Practical Criticism:

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English Literature Stage II Romanticism EN2

Practical Criticism: "The Tyger"

William Blake

Blake's poem "The Tyger" - written somewhere between 1785 and 1789 - was first published in Songs of Innocence and Experience. These two interconnected books of poetry were intended to show the "two contrary states of the human soul. Appropriately enough "The Tyger" appeared in the second book, Experience, and has as its natural counter part "The Lamb" in Innocence. "The Tyger" as a poem is a perennial international favourite. It has been more frequently and widely published than any other poem in English.

The diction and rhyme scheme of both poems suggest they were written for children which is ostensibly the intended audience for the Songs. However the choice of words and cadence works on far deeper levels than just creating a palatable nursery-rhyme rhythm for children. The lively trochaic metre, aswell as suggesting a nursery rhyme, could be likened to a chant or invocation. The repetition of "Tyger! Tyger!" with its double exclamation marks support this idea. It gives the whole poem a quasi-religious tone which is maintained - albeit ambiguously - throughout the poem. Simultaneously the exclaimed repetition of "Tyger! Tyger!" could be seen as an awed whisper, a terrified cry or an oath of some kind. The immediate stressed syllables at the start of the foot (Ty - ger! Ty - ger!) introduce an element of panic or of rapt, awestruck wonder. As if the narrator (and the reader) are placed directly before the tiger wrapped in its coat of flame.

The use of the words "Burning bright" emphasise the otherworldly nature of Blake's particular Tyger. The imagery is vivid, immediate and memorable. It suggests blazing colour (stark contrast to the verdure "..forests of the night). The tiger is a fiery creature and the urgency of fire is intensified by the exclamatory punctuation and the use of the continuous present with "Burning bright". In fact the imagery of the poem is arguably its most striking feature. There is repeated reference to flames with

"Burnt the fire of thine eyes?" and use of words like "furnace" This automatically, within the context of the poem and of Songs as a whole, conjures up images of a puritanical vision of hell intimating the tiger satanic roots (see below).
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In the first stanza the alliteration of 't' and 'b', two hard consonants, enhances the sense of tension. When read aloud the alliteration encourages rapid reading and an staccato beat which encourages an audience to becomes involved in the urgency of the images. The four beats striking fairly evenly on each line and the 'aabb' rhyme scheme allows ease and speed of reading aswell as directing concentration of the reader onto image rather than form.

"The Tyger" is, aswell as being a strikingly visual poem, a very sonorous one. The regular beat, hard consonants and stressed first ...

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