William Blake

"THE TIGER"

(from “Songs of Experience)

Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright What the hammer? What the chain?

In the forest of the night, In what furnace was thy brain?

What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

In what distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? And watered heaven with their tears,

On what wings dare he aspire? Did he smile his work to see?

What the hand dare seize the fire? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

And what shoulder, and what art. Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright

Could twist the sinews of the heart? In the forest of the night

And when thy heart began to beat, What immortal hand or eye,

What dread hand, and what dread feet? Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1. What basic metaphor is used to describe the Tiger? What human characteristics are we apt to symbolise with fire and heat?

2. What is the effect of having the poem be all questions, rather than a question and an answer as "The Lamb" was?

3. What questions does the tiger s existence raise about the creator? What does the change of words from "could" in the fourth line to "dare" in the last line imply about the nature of the creator? What metaphorical profession does Blake assign to God?

4. Read the lines where the repetition of the word "what" gives the sound of hammer blows.

5. Why does the author breaks the meter and rhyme in the first and the last stanzas?

6. Why is "He" in the poem "The Lamb" changed to "he" in "The Tiger"?

7. Note, in this poem, the vivid phrasing, the use of the question and the intensity of the poet's feeling; also the fierce terror.

(from Songs of Innocence)

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