow show God’s style because the rainbow is so colourful and “full of glow”.
In Blake’s “The Tyger”, Blake's spelling in the title “The Tyger” at once suggests the exotic or alien quality of the beast. Blake tries to show the tiger as a symbol of God’s power in creation. In this poem the tiger is being addressed directly. Blake queries the tiger in the first stanza, “What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry?” Like this, Blake questions the tiger about what kind of person could possibly have had the power to make a creature like him throughout the poem.
In the second stanza, Blake questions, “In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes?” meaning, who in the deep seas or the skies above could create eyes, burning bright such as the tigers? He asks himself “On what wings dare he aspire?” which shows Blake wants to know on what wings this person soars as he couldn’t possibly have made the tiger as he is. “And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?” Blake asks the tiger in these two lines, what shoulder and what art could combine the strength or power of his heart. Blake questions the tiger about what fears the tigers hand and foot when his heart began to beat, as the tiger’s paws are so powerful and heavy.
The tiger is fearless and full of terror as portrayed in the fourth stanza, in the line ”Dare it’s deadly terrors clasp?”
The line, which states, “When the stars threw down their spears and watered heaven with their tears” could possibly be referring to people years ago who would have used spears instead of guns or other modern day weapons. Blake compares the tiger with a lamb in this poem. The line, “Did he smile His work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?” tells us that Blake is asking the tiger if the person who made him, so fierce, predatory and active, also make the vulnerable, harmless lamb. By the lamb, Blake could mean Jesus, the Lamb of God.
These two poems have a lot of similarities in the way Agard and Blake deal with the theme of nature in their poems “Rainbow” and “Tyger”, but they also have a lot of differences. The similarities in these poems include the interest in religion. In both these poems, the poets show that religion is an important factor in their lives by including a God in their poems. Blake shows religion in “The Tyger” when he talks about the tiger’s creator. Agard shows religion in “Rainbow”, stating “God got style” and the different ways the rainbow reminds him of God. Both the poems are expressing great interest in God and his creations and how wonderful God must be to make such extraordinary and powerful things. In the poems “Rainbow” and “The Tyger”, the poets explain these amazing acts of nature and describe what they look like and compare them to various things, such as a lamb or a pregnant woman. Blake and Agard both use significant repetition in their poems, such as “The man got style” in “Rainbow” and the first and last stanzas in “The Tyger”.
The differences in these two poems includes the way that Blake describes the appearance, the strength and the creator of the tiger whereas Agard only describes what he thinks the rainbow looks like. Blake speaks directly to the tiger in his poem but Agard is speaking to his audience when he is writing the poem “Rainbow”. In the poem “The Tyger”, Blake asks the tiger about who made him and about how powerful the tiger is. Agard’s poem reflects his Caribbean background by using shortened sentences and words like “de” instead of “the”. Agard wrote “Rainbow” in 1985, which explains to us why Agard doesn’t speak in the Middle English language as Blake does in “The Tyger”. Blake wrote “The Tyger” in 1794 and we can see this by the way he uses the Middle English language with words such as, thy and thine.
These are the differences and similarities in the way Agard and Blake deal with the theme of nature in their poems “Rainbow“ and “Tyger”. These poets had such different lifestyles to each other and yet, in their poetry, there’s still so many hidden similarities.
