William Blake's "The Tyger": Analysis

A BESTWORD ANALYSIS

William Blake’s “The Tyger” (Songs of Innocence and Experience, “Song 42: The Tyger”, William Blake, 1794) is an intriguing moral critique of Protestant Christianity, or more specifically, a theological query into the motivations of Creation itself. Blake’s “The Tyger”, a spiritual partner to Blake’s earlier poem, “The Lamb” (Songs of Innocence, “Song 8: The Lamb”, William Blake, 1789), builds upon the devout Christian theme of its poetic predecessor and goes on to ask questions concerning what Blake believed to be the existence of evil, the malice of Creation, and the Judeo-Christian God’s apparent desire to punish that which he creates. Blake, in his unapologetic poem, “The Tyger”, brings to light many problems that would be the philosophical and theological cornerstone of his Romantic artistry. In “The Tyger”, William Blake asks: Who could frame the Tyger’s fearful symmetry?

William Blake (1757 – 1827), born in London England, displayed much of his innate creativity at a very early age. Unfortunately, not seeming to possess the fiscal means to seek an institutionalized education beyond a drawing school, Blake instead went on to take an apprenticeship at the age of fourteen under a London engraver. Engraving was a necessary industry in the 18th century, as much of the book printing and illustration at the time was in high demand, and printed illustrations had to be made from either wood carvings or copper plates that made the profession as artistic as it was labor intensive. Blake’s life long profession as an engraver would play a crucial role in how his poetry was published; indeed the two most significant aspects that lead to his most famous works, such as “The Tyger”, were his theological views of the Protestant Church and the preferred medium for his poetry: engraving. Not to insult Blake by not calling him an intellectual, he read avidly and was a classic example of uninstitutionalized self-tutelage, but perhaps his greatest strength as a Romantic poet was his unconventional and original interpretation of the King James Bible and his undeniable genius of artistic expression. William Blake’s “The Tyger” is one of the most popular examples of his artistic unions between theologically critical Romantic poetry and the prints that he used as a medium for expressing them.

THE TYGER

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 20

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

(Songs of Innocence and Experience, “Song 42: The Tyger”, William Blake, 1794)

William Blake’s “The Tyger” is a dynamic of two significant areas of analysis: the French Revolution’s affect on Blake’s own spirit of poetic Romanticism; and the book within which Blake published “The Tyger”: Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794). The French Revolution (1789 – 1799) was a popular revolt in France against the traditional French monarchy and its feudal aristocracy in search of a more egalitarian society that excluded the social constraints and controls by influential Catholic theological leaders. The spirit of this popular movement, and of The Enlightenment itself, would become an inseparable theme of Romanticism, in its own rejection of the more traditional cannons of poetry in a movement towards artistic alternatives and outright protest of the status quo. William Blake would be a perfect example of the more rebellious genre of Romanticism: questioning and sometimes overtly attacking principles of Protestant theology in his work. This artistic rebellion is easily realized within the pages of Blake’s 1794 work, Songs of Innocence and Experience, where he writes of the blissful illusions of child-like Christian faith while later aggressively questioning many different aspects of Judeo-Christian theology and protests its role in society.

Specifically, William Blake’s “The Tyger” is a theological examination into who exactly it was that created such a fiery and powerful creature such as the Tyger: “What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry? (Line 3-4). Blake, in essence, is asking: Was it God or the Devil that created such a terrible, awe-inspiring beast? And if it was not the Devil, what kind of Protestant God would create a creature with such a dreadful and unholy maliciousness? It is this line of theological debate that makes Blake’s “The Tyger” such an interesting philosophical question, and in order to come close to Blake’s meaning one must dive deeply into the mind of a poet who has had his very sanity questioned after expressions of such profoundly intense genius.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

(William Blake’s “The Tyger”, First and Second Stanza)

The two introductory stanzas of William Blake’s “The Tyger” encompass much of the theme of Blake’s poem. The line “What immortal hand or eye,” (Line 3) describes Blake’s belief that The Tyger was indeed the result of some divine entity’s intelligent design; the question being: Which? In the King James Bible (1611), the English translation that would have been the foundation of Blake’s Protestant beliefs, Genesis describes Creation as an endeavor undertaken solely by God, but later we are told that this act of Creation was also aided by the activities of other divinely creative entities: the angels. Of these angels, Lucifer or Satan was described as being the most brilliant, though what exactly Satan, during his career as a devout Arch Angel, created in Gods service is not revealed. After Satan leads a rebellion against God and is banished to Hell, Christendom assumes, in the spirit of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost (1668), that Satan still retained a certain degree of ability and influence over Creation in spite of his banishment. This is why the line “In what distant deeps or skies, / Burnt the fire of thine eyes?” (Line 5-6) best leads us to understand that Blake is asking in “The Tyger” whether the Tyger was created in Heaven by God or forged in Hell as some from of vengeance by the Devil. After this powerful introduction, the rest of Blake’s “The Tyger” goes on to question until the fifth stanza, in poetic verse, which divine entity could be the architect of such a dreaded creature as the Tyger.

