ШУМЕНСКИ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ
“ЕПИСКОП КОНСТАНТИН ПРЕСЛАВСКИ”

Факултет по хуманитарни науки Project title:

Write a critical analysis of William Blake's poem "The Tiger' paying special attention to the stance of the poetic speaker

Name: Ивелин Иванов Минков

Faculty number: 1063

Forth year English studies SHUMEN 2013 “The Tyger” …show more content…

Before he had been cast out, he had been a cherub walking in the midst of fiery stones. Do these fiery stones not resemble Blake’s “burning bright”? Furthermore, there is another, even more famous passage from the Old Testament, which describes the Evil One in a similar way:” How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” The word Lucifer came into the English Bible from Latin. In the original, the word used there is the Hebrew /haylel/ which meant “brightness”. Can the tiger be Lucifer himself? I believe so. The fifth stanza seems to bear stronger evidence for that.
When 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?
I assume that this moment in the poem describes the Angels’ Fall. Stars are sometimes a representation of angels in the Scripture, and this is also suggested by some literary critics when they discussed “The Tyger”. Here I list only few Biblical passages confirming it: “The mystery of the seven stars which you saw….the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches”, “When the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy”. The next quotation is even more interesting and akin to the fifth stanza “They fought from the heavens. The stars from their courses fought against Sisera.” And here is the major scripture event which I