The Tyger - William Blake

"The Tyger" Ana Melching

5-8-99

Does god create both gentle and fearful creatures? If he does

what right does he have? Both of these rhetorical questions are

asked by William Blake in his poem "The Tyger." The poem takes

the reader on a journey of faith, questioning god and his nature. The poem

completes a cycle of questioning the creator of the tyger, discussing how it

could have been created, and then returns to questioning the creator again.

Both questions about the tyger's creator are left unanswered. William Blake

uses rhythm, rhyme, and poetic devices to create a unique effect and to

parallel his theme in his work "The Tyger."

William Blake's choice of rhythm is important to his poem

"The Tyger" because it parallels the theme of the poem, that the

tyger may have been made by god or another harsher creator. Most

of the poem is written in trochaic tetrameter as can be seen in line

three, when Blake says, "What immortal hand or eye." This rhythm is

very harsh sounding, exemplifying the very nature of the tyger.

Some of the lines in the poem were written in iambic tetrameter,

such as in line ten, when Blake says, "Could twist the sinews of thy heart? ."

Iambic tetrameter has a much softer sounding beat

than does trochaic tetrameter. This implies the gentle nature of

god, and if he could create such a beast. The last word of each

quatrain is written in a spondee. This helps to create a unique symmetry

and to parallel the "fearful symmetry" of a tyger.

William Blake's use of rhyme greatly affects his work "The

Tyger." The entire poem is written in couplets. Couplets contain

two lines, paralleling the dichotomy of the poem, that everything

has two sides or parts. The rhyme scheme is AA BB CC etc. Because the

rhyming words are so distinguishable from the non-rhyming words, they

form two separate categories, which also parallels the dichotomy of the

poem.

William Blake's choice of poetic devices greatly affect his

work "The Tyger." He uses cacophony, which is a rough sounding group of

words, to exemplify the brute nature of the tyger and to wonder if it was

made in hell by an evil creator. This can be seen in line sixteen when he

says, "Dare its deadly terrors clasp." This line sounds unpleasant and harsh

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