Commentary about: The Tiger, poem by William Blake

Résumé du document

This poem in verse comes from the collection Songs of experience. The poem is entitled The Tiger and it was written by William Blake in the 18th century, more precisely in 1794. This written document deals with a tiger which symbolizes all the creator's work at the time of Genesis. So, there are a lot of religious references throughout Blakes's poem. Here is the plan of my commentary, which is divided into three parts: in the first part, we'll focus on the poem's structure; in the second part, we'll deal with Heaven references. And to finish, in the third and last part, let's consider Hell references.


Firstly, we'll deal with the poem structure. So it's divided into six stanzas composed of quatrains. The rhymes are structured in AABB's pattern, except for the two last verses of the first and last stanzas (which are the same).Indeed, we can notice that these two stanzas are exactly the same, so it shows us that the poet hasn't finished his reflection and that it will continue eternally . This poem doesn't really have an ending. Or maybe the question William Blake asks will never be answered. Moreover, this kind of circle made by the first and by the last stanzas is highlighted by the term of "symmetry" (which appears twice) because these stanzas make a sort of perfect symmetry. So, we have to understand the word "symmetry"in the literal and in the figurative language.

Extraits

[...] Indeed, at the verse 19, the personal pronoun refers to God who creates the lovely lamb and the aggressive Tiger. This point seems paradoxical because the Tiger can eat the lamb, so we can wonder why the God had created both of them. Last but not least, we'll deal with Hell references, contrary to the Heaven references, they draw a dark portrait of the Tiger who is represented just like a beast. In fact, the term “immortal” refers to God who is the artist verse who invented the Tiger, spoken by “fearful”. The Tiger is scary and beautiful. [...]

[...] Commentary about: The Tiger, poem by William Blake This poem in verse comes from the collection Songs of experience. The poem is entitled The Tiger and it was written by William Blake in the 18th century, more precisely in 1794. This written document deals with a tiger which symbolizes all the creator's work at the time of Genesis. So, there are a lot of religious references throughout Blakes's poem. Here is the plan of my commentary, which is divided into three parts: in the first part, we'll focus on the poem's structure; in the second part, we'll deal with Heaven references. [...]

[...] Or maybe the question William Blake asks will never be answered. Moreover, this kind of circle made by the first and by the last stanzas is highlighted by the term of “symmetry” (which appears twice) because these stanzas make a sort of perfect symmetry. So, we have to understand the word “symmetry”in the literal and in the figurative language. Furthermore, William Blake uses precise terms like and (which mean, nowadays, owing to the fact it was written in the 18th century. [...]

[...] There is a simile between a weapon and the deadly Tiger, so there's a reference to death. To finish,, “when the stars threw down their spears” (verse 17) meaning that stars (so Tiger's eyes) have stopped shining. To conclude, we can assert that the Tiger is a God's creation. That's why, the poem's tone is religious and violent due to the aggressive Tiger's nature. We can notice that the poet evokes the nature of good and evil on Earth. To sum up, William Blake alludes to God and Genesis with the poetic metaphor of Tiger's birth. [...]