Saturday 10 November 2012

What is the central idea of William Blake's poem "The Tyger"?

byis a poem exploring
the nature of the Creator. Throughout the poem, the speaker lists attributes of the tyger and
then poses a question about how such a thing could be made. For example, in the fourth stanza,
the speaker says:

What the hammer? what the
chain,

In what furnace was thy
brain?

What the anvil? what dread
grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors
clasp!

Here, he is questioning what it would
take, and who would be able, to create something that strikes fear into those who see
it.

The fifth stanza closes on this line: "Did he who made the
Lamb make thee?
" This question helps to illuminate the purpose of the poem, as
we understand that the speaker is struggling to believe that a Creator who could fashion
something as peaceful and sweet as a lamb could also create something as powerful and deadly as
a tiger.

href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger

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