Essay - Blake--tyger an Extrapolation on William Blake's the Tyger William Blake...

BLAKE--TYGER

AN EXTRAPOLATION ON WILLIAM BLAKE'S

THE TYGER

William Blake (1757 to 1827) has often been described as a poetic visionary and supreme artist and is now recognized as one of the major British poets linked to Romanticism. His poetry is usually characterized by the inclusion of complex mythological symbolism and metaphor, aided by an immense imagination which serves as the foundation for expressing the spiritual qualities of reality. And through his rather unconventional approach on such topics ***** religi*****, human morality, art and politics, ***** is *****ten referred to as a "soci*****l rebel ***** as a hero of the imagination who played a key role in advancing *****" (Lindsay 56).

Blake's most widely-read poem The Tyger, originally published in "Songs of Innocence and Experience" in 1794, has been ********** in many ways, particularly via Blake's application ***** religious symbolism ***** imagery; however, t***** poem con*****ains a far deeper meaning, ***** directly linked to ***** Industrial Revolution which began in the late 1700's ***** England and practically at the same time as Blake was composing The Tyger.

***** as it may seem, Blake was far better known by his contemporaries for his engravings and book designs r*****her than for ***** poetry. Some called him mad, yet Coleridge called Blake "a m*****n of genius" while Charles Lamb adm*****ted that Blake ***** "one ***** the most extraordinary persons of the age" (Gardner 78). Yet it was not until the mid 1800's with the publication of Gilchrist's biography ***** Blake became ***** as a ***** genius which continued throughout the 19th century with such poets as Rossetti and Swinburne.

More recently, ***** literary critics have written extensive explications on ***** work, especially with a focus on his use of ***** and imagery, ***** others have mandated that many of Blake's poems from "Songs of Innocence and Experience" are more closely associated ***** the political and economic situations in Great Britain prior ***** and during ***** Industrial Revolution which set England on the course for world supremacy.

***** ***** Tyger symbolically supports numerous political and ec*****omic aspects re*****d to the Romantic period and the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, particularly through ***** *****ical disagreements with industrialization which many other English poets like Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth viewed as an attempt to disconnect forever human beings from their natural position in the *****. Thus, Blake symbolically compares the industrialized cities of England to a "tyger" "burning bright/In the forests of the night" (Gardner, lines 1-2, 167), a pl*****ce overflowing with ***** and mechanized violence, abject poverty and delusion, due ***** ***** forces of industrialization. In addition, Blake points out ***** this "*****" possesses "fearful symmetry" (*****, line 4, 167), a symbolic interpretation ***** city architecture with conflicting symmetries, namely, traditional buildings and homes placed against filthy factories and industries spewing out black smoke in "the forest of the night" (Gardner, ***** 2, *****).

Certainly, in line with most of his Romantic *****, Blake is ********** to express his desires for man to return to an