William Blake's The Tyger - Book Report/Review Example

William Blake’s Writing for Children The poems included in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by William Blake are unusual for their day not only due to their simple appearances and deeper meanings but also by the way in which the poet, artist, engraver illustrated them, providing his readers with the rare opportunity to glimpse his thoughts in creating each poem. Typically focused on aspects of the human spirit as it comes in contact with authority figures, whether they be government or religious, as well as the joyful celebration of his idea of Christianity and humanity, these poems provided many with inspiration and hope in times that seemed overly chaotic. This was because revolutions of various types were occurring on virtually every front and power structures were struggling to hold onto whatever controls they could. Blake’s inclusion of illustrations in developing his poetry helped to convey the new direction artistic works were taking going into the Romantic period. The poems focus more on Blake’s individual way of seeing the world and on the emotions these investigations brought out. This attention to the emotions of his readers is unique to Blake at this time and helps to usher in the movement that placed a great deal of emphasis on the emotional feeling as well as a more open way of viewing the world around them. Political freedom seemed to be taking the world by storm as first the American colonies and then the French declared freedom and independence from the shackles of monarchy. Religious ideologies were changing and breaking away even further from the strict dictates of the Roman Catholic Church and even the Church of England. Artists, writers, poets and musicians were all exploring a new world in which individual expression was taking on a new significance. William Blake was there to help show them the way, not only in the words he delivered, but in the way in which he illustrated them that could entice the interest of a child even as the poetry addressed subjects and meanings only an adult would understand in poems such as “The Tyger.” The language in this poem is kept deliberately simple and straightforward. Blake eliminating the use of metaphors, similes and other such conventions in favor of a forthright approach of rhetorical questioning that requires few to no real world experiences in order to find meaning or enjoyment in the words. Metrically speaking, the poem takes on the sing-song meter of a song. A relatively short poem, “The Tyger” appears on the page like a children’s rhyme. It’s composed of six quatrains, each consisting of four lines rhyming in a loose AABB pattern. These couplet groups are easy to remember, making the poem easily quotable at the same time that the meter, trochaic tetrameter, lends itself to a chant. The stress hits every other syllable as in DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM (da) in most of the lines with several exceptions. The first of these exceptions is in the first line which includes two spondees in the form of “Tyger! Tyger!” or DUM DUM DUM DUM, and finishing with the quatrain pattern “burning bright” or DUM da DUM. The other notable exceptions occur at the end of the first, fifth and sixth quatrains when Blake includes a single unstressed syllable at the beginning of the line: “Could frame thy fearful symmetry,” “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” and “Dare frame thy fearful symmetry.” This has the effect of changing the meter of the line to iambic tetrameter in which the stressed/unstressed syllables follow the pattern of da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM. This change in emphasis on the beat of the line causes the listener or reader to pay closer attention to what these lines have to say. From questioning who had the ability and the artistry to frame the shape of the tiger to suggesting it must have been the same brilliance that created the lamb – a peaceful, innocent creature – to ending with the awe-struck realization that it required an even greater being to create something as fearsome as this beast. The imagery of the poem is also very communicative of its meaning. In its original context, the poem appeared on a page highly decorated with colorful images. The poem is elegantly printed off-center on the page so that the lines start well over toward the left margin. Despite this, the words are framed by a pair of trees highlighting the imagery of the forest home mentioned in the first stanza. This reinforces the exotic quality of the poem suggested in Blake’s deliberate misspelling of the word ‘tyger’ and in his choice of using such an unusual (at his time) animal to represent the savage beauty of the untamed yet elegant beast. In spite of this visual reference to the imagery of the lines, the colors and images used in the poem do not suggest the frightening “forests of the night”. Instead, the page is given a peaceful-seeming blue-pink wash that gives energy to the form of the tiger at the bottom of the page and serenity to the upper reaches of the page. A more fully formed tree rises along the right side of the page with bare branches arching out from the trunk to help divide the stanzas one from another and reinforces the imagery of the dropped spears of the stars mentioned in the fifth stanza. Although the tiger that appears at the bottom of the page does not appear to be overly threatening, seeming more like a tamed and tired cat than a hunter on the prowl, the awesome power of the beast is reinforced by the positioning of the final line. “Dare frame thy fearful symmetry”, as the only line that appears fully within the rose wash of the page, stands out as the most forceful moment of the poem and causes it to stick in the memory, suddenly causing the rose wash around the tiger image to appear more dangerous. This imagery causes many readers today to interpret Blake’s poems as obviously intended to appeal to children. Children’s literature is a unique genre of literature that is specifically written with the needs and interests of children in mind. As a result, they are also marketed primarily to children and are selected by, read to and considered appropriate for children. Children’s literature may include any of a number of characteristics but it is not necessarily limited to these characteristics nor is it necessary that a story involve all of these characteristics. Some similar traits among children’s stories and poems include the probability that they are shorter than the typical adult material, they are often written in simple, broad language and they may include any number of illustrations to help tell the story. In addition, children’s stories usually involve a child protagonist pitted against some adult antagonist but are generally kept to relatively harmless themes. Most stories considered children’s literature reduces attention given to themes such as death, sex, war or violence in favor of themes that deal with growing up or the child’s journey into adulthood. These stories and poems are usually very plot-oriented, full of a lot of dialogue and action as opposed to offering description or insightful reflection. Poetry in particular tends to depend to a great degree