The-Tyger论文

The Tyger Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 老虎！老虎！黑夜的森林中In the forest of the night 燃烧着的煌煌的火光，What immortal hand or eye 是怎样的神手或天眼Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 造出了你这样的威武堂堂？ In what distant deeps or skies 你炯炯的两眼中的火Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 燃烧在多远的天空或深渊？On what wings dare he aspire? 他乘着怎样的翅膀搏击？What the hand dare seize the fire? 用怎样的手夺来火焰？ And what shoulder, and what art, 又是怎样的臂力，怎样的技巧， Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 在怎样的熔炉中炼成你的脑筋？ And when thy heart began to beat, 是怎样的铁砧？怎样的铁臂What dread hand? and what dread feet? 敢于捉着这可怖的凶神？ What the hammer? What the chain? 是怎样的槌？怎样的链子？ In what furnace was thy brain? 在怎样的熔炉中炼成你的脑筋？What the anvil? what dread grasp 是怎样的铁砧？怎样的铁臂Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 敢于捉着这可怖的凶神？ When the stars threw down their spears, 群星投下了他们的投枪。And watered heaven with their tears, 用它们的眼泪润湿了穹苍，Did he smile his work to see? 他是否微笑着欣赏他的作品？Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 他创造了你，也创造了羔羊？ Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 老虎！老虎！黑夜的森林中 In the forests of the night, 燃烧着的煌煌的火光，What immortal hand or eye 是怎样的神手或天眼Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 造出了你这样的威武堂堂？The Tyger is a poem by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794. It is one of Blakes best known and most analyzed poems. The Cambridge Companion to William Blake (2003) calls it the most anthologized poem in English. The Tyger is the sister poem to The Lamb (from Songs of Innocence). The Lamb is a reflection on similar ideas from a different perspective, but it focuses more on goodness than evil.William Blake (1757-1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. William Blake is a transitional figure that marks the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century in literature. He tries to show the romantic ideas but the form he used is conventional, close to the 18th century.Blake was born in London, where he spent most of his life. His father was a successful London hosier who encouraged Blakes artistic talents. Blake was first educated at home, chiefly by his mother. In 1767 he was sent to Henry Pars drawing school. Blake has recorded that from his early years, he experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks and that he saw and conversed with the angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, and various historical figures.Blakes first book of poems, Poetical Sketches, appeared in 1783 and was followed by Songs of Innocence (1789), and Songs of Experience (1794). His most famous poem The Tyger, was part of his Songs of Experience. In these works the world is seen from a childs point of view, but they also function as parables of adult experience.Black writing his poems in plain an direct language. He presents his view in visual images rather than abstract ideas. Symbolism in wide range is a distinctive feature of his poetry.“The Tyger” addresses its subject directly, the poet calling on the creature by name - “Tyger! Tyger!” - and asking a series of rhetorical questions that are all variations on the first question - What being could have made you? What kind of God created this fearsome and yet beautiful creature? Was he pleased with his handiwork? Was he the same being who created the sweet little lamb? The first stanza of the poem creates an intensely visual image of the tyger “burning bright / In the forests of the night,” matched by Blakes hand-colored engraving in which the tyger positively glows, radiating sinewy, dangerous life at the bottom of the page whose dark sky at the top is background for these very words. The poet is awed by the tygers “fearful symmetry” and marvels at “the fire of thine eyes,” the art that “Could twist the sinews of thy heart,” the creator who both could and would dare to make such a powerfully beautiful and dangerously violent creature.In the last line of the second stanza, Blake hints that he sees this creator as a blacksmith, asking “What the hand dare seize the fire?” By the fourth stanza, this metaphor comes vividly to life, reinforced by the pounding trochees: “What the hammer? what the chain? / In what furnace was thy brain? / What the anvil?” The tyger is born in fire and violence, and may be said to represent the tumult and maddening power of the industrial world. Some readers see the tyger as an emblem of evil and darkness, some critics have interpreted the poem as an allegory of the French Revolution, others believe Blake is describing the artists creative process, and others trace the symbols in the poem to Blakes own special Gnostic mysticism - interpretations abound.Lines 1-2William Blakes tiger is a passionate, fiery creature. It is a creature, a beast, who lives in the shadows and dark hours of life. Some have considered this tiger 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 seems to suggest the dream time. The forests might represent the wild landscape of our imagination under the influence of this beast.Lines 3-4These two lines should be familiar in context to the first two lines in Blakes poem, “The Lamb.” “Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?” This poem is meant to be understood in comparison and contrast. We can compare the nature of a lamb to a tiger, and begin to understand Blakes philosophy about creation. The fact might be that perhaps the same immortal hand that created the domesticated and tame nature of the lamb created the wild character of the tiger.Lines 5-6In contrast to the pastoral setting of the innocent lamb, Blake uses the metaphor of fire to describe the way the tiger sees and is seen. This is not the unpretentious vision of the lamb. The tiger has fury and grounds to believe in its own strength. The tiger could be understood as similar to our psychological view of the ego. It is the part of us that believes in its own