The line “On what wings dare he aspire?” (Line 7) from William Blake’s “The Tyger” is an allusion to the question of which side of the divine spectrum was the creator of the Tyger. Was the “framer” ascending on heavenly angel wings, and therefore a symbol of the Judeo-Christian God or one of his affiliated Arch angels, or did he have, as Milton describes in Paradise Lost, dragon wings of a scaly membrane characteristic of the fallen angel, Satan. It would be important to note that this line has also been analyzed as a reference to the character of Greek mythology, Icarus, who flew on wings of feathers and wax only to die after ignoring his father, Daedalus’, warning to stay away from the sun. Whether William Blake intended this line as a reference to the myth of Icarus is difficult to tell, but later lines would share such an uncanny similarity to Greek mythology, that the proposal of an Icarus reference should not be dismissed too hastily.

The line “What the hand dare sieze the fire?” (Line 8) from William Blake’s “The Tyger” can be interpreted in several ways. It can be read as two different, but refreshingly similar, references to Greek mythology’s Prometheus, and the antagonist of Milton’s own Protestant epic mythology of Paradise Lost, Satan. Prometheus was the Greek titan who, favoring the good of humanity, stole fire from Zeus, and, after giving it to mankind, was punished by being chained to a rock where a great bird would eat his immortal liver every day thereafter. As a reference to Satan, the seizing of “fire” can be interpreted as the unholy oath by Satan to rule in hell and attack Creation through subterfuge and unholy sabotage. Also, if Blake intended the line not as a reference, but as another question into “who” would seize the fiery spirit of the Tyger and mould a creature from such a furious essence, “What the hand dare seize the fire?” (Line 8) could be read as a question as to who would “dare” work with such terrible power, the fire of the Tyger, and still be considered to care for the humanity upon which it would be released. Again it is important to note that the interpretation of a Prometheus reference may not exactly be what Blake intended, but there is significant support on the subject from many different sources, and a proper analysis could not be concluded without introducing their arguments. The Prometheus interpretation carries so much weight in Blake’s “The Tyger” because it is a classical, pre-Christian myth about a rebellious divine actor who disobeys on the behalf of mankind but is punished by a tyrant God. This can be seen as significant because the theme of the Prometheus myth shares a great deal in common with the overlying theme of William Blake’s Song of Innocence and Experience and “The Tyger”: a theme of divine tyranny over mankind.

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

(William Blake’s “The Tyger”, Third Stanza)

The third stanza of William Blake’s “The Tyger” furthers the powerful imagery-like descriptions of a divine creator molding the Tyger creature into existence. Indeed Blake’s third stanza description of the Tyger’s creation is so terribly unnatural sounding that it is easy to lapse into a “Frankenstein-esque” mental image of some half completed feline cadaver coming to life on some horrible operating table. The line “what art, / Could twist the sinews of thy heart?” (Lines 9-10) is a particularly powerful poetic description of a large demonic predator having its nature perverted into carnivorous malevolence by some divine force that has no love for the humanity that will be sharing the world with it. This stanza is used by Blake to further influence the reader who is trying to answer Blake’s question: Was the Tyger created by God or the Devil? It is later in the poem, when Blake reveals who he truly believes created the Tyger, that the third stanza comes to show just how much passion he has for the subject matter; describing a terrible, bloody procedure that many of us have come to think of as a miraculous creation that happens on a heavenly cloud with a flash of white light.

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

(William Blake’s “The Tyger”, Fourth Stanza)

The fourth stanza of William Blake’s “The Tyger” is an interesting dynamic between diabolical creation and a popular interpretation as a reference to the Greek god, Hephaestus. Again, the reader finds themselves enveloped in descriptions of dark, morbid manufacture: “What the hammer? what the chain, / In what furnace was thy brain?” (Lines 13-14). The more one reads into Blake’s “The Tyger”, the further they begin to acquire the image of some deep Hell-furnace where only Satan would be working such evils. The prose seems to almost sting with sulfur as Blake writes “what dread grasp, / Dare its deadly terrors clasp?” (Lines 15-16), building, again, upon the ominously infernal deed of bringing such a predatory force of nature such as the Tyger into existence; a deed that only one divine culprit could ever possibly be responsible: the Devil. Also, the descriptions of divine “hammer”, “chain”, “furnace” and “anvil” popularly bring to mind the Greek god Hephaestus, the blacksmith god of fire and metallurgy who was plagued with a lame leg and toiled under the volcano, Mount Aetna, creating weapons, armor, and artwork for the other gods who only distained him for his ugliness. This plausible reference to Hephaestus serves much the same purpose as the reference to Prometheus to the possible theme of Blake’s “The Tyger”: presenting allusions of tragic Greek titans and gods who are either enslaved or bound in servitude to a malicious tyrant-God figure; a greater theme that that finds its deeper significance in the greater theme of Blake’s own Romantic work.

