A Stylistic Analysis of William Blake’s Poem
“The Tyger”
Abstract: William Blake’s The Tyger is considered one of his best poems for its marvelous use
of illusion and symbols and its musical beauty. In the thesis, the author attempts to make a stylistic analysis of this poem, and the analyses will focus on the phonological, graphological, lexical, syntactical and semantical levels of the poem.
Key words: William Blake; the Tyger; stylistic
Introduction
William Blake, poet, painter, and visionary, was considered by many one the forerunners of British Romanticism, whose most poems are concerned with creation and full of romantic elements. Among his works, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are two famous ones. The Tyger, one poem in Songs of Experience, has been described by one critic as Blake’s most fully developed art --- a process using small revelations leading to greater discoveries through profound use of symbol.
Born into a time when the society was experiencing great changes---the Industrial Revolution, Blake was amazed and astonished the creation as well as the destruction the power of the revolution can bring. In this poem, by bringing forth the central image the tiger and describe both the tiger and the creation of the tiger, Blake poses many questions without answering them, leaving the readers to think.
In order to get his ideas across, Blake uses many unique techniques in this poem to get the effect of foregrounding if considered under the term of stylistics. So in the following part of the thesis, we will deal with the stylistic features in details at four levels: phonological, graphological, lexical and semantic respectively. I. At the Phonological Level Meter
In this poem, William Blake adopted the trochaic tetrameter in the whole poem so as to imitate the sound in a forge and set the dignified and stately tone for the whole poem:
_V_V_V_ _V_V_V_ _V_V_V_ _V_V_V_
By deliberately making the stress sounds fall into the more important words, Blake expresses the power and strength of the tiger, and adds to the musical beauty
when reading it. Rhyme
The rhythmical sounds in this poem is achieved by the use of regular end rhymes,which is presented by the rhyme pattern aabb ccdd eeff gghh iijj aabb, and such figures of speech as alliteration and repetition.
Every two lines have the same end rhyme(bright/night, eye/symmetry, skies/eyes ) and most of the rhymes are masculine rhymes(bright/night, art/heart, see/thee), which strengthen the image of the tiger with an overwhelming momentum; repetition is used for the subject discussed(Tyger! Tyger ) and also the first stanza and the last one are identical so that readers can feel the power of the beast from the very beginning; Blake also employs alliteration abundantly(burning bright, what wings, distant deeps, began to beat, dare its deadly terror clasp, frame thy fearful symmetry ), among which many stops such as /b/ /d/ /t/ /p/ are used to imitate the sound of the hammer, thus paint a vivid image in front of the reader of the making of the tiger, also give them a hint of the destructive force of the beast. II. At the Graphological Level Format
The whole poem contains six stanzas and each stanze is a quatrain, adding that the first stanza and the last one are identical, so the poem has a beauty of uniformity in the term of the form. Also the repetition of the stanzas makes the theme profound. Punctuation
Through the unconventional use of punctuation, particularly the question mark, Blake in this poem uses twelve whats(what dread hand? And what dread feet? ) to pose questions to create an atmosphere of mystery, giving the image of the tiger a mysterious and religious color. The exclamations used to address the tiger(Tyger! Tyger! ) help to emphasize the urgency of the question. Capitalization
In the whole poem, except the first word of each line and the beginning of a sentence, there is still one word capitalized(Lamb in line 20 ), which probably is the intertextuality with Blake’s another poet The Lamb. By the contrast between the tiger and the lamb, Blake emphasizes the strength and the dark power of the former, also by pointing out that both the powerful tiger and the weak lamb are created by the some God, Blake expresses the divine power of the Creator. III.At the Lexical Level Poetic and archaic words
Many poetic words are employed by Blake to make the poem elegant and poetic(deeps, aspire, art, symmetry), also the words some times are chosen according to the end rhyme.Archaic words can be found in the poem(tyger/tiger, dread/dreadful, thy/your,thine/yours, thee/you ). Short and powerful words
Words to show strength and speed (frame, aspire, seize, clasp, make,
twist) ,words to show the process of making the tiger (hammer, chain, furnace, anvil) and words to describe the fire (fire, bright, burn) are used not only to express the power of the tiger but also to create the scene of making the tiger so as to emphasize the even greater power of the Creator. IV. At the Semantic Level Symbolism
Some words in this poem bore symbolic meanings. The tiger (the central image in the poem) is considered by many as representing the dark shadow of the human soul. This is the beastly part of ourselves that we would prefer to keep only in our dreams at night. Night(line 2 ) in Blake's poetry often seems to suggest this sort of dream time. The forests(line 2 ) might represent the wild landscape of our imagination under the influence of this beast. The heart (line 10) represents not only the biological engine of the tiger, but perhaps its passion for living. Allusion
Blake also employs allusion in this poem since it is somewhat concerned with religion. For example, on what wings dare he aspire (line 7 ) is an allusion from Milton’s Paradise Lost; seize the fire ( line 8) could be a possible reference to Prometheus; and when the stars threw down their spears, and water’d heaven with their tears( lines 17 and 18) is an allusion to Satan and his angels and also to the God of Old Testament. It could be debated that Blake argues here that the Fallen Archangel Lucifer is the creator of the tiger, or the beastly part of our own nature. The abundant use of allusion adds to the ambiguity of the poem, thus leads to many versions of interpretation of this poem. Conclusion
In this thesis, we have given a careful analysis to William Blake’s The Tyger from the stylistic perspective. First, by giving an elaborate account of the phonological characteristics of the poem, we are able to get a more comprehensive understanding of the role the sound patterns played in a poem and the stately momentum created by the use of certain phonological devices such as the use of archaic tetrameter, alliteration and repetition. Then, we have looked into the
graphological features of this poem so that we have got a better understanding of the theme. Next,through the continuous analysis of the diction of the poem, we are able to get a clear picture of the careful and deliberate choice of the short and powerful words that described the tiger and the creating of the tiger, which helped to highlight the idea the poet wants to convey, that is, the tiger has fury and grounds to believe in its own strength and it could be understood as similar to our psychological view of the ego which is the part of us that believes in its own power, in its own vision, and the creator of this powerful creature is awesome in its own right. Finally, we have analyzed the semantic characteristics, which mainly concern with the figures of speech the poem employed, which, in this case, is symbolism and allusion particularly.
After this stylistic study of William Blake’s The Tyger, we are able to have a more comprehensive understanding both this poem and the importance of stylistics in analyzing and appreciating poems.
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