| Certain poems have the durability of nursery rhymes. Take the following lines which have become as familiar as ‘baa baa, black sheep’ to many of us: |
| “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright |
| In the forest of the night; |
| What immortal hand or eye. |
| Could frame thy fearful symmetry. |
| These lines are the opening stanza of a poem written by William Blake, the eighteenth century English poet, and published by him in 1789 in a volume of his Songs of Innocence. Although Blake was largely self-educated and supported himself as an engraver, his poetry became increasingly mystical in its imagery and content, and almost too complex to understand. Even such a short poem as “Tyger” (it has only six verses) has over the years defied comprehension, with, as one puzzled expert admitted, ‘no one commentator ever agreeing with any other’. The poem, ‘he continued, is deliberately composed of a series of questions, none of which is answered. It contains the riddle of the universe, how to reconcile good with evil. Careful dissection will only spoil its impact as poetry.’ [EXTRACT] |
Published in THE NATION 16 Sept. 1993, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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