William Blakes The Tyger Essay -- The Tyger Philosophy Literature Pap

William Blakes The TygerTerror, in the eighteenth century, was ordinarily considered the highest manifestation of sublimity. Indeed, writes Edmund Burke in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the deluxe and Beautiful (1757), terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the soaring.(1) In Section VII of his esthetical treatise, Burke tries to explain why this is so Whatever is fitted in whatever sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a direction analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the musical theme is capable of feeling (39). The chief effect of the sublime, according to Burke, is astonishment--that defer of the soul, in which all its motions argon suspended, with some degree of horror, and in which the discernment is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other (57). These make are produced when we contemplate dangerous objects which we know cannot harm us. Burke finds examples of this that nowadays bring William Blakes poem The Tyger to mind We have continually about us animals of a strength that is considerable, but not pernicious. Amongst these we never look for the sublime it comes upon us in the gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the convention of the lion, the tiger, the panther, or rhinoceros (66). The Tyger is, indeed, a poem that celebrates the effects of that sublimity which Burke calls the musical accompaniment of terror (66). In this aspect, the poem is reminiscent of one of Blakes Proverbs of Hell The booming of lions, the howling of ... ...lake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, British Literature 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Forth worth Harcourt Brace, 1996) 289. keister (3) William Blake, The Tyger, British Literature 178 0-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth Harcourt Brace, 1996) 301. All further quotations from this poem are given parenthetically in the text by line number. fundament (4) William Blake, The Little Girl Lost, British Literature 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth Harcourt Brace, 1996) 282. back (5) William Blake, The Lamb, British Literature 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth Harcourt Brace, 1996) 278. back (6) William Blake, The Divine Image, British Literature 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth Harcourt Brace, 1996) 280. back