The Tyger: William Blake - Summary and Critical Analysis
The Tyger by William Blake is taken from The Songs of Experience. The tiger itself is a symbol for the fierce forces in the soul that are necessary to break the bonds of experience. The tiger also stands for a divine spirit that will not be subdued by restrictions, but will arise against established rules and conventions. The Tyger is a highly symbolic poem based on Blake’s personal philosophy of spiritual and intellectual revolution by individuals. The speaker in the poem is puzzled at the sight of a tiger in the night, and he asks it a series of questions about its fierce appearance and about the creator who made it. But the context and everything in it must be interpreted according to Blake’s philosophy of symbolic myths about human life, society and spiritual revolution. It is also a romantic poem to some extent written by the pre-romantic William Blake. The ‘Tyger’ is a symbolic tiger which represents the fierce force in the human soul. It is created in the fire of imagination by the god who has a supreme imagination, spirituality and ideals. The anvil, chain, hammer, furnace and fire are parts of the imaginative artist’s powerful means of creation. The imaginative artist is synonymous with the creator. The man with a revolutionary spirit can use such powers to fight against the evils of experience.