The Tyger

Burning Bright

The Tyger , by William Blake, is a classic example of poetry in the Romantic Period, with it’s fantastic descriptions and supernatural subject matter. Yet closer analysis reveals a much deeper meaning within this simple feline, found through Blake’s diction and imagery.

To get the full experience of the poem, one should start with Blake’s spelling of the word tiger. When the letter “y” is introduced, it creates a sense of strangeness and contributes to the unnatural atmosphere. It makes the reader reflect on the spelling while Blake begins to delve into the psyche of the tiger. The concept or idea of the tiger is meant to strike fear or awe into all who approach it, however Blake places our tiger “in the forest” (instead of in the jungle), both softening the image and adding to the unnatural presence of the beast. He then creates a paradoxical situation with the phrase “fearful symmetry”, insinuating the terrifying beauty the tiger possesses, leaving the reader with a lovely description and the horrible truth.

In the body of the poem, Blake uses many Biblical and mythological allusions to further convey the aura of otherworldliness, from Icarus, whose wings melted when too close to the sun, to Satan, who was cast from heaven like a falling star. Blake makes the reader question the reality of the tiger whose eyes burn with the fury of a thousand suns. In the third stanza, Blake describes the tiger as being built by the “dread hands” of some powerful figure and uses the phrase “…twist the sinews of thy heartвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ to allude to the hunter’s hardheartedness when confronting his prey. The fourth stanza continues this trend of alluding to a creator, who having birthed this monstrosity must now contend with its killer instinct