William Blakes Tyger Tyger and the Sick Rose

Welcome, welcome! Settle down please, today is a very special occasion. This is the day where the meaning and purpose of the writings of Romantics returns to the minds of the common man. My fascination and ultimate passion lay within the artistic and intellectual movement of the recently experienced Romanticism. Romanticism could be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealisation and rationality that typified Classicism. Emotion, imagination, freedom, individuality and rebellion against social conventions were all aspects of the emphasis during this time. As we all must be aware, the controversy of the Industrial Revolution played a significant role in shaping the behaviour and the strong opinions of the poets. The Industrial Revolution was a result of new economic and political forces, increased mechanisation and growing and darkening cities. Some, feeling that they had no well-defined place in the community, withdrew from society. Today, I will be concentrating on the poet who is of personal and particular interest namely, Mr William Blake. There are many determents of evaluating the meaning and purpose of a poem, taking into cons

Ladies and Gentlemen, while keeping in mind the features of Blake’s poetry, I’d like to give you an insight on another one of his poems, ‘The Sick Rose’. This particular poem was seen as the human soul transforming from innocence to experience. Sexual connotations have been made by a sense of sexual innocence lost being the love, and eventually the corruption of the emotions. This is seen through “…And his dark secret love; Does thy life destroy.” The ‘rose’ is a symbol of experience and morality and is in a sense, esoteric. It is portrayed as the insidious enemy and accentuates passion and desire. Also, the title suggest by containing the word ‘sick’ a sense of destruction or eventuating to corruption. The “…invisible worm…” is seen as the destructive component throughout the poem. In terms of structure, it is very simply written in quatrain form.

ideration the various literary techniques, structure, language, imagery and rhythm used in order to represent their beliefs.

There was an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth. Accepted social practices and religious beliefs were questioned and often rejected. Romantics evolved a pantheistic view of life often associated with their perception of the spiritual qualities of nature. One of the strongest features in Blake’s philosophy was his belief in imagination as an active creative force. In his Songs of Experience, he constantly asks questions in relation to the creation of Man which has been taken over by the imagination. For example: “What immortal hand or eye; Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” His use of rhetorical questions has a great impact on the imagination also by the responder.

In relation to the structure of ‘The Tyger’, Blake uses layers of rhetorical questioning and symbols to lead the responder to their own conclusion. The refrain of “Tyger, Tyger burni

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