Tuesday Poem – The Tiger (William Blake)

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

When I was 11, I decided – in a completely non-sensical manner, befitting for a pre-adolescent child – that I simply had to learn ‘The Tiger’ poem off by heart. I’m not sure what compelled me to do so because the imagery of this poem isn’t particularly endearing but I suspect I fell in love with the romantic idea that I was in love with a romantic poet and somehow that love was enough to make me more interestingly weird than I already was to my classmates.

Anyway.

I memorised the poem and for several months, I recited it happily…until I discovered a ratty copy of Robert Frost in our pathetically underfunded school library. My love affair with Blake died like the short affair that it was.

Actually, no. I lie. I still like Blake’s body of work and I still love this poem but not for the same reasons that my 11 year old self had.  William Blake was the experimental poet of his generation. Considered mad by his peers, he died largely unrecognised. Yet his poetry  defines the ‘hippy’ aspirations of the Romantic period. For me, Blake offers an insight into a piece of literary terminology that writers such as myself throw around casually as if we’re paddock-matting.  What exactly do we mean by experimental writing?

Well many things but in brief, experimental writing is whatever exists outside of, or grinds against, the normative content – the values, the worldview – of a dominant literary culture (although one could argue that dominance is a moot position. Experimental writing could be anything that doesn’t fit within the spectrum of ideals established by any particular subculture. After all, many within the asemic community will easily consider their product of labour as ‘normal’ and Walt Whitman’s poetry as ‘exotic.’). Blake reached beyond classicist models to create prophetic and expressive poetry that engaged a new philosophy of creativity. Individual imagination had to be the prime mover of human existence. Romanticism wasn’t a complete rejection of the Classicist model and Church authority but it certainly encouraged the idea that creatives were gods in the moment of their inspiration. After all, if they were creating something from nothing, that feat alone was proof of their divine inspirations. In a roundabout way, I guess that is what attracted me to Blake when I was 11 years old. ‘The Tiger’ symbolised the absolute freedom of interaction with the human mind.  How could I not fall in love?

In case you are wondering, the poem is obviously in the public domain. As is the book in which this version  appeared.  Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. Without sounding like an advert, http://www.bartleby.com is a great resource for public domain books.