1、1757-1827hhhhWilliam Blakes lifelWilliam Blake was born in London in 1757.His father,a hosier,soon recognized his sons artistic talents and sent him to study at a drawing school when he was ten years old.lAt 14,William asked to be apprenticed to the engraver James Basire,under whose direction he fur
2、ther developed his innate skills.lAs a young man Blake worked as an engraver,illustrator,and drawing teacher,and met such artists as Henry Fuseli and John Flaxman,as well as Sir Joshua Reynolds,whose classicizing style he would later come to reject.hlBlake wrote poems during this time as well,and hi
3、s first printed collection,an immature and rather derivative volume called Poetical Sketches,appeared in 1783.lSongs of Innocence was published in 1789,followed by Songs of Experience in 1793 and a combined edition the next year bearing the title Songs of Innocence and Experience showing the Two Con
4、trary States of the Human Soul.hlHe disapproved of Enlightenment rationalism,of institutionalized religion,and of the tradition of marriage in its conventional legal and social form(though he was married himself).hlIn the 1790s and after,he shifted his poetic voice from the lyric to the prophetic mo
5、de,and wrote a series of long prophetic books,including Milton and Jerusalem.Linked together by an intricate mythology and symbolism of Blakes own creation,these books propound a revolutionary new social,intellectual,and ethical order.h Blake has been called a pre-romantic because he rejected neocla
6、ssical literary style and modes of thought.His graphic art also defied 18th-century conventions.Always stressing imagination over reason,he felt that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions.Among the“Prophetic Books”is a prose work,The Marriage of Hea
7、ven and Hell(1790-1793),which develops Blakes idea that“without Contraries is no progression.”hlBlake published almost all of his works himself,by an original process in which the poems were etched by hand,along with illustrations and decorative images,onto copper plates.lThese plates were inked to
8、make prints,and the prints were then colored in with paint.This expensive and labor-intensive production method resulted in a quite limited circulation of Blakes poetry during his life.hlHis contemporaries saw him as something of an eccentric-as indeed he was.Suspended between the neoclassicism of t
9、he 18th century and the early phases of Romanticism.Blake belongs to no single poetic school or age.Only in the 20th century did wide audiences begin to acknowledge his profound originality and genius.hlBlakes Songs of Innocence and Experience(1794)juxtapose the innocent,pastoral world of childhood
10、against an adult world of corruption and repression;while such poems as The Lamb represent a meek virtue,poems like The Tyger exhibit opposing,darker forces.hlThe Songs of Innocence dramatize the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and trace their transformation as the child grow
11、s into adulthood.Some of the poems are written from the perspective of children,while others are about children as seen from an adult perspective.hlThe Songs of Experience work via parallels and contrasts to lament the ways in which the harsh experiences of adult life destroy what is good in innocen
12、ce,while also articulating the weaknesses of the innocent perspective(The Tyger,for example,attempts to account for real,negative forces in the universe,which innocence fails to confront).hlTHE TYGER(from Songs Of Experience)lBy William BlakelTyger!Tyger!burning bright In the forests of the night,Wh
13、at 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 sieze the fire?lAnd what shoulder,&what art.Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand?&what
14、dread feet?lWhat the hammer?what the chain?In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil?what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?lWhen the stars threw down their spears,And watered heaven with their tears,Did he smile his work to see?Did he who made the Lamb make thee?lTyger!Tyger!burning brig
15、ht In the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?hl Picture of the original illuminated manuscript of his work that he painted himself.hThe poetic form in LondonlThe poem has four quatrains,with alternate lines rhyming.Repetition is the most striking formal fe
16、ature of the poem,and it serves to emphasize the prevalence of the horrors the speaker describes.hlI wandered through each chartered street,Near where the chartered Thames does flow,A mark in every face I meet,Marks of weakness,marks of woe.The speaker wanders through the streets of London and comme
17、nts on his observations.He sees despair in the faces of the people he meets and hears fear and repression in their voices.hlIn every cry of every man,In every infants cry of fear,In every voice,in every ban,The mind-forged manacles I hear:lThe repeated“every”indicates that no one can escape the mise