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 20

(William Blake’s “The Tyger”, Fifth Stanza)

The fifth stanza of William Blake’s “The Tyger” is a crucial part of his poem and message. Firstly, William Blake was heavily influenced by the divine epic, Paradise Lost, written by John Milton in 1668, fifty years after the completion of King James’ own translation of the Bible to English. Within the epic, Paradise Lost, Milton writes of the Christian mythology of Satan’s revolt against God and the ensuing holy war that took place in heaven, ending with the exile of the rogue angel to Hell. This arousing and romantic allegorical epic would nurture artistic creativity to this day, and William Blake’s own creative work would be far from the exception; much of his own art centering around the theme of Protestantism, religious mythology, and theological philosophy. William Blake’s “The Tyger” would prove itself, though while still not his most absorbing project, one of the most popular examples of Blake’s philosophy in contemporary society, and its references to Milton’s Paradise Lost has helped to facilitate much of its popular consumption and interpretation.

The first two lines of the fifth stanza of Blake’s “The Tyger” is a direct reference to Milton’s Paradise Lost, describing the scene where the defending angels, after the battle had been won in heaven, threw down their spears and wept for their angel brethren who had been cast out: “When the stars threw down their spears / And water’d heaven with their tears” (Lines 17 and 18). This reference to a scene from Milton’s Paradise Lost, while still an interesting addition to the poem, serves its greater purpose as setting the scene for Blake to reveal his overall theme of “The Tyger”, and essentially twist the direction of the momentum that he has been building up to this point.

The following lines, “Did he smile his work to see? / Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (Lines 19 and 20), are, perhaps, the most important lines of Blake’s “The Tyger”. Blake completely redirects the focus of “The Tyger” that had, until this point, been almost completely alluding to the creator of the Tyger being the Devil, and was now directly indicating that the creator of the Tyger was, in fact, God. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, God laughs at the fallen angels and mocks their disloyalty against their omnipotent patriarch; laughing at creatures that he himself had created and was now punishing after they exercised the free will he had given them. God exiles them to the prison, Hell, where he would also send more of his creations, mortal man, after they too sin against him. This dichotomy of God’s love and punishment, a duality between the images of a loving father figure and malicious patriarchic tyrant, would prove to be a cornerstone of Blake’s art and his poem “The Tyger”: duality being realized in the printed medium of “The Tyger” was well as within Blake’s theological theme.

William Blake asks in “The Tyger”: How is it possible that the God who created the Lamb, the symbol of God’s son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy love and compassion preached by the Protestant church, could also have created the Tyger? The Tyger being a symbol for the evil, predatory, malevolent forces that exist on Earth, or perhaps even a symbol of the Devil himself; How could God have such blatant indifference, or even hatred, for the wellbeing of his creations that will suffer at the hands of such forces? Blake asks: How can a God that loves mankind still be the same God who creates its undoing; How can the God who creates the Lamb, also be the creator of the Tyger that stalks and preys on it? These questions, now brought to light, leap from the page as the preceding lines of “The Tyger” now reveal themselves as not artistic insinuations to the Devil, but theological accusations against the divine motivations of the very Judeo-Christian God who was responsible for Creation itself. Much like how the Lamb, in Blake’s “The Lamb” (Songs of Innocence, “Song 8: The Lamb”, William Blake, 1789), was created by God, so too was the Tyger, and Blake poetically confronts this theological issue.

William Blake is essentially stating in “The Tyger”, as a form of social protest, in much the same theme as the French Revolution, that Protestant Christians should be critical of a faith that has, at its centre, a God that chooses to punish so readily the creatures he brings into existence. God created the Lamb, but he also created, and is so directly responsible for the misery of that same lamb, the Tyger that would prey upon it. God created Satan, and in doing so also readily damned him to Hell for acts that, in his omnipotence, God was very much in control of and could have prevented. William Blake’s “The Tyger” is such an enthralling theological critique, because it has, forging in the depths of hell a monster to be unleashed upon mankind, not the Devil, but the Protestant God himself, the creator of the Tyger as well as the Lamb.

Written by Jordan Dickie
CEO, Executive Editor
BestWord SEO Copywriting Services
jordandickie@bestword.ca