power, in its own vision.Lines 7-8It could be debated that the Fallen Archangel Lucifer is the creator of the tiger, or the beastly part of our own nature. In mystical thought, Lucifer in creating evil and darkness actually fulfills Gods plan that humanity may see what is good more clearly in contrast and comparison. God could have imagined this world, and decided to create it. Fire suggests a hellish beginning. This is the challenge of every artist.Lines 9-10These lines speak to the very power and strength of the tiger, and of its maker. Shoulders and art both carry responsibilities and burdens. Sinews are the very tendons that make the heart work, and they are also known as a source of strength and power. The heart represents not only the biological engine of the tiger, but perhaps its passion for living. Blake seems to be suggesting that the creator of this powerful creature is awesome in its own right.Lines 11-12Now, the creation itself, the tiger, has a life of its own. No longer under the control of the artist, the narrator speaks directly to the tiger in the descriptive language, and in these lines “dread” is the main idea. Can God have created a dreadful creature, and if so does this task make Gods hands dreadful? The unspoken question, “Why?” perhaps is an attempt to reconcile the wild beast with a sense of order about the universe and its workings.Lines 13-14Again, the imagery in these two lines is more infernal than heavenly. Hammers, chains and furnaces sound like an industrial factory more than an artists workshop. One of the themes throughout Songs of Experience is. These lines are the condemnation of the Industrial Revolution, suggesting that the encroachment of industry on the pastoral world was the tangible hell. Lines 15-16The anvil is a tool of both industry and art. The artist or God or devil clasps and grasps in passion and with courage. What makes this courage and enthusiasm so deadly and terrifying? In these lines Blake confronts his worst fears about what it means to create.Lines 17-18The difference between humankind and the angels is that humans were created with the capacity to improve. Lucifer, as the Devil, would have us forget this possibility.These lines reinforce the idea of defeated and fallen angels. Lucifers minions, when defeated and condemned to hell, were thought to have created the milky way with their tears. God created Lucifer and his followers, as well as the lambs. This is a fairly awesome concept. Something beautiful comes out of even the fallen angels descent the stars themselves.Lines 19-20Finally, Blake asks the fateful question. Did the same God who made the lamb also make the tiger? This makes all the more awesome the concept of God, if it is true. It suggests that God knows something that we human beings do not. It suggests that God has the capacity for tenderness and dread, and that neither one or the other is more pleasurable.Lines 21-22 Blake uses repetition to reinforce his ideas, and to ask us to take another look at the meaning. If the tiger is burning brightly, then isnt it a creature of light? If it is a creature of light, walking through the darkness, then doesnt it serve to illuminate the shadows within ourselves, and out in the world? Finally, if this tiger, with its inner strength and prowess, serves as a guiding light through the darkness then doesnt our fear of it become rather shortsighted? Blake seems to have enjoyed creating the same ambiguity that he perceived in Gods creations. Line 23 This is a fearless immortal who made both the docile lamb, and the fiery tiger. It is significant that Blake chooses the word “dare” in the last line, instead of “could” because once again it emphasizes the concept of courage in relationship to creation. Finally, we must once again compare and contrast the beast with the tamed one, and consider the proper balance of nature framed by the hand of the Divine. Stylistic analysisMeter The poem is in trochaic tetrameter with catalexis at the end of each line. Here is an explanation of these technical terms:Tetrameter Line: a poetry line usually with eight syllables. Trochaic Foot: A pair of syllables-a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Catalexis: The absence of a syllable in the final foot in a line. In Blakes poem, an unstressed syllable is absent in the last foot of each line. Thus, every line has seven syllables, not the conventional eight.Structure and Rhyme SchemeThe poem consists of six quatrains. (A quatrain is a four-line stanza) .Each quatrain contains two couplets. (A couplet is a pair of rhyming line). Thus we have a 24- lines poem with 12 couplets and 6 stanzasa neat, balanced poem. The question in the final stanza repeats (except for one word, dare) the wording of the first stanza, perhaps suggesting that the question Blake raises will continue to perplex thinkers ad infinitum.Figures of Speech Alliteration: Tiger, tiger, burning bright (line 1) Frame thy fearful symmetry? (line 4) Metaphor: Compare the tigers eyes to fire. Anaphora: Repetition of what at the beginning of sentences or clauses. Example: What dread hand and what dread feet? / What the hammer? What the chain?Allusion: Immortal hand or eye: God or Satan Distant deeps or skies: hell or heaven Alliteration: See poem annotationsSymbolism: the meaning of symbolism in The Tyger answers the previous question. Examples include: (1) the tiger represents the dangers of mortality; (2) the fire imagery symbolizes trials (baptism by fire perhaps); (3) the forest of the night represents unknown realms or challenges; (4) the blacksmith represents the Creator; (5) the fearful symmetry symbolizes the existence of both good and evil, the knowledge that there is opposition in all things, a rather fearful symmetry indeed. In the process of anglicizing the poem, the embody of the tiger means different to different people. I have read a number