18、ryhlHow the chimney-sweepers cryEvery blackening church appals,And the hapless soldiers sighRuns in blood down palace-walls.The woeful cry of the chimney-sweeper stands as a chastisement to the Church,and the blood of a soldier stains the outer walls of the monarchs residence.hlBut most,through midn
19、ight streets I hearHow the youthful harlots curseBlasts the new-born infants tear,And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse The nighttime holds nothing more promising:the cursing of prostitutes corrupts the newborn infant and sullies the Marriage hearse.hAn Analysis of“The Tyger”lThe whole poem i
20、s written in the form of question,and though the speaker does not offer answers to these questions,but the questions tell how the tiger is made.On the other hand,the purpose for the speaker to apply the question form is to want the reader to pay enough attention to the question.hlThere are six stanz
21、as.The first stanza tells in what condition the body of the tiger is made;the second stanza tells how the eyes of tiger are made;the third stanza tells how the heart is made;the fourth stanza tells how the brain is made.h Tiger!Tiger!burning bright This is a beginning for an epic.The capitalization
22、of the second Tiger indicates strength.The alliteration of the hard consonant sounds also capture attention.The Tiger is burning bright-a first reference to fire that is a constant recurring theme in the poem.Blake here describes the tigers eyes as emitting flashes like lightning.Think of the fire i
23、n the Bible.h In the forests of the nightlAttention should be paid to the plural form of“forests.”The plural form probably implies different places(Heaven,earth,Hell).The image“night”implies something dark.If so,the tiger exist in Heaven,on earth,and as well in Hell.h What immortal hand or eyeCould
24、frame thy fearful symmetry?lWebsters Dictionary says of symmetry:beauty of form arising from balanced proportion.If so,“fearful symmetry”implies fearful beauty.hlIn what distant deeps or skieslAgain an interesting likely reference to Heaven and Hell and continuing the doubt regarding the creation of
25、 such a beast from the question posed in the first stanza.lBurnt the fire of thine eyes?lFire again.The burning eyes in Heaven or Hell,or the burning eyes in both Heaven and Hell?No absolute boundary.hlOn what wings dare he aspire?lWhat the hand dare seize the fire?lBlake was visited with visions of
26、 Angels from time to time which may have led him to see the creator also with wings.These two lines tell:on what wings was the creator able to rise so high?And with what hand could he seize the fire from that high place so as to create the burning fire in your eyes?hlAnd what shoulder,and what art,l
27、Could twist the sinews of thy heart?lThe image“shoulder”refers to physical prowess.So the meaning is:what unimaginable power and also art are needed for creation of your heart?From the following two lines,heart endows the tiger with life.hlWhat dread hand?and what dread feet?lThere is another versio
28、n:What dread hand formd thy dread feet?lWhat the hammer?what the chain?lIn what furnace was thy brain?lThese two lines tell the process of how the tigers brain was created.hlWhat the anvil,what dread grasplDare its deadly terrors clasp?l“grasp”refers to arm;“clasp”means hold.So the meaning is:what d
29、readful arm dare hold the deadly terrors of your brain?hlWhen the stars threw down their spears,lAnd waterd heaven with their tears,lDid he smile his work to see?lDid he who made the Lamb make thee?lThe spears of the stars refer to star light,which is often imagined or compared to be angels tears.So
30、 here,“spear”and“tears”are the same thing.Why do angels shed their tears?Possibly they feel sad about something that has been created.h In Dantes Paradiso,God is compared to a smith.Here we can imagine the process in which the creator created the Tiger:He held hammer and chain,made the tiger on the
31、anvil,first the burning eye(lines 5-8),then the heart(line 10),next the feet(line 12),last the brain(line 14).hlTyger!Tyger!burning bright In the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?hlTo understand The Tyger fully,you need to know Blakes symbols.One of the
32、central themes in his major works is that of the Creator as a blacksmith.This is both God the Creator(personified in Blakes myth as Los)and Blake himself(again with Los as his alter-ego.)Blake identified Gods creative process with the work of an artist.And it is art that brings creation to its fulfi
33、llment-by showing the world as it is,by sharpening perception,by giving form to ideas.hWhat does tiger symbolize in the poem?l1)violence of French revolution;2)power of Gods creation;3)violence of evil;3)God created both good and evil.hlThe poem is comprised of six quatrains in rhymed couplets.The meter is regular and rhythmic,its hammering beat suggestive of the smithy that is the poems central image.The simplicity and neat proportions of the poems form perfectly suit its regular structure,in which a string of questions all contribute to the articulation of a single,central idea.hhh