upon rhyming lines and a stable, simple meter – most often relying on iambic pentameter as being among the easiest forms to remember. The primary purpose of children’s literature emerges as being to teach the child something about the adult world and can therefore sometimes be a bit didactic, but they typically provide a happy ending. However, children’s literature as a genre was only beginning to emerge at the time that Blake was writing his poetry. Children’s literature as a recognized genre didn’t truly begin until sometime around the mid-1800s. This was during what is now termed the Victorian period and was a period largely characterized by a shift in every element of society. Not only were people’s livelihoods changing from primarily rural to primarily industrial, but long-term social organization was shifting as business replaced nobility. Science was beginning to explain some of the great mysteries of life in a way that didn’t depend upon the church and political structures throughout the world had seen significant changes within living memory. Women began to slowly make their voices heard as an oppressed gender and philosophers were beginning to gain a greater understanding of the workings of the human mind. The child, often considered either a sinful and wild creature or a miniature adult, was beginning to be recognized as something still developing. There was a “veritable explosion of information about this period of physiological and cognitive development in human beings” and literature became “a central vehicle for expressing ideas about the self and its history” (Steedman 5). Today considered a man ahead of his time, Blake published Songs of Experience, in which this poem appears, in 1794, well before children were being officially recognized as something other than inexperienced miniature adults. Analyzing his poetry reveals many of the common characteristics of children’s literature with a few notable exceptions that may or may not have been the lack of professional understanding regarding the differences between how children think as compared to adults that inform children’s literature today. To begin with, Blake focuses his poem on an element of the ‘supernatural’ as something that existed outside the realm of a child’s, or even adult’s, everyday experience. Although perhaps initially introduced as a means of breaking with the strict moralistic attitudes of the past, the use of magic and the world of the supernatural proved effective in teaching children in a way they could understand. Zoos such as what we have today were not in existence during Blake’s time period. Thus, the only tigers children would know about would be those that appeared in the rare picture book or with an even less frequent traveling circus. Breaking from the ‘normal’ world with the introduction of the supernatural or the magical realm makes it possible for authors to personify various behaviors, values and character traits and thus give children more accessible avenues to complex concepts in keeping with their varying levels of understanding. Blake’s poem has been examined as an extended lesson in the awesome power of God. Although this has traditionally been interpreted as a message to the adult because of the depth of the message and complexity of thought involved, it is possible that Blake intended this message of Divine Splendor to be conveyed to the child listener or reader. This would cause the poem to fulfill one of the primary objectives of children’s literature in that it aims to instruct the child on important matters regarding life and death that they will need to know to successfully navigate adult life. It has already been mentioned that Blake’s poem is relatively short even as a poem, which also matches the characteristics of common children’s literature. The lines are arranged in rhyming couplets to make them more appealing to the child’s ear. Blake’s simple use of meter incites a didactic-seeming sing-song cadence to the recitation of the lines, making the poem sound like a children’s nursery rhyme. The lines of the poem are written out in a flowing, decorative script on a highly decorated page filled with images designed to visually appeal to the reader as it brings out some of the imagery of the poem. Blake uses simple language to convey his ideas although he uses a relatively complex form of communication in the form of rhetorical speech. Today, it is understood that this form of communication is difficult for a child to understand, but this was not a concept that would have been well-understood in Blake’s time. By asking a series of questions designed to probe the nature and purpose of the tiger, Blake forces his reader to think about these ideas and come up with answers of their own, shaped and suggested by the other questions he asks. Although he does not include any human protagonists, Blake paints the image of the tiger so completely upon the page, not only in the illustration at the bottom but also in the lines of the poem, that it seems real and tangible to the individual fully immersed in the poem. This use of animal as character is the element of the unusual that draws the child mind into the action of the story, coming to understand that even though the tiger is considered evil because it must kill every day in order to survive, this must be a false assumption. If the same being that created the lamb that the tiger kills to eat also created the tiger, there must be something divine in its nature. The final message is that there is purpose and design, artistry, involved in the creation of this killing machine just as there is purpose and design in the creation of fallible man. This is the lesson Blake wishes to convey to the children as they start their journey into adulthood. William Blake’s poem, “The Tyger”, has often been interpreted as an adult poem because of the complexity of its message and its inclusion in his book Songs of Experience, which typically addresses topics more understandable to a person with some experience of the world. Although his word choice, meter and message are all presented in a straightforward method, closer examination of the poem reveals very profound concepts underlying the simple-seeming presentation. In spite of these facts, there is evidence that Blake intended his poem to be read by, and understood by, children. Understanding the basic elements of children’s literature as it is understood today reveals several key characteristics that can also be seen in Blake’s poem. These include simple language, short length, uncomplicated meter, vivid imagery and, frequently, illustrations and reference to the magical or unusual. All of these elements are found in “The Tyger” in spite of the fact that children’s literature as a genre wasn’t fully recognized for several years after Blake published this collection and an understanding of children’s thinking wasn’t developed until even later. While Blake may have intended his poem for an older audience, it is as plausible that his poems, including “The Tyger”, were intended for the children of his day. Works Cited Blake, William. “The Tyger.” Songs of Experience. Steedman, Carolyn. Strange Dislocations: Childhood and the Idea of Human Interiority, 1780-1930. London: Virago, 1995. Read More