A Look Over The Tyger

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Published in Song of Experience (1794),  William Blake’s poem, “The Tyger” is

a short poem which shows a huge difference in the relationship between creator and creation. My objetive here is to explain what the poem means. To begin with, let us show what the poem suggests. The tyger is God because, in the first sight, the tyger seems to be God. The creation is present in the text when the poem shows us that is necessary to separate body and soul, evil and good. For instance, observe this stanza here: “ When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?”

It’s proper to observe that meaning of this statement can be only constructed socially. So, it’s possible to arise other interpretations for this passage, such as, the difference between heaven and hell, nature and humanity. Besides that, it’s most probably that the poem refers to the power in society, because the tyger has all characteristics that a political leader must to have, mainly if it takes into account the dictatorship period. But more important here is that the poem can only be well read if the reader observe the culture around the text and if it takes into account the author side in the text, this aspect is called text identity. Conversely, no one is able to read appropriately the poem, because the cultural symbols in the text nor even it is known by everyone. Nevertheless, Blake’s poem is an enigmatic text that criticizes its society, its religion and, why not, the sexuality aspects of mankind, because it uses meaningful adjectives and expressions, such as: burning bright, immortal hand or eye, fearful symmetry, distant deeps, thine eyes, dread hand and dread feet,  deadly terrors clasp, watered heaven.

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José André Santos de Santana