Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Symmetry in "The Tyger"

"The Tyger" was a poem that left me with many questions upon first reading. After going over it in class, however, all of its different facets became more and more clear to me. Tonight, for the construction of this very blog post, I discovered (well, not discovered...many poems, like this one, lead us to more questions instead of answers) another facet of this beautiful poem. The poem discusses the "symmetry" of the tiger referring to its beauty contrasted with its dangerous aspects (I think "What immortal hand or eye,/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" means, more or less, "What divine being, whether it be god or the devil, could create something so beautiful and yet so dangerous?"). One thing I have just come to realize, though, is that the poem itself is symmetric. Well, kind of. I know something cannot be kind of symmetric (maybe that's the point), so let's take a look at the beginning and ending stanzas to see the slight differences and examine what they might mean:

Stanza 1:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Stanza 6:
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The first noticable difference between the first and sixth stanzas (also note: there are 6 stanzas aka an even number of stanzas! Symmetry, guys!) is the lack of the comma between "Tyger Tyger" and "burning bright" in the sixth stanza. The second and only difference between the two stanzas is in the first words of the last lines ("Could" and "Dare").
So, what does this all mean? I think one reason could be so the poem imitates the beautiful and fearful symmetry that the tiger has. It's symmetric in a way that creatures are on this earth: we basically look symmetrical but we are not perfectly symmetric. I also think that the use of "Dare" instead of "Could" is very significant. The shift is from the conditional to what seems to me as a sort of accusation. Perhaps the narrator is hinting that he thinks that the tiger came from an evil place. The word "dare" implies that whoever created the tiger was taking a huge risk upon doing so. I'm not sure...but I love where reading between the lines pushes us. If you have any ideas, please comment and let me know!

1 comment:

  1. Yes! But is symmetry altogether a good thing? Fearful? Wow!

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