Blake's "The Tyger", "My Pretty Rose Tree", "The Fly", "The Chimney Sweeper"
"The Tyger"

The poems offers a series of questions "...fearful symmetry?" "... fire of thine eyes?" "... dare he aspire?" "...
seize the fire?"  The questions really raise one main issue:  what kind of person could make such an amazing beast like
a tiger?  And Blake does see this as an amazing beast.  On one hand, it is clear that the animal is inspiring because of 
its power and strength.  And yet, the beast is terrifying as well.  It is perhaps for this reason that Blake asks the question
"Did he who made the Lamb make thee?" - in other words, was the tiger made by God (just as the lamb was made by 
God)?  Blake offers no answer to these questions.  What he does suggest, however, is the mystery of creation.  There are
so many different things on the earth - some terrifying, some not so.  They are all a part of our world and they demonstrate
what a varied world we live in.  Some critics believe that the tiger represents evil and that, for this reason, the poem is
included as a "Song of Experience" (since experience = evil in other poems).  Notice how the idea of God as the Creator 
is emphasised by the references to a workshop (ie a place where things are created) - hammer, furnace, anvil.









"My Pretty Rose Tree"

This is a poem about forbidden love - though it does not seem that at first!  The "flower" that is offered in line 1 is
actually the love of someone else (someone who is not the poet's wife).  The pretty rose tree in line 3 is the poet's wife.
So by the end of stanza 1 the poet has resisted temptation and rejected the love of the other person - "I passed the sweet
flower o'er."  Yet when he returns to his wife in the second stanza, she rejects him through jealousy over the other
woman: "my Rose turn'd away with jealousy".  He is ironic in the final line when he says that "her thorns were my only
delight."  In a sense, the poem is a warning.  The flower of temptation is part of the world of "experience" because
it is part of a tainted adult world.  Yet, resisting this temptation (in other words being "innocent") does not
necessarily bring happiness.  Perhaps this is because in a world of "experience" trust can so easily disappear and 
people can make themselves unhappy just through fear of being
unhappy!








"The Fly"

This, again, seems to be one of Blake's simple poems, but it carries an important meaning.  The poet compares himself
to the fly, and in the first stanza regrets that he has dismissed (perhaps killed) the fly ("My thoughtless hand 
/ Has brush'd away") without giving the fly a second thought.  In the second stanza he argues that he is like the fly; 
and that the fly is like him.  In the third stanza he explains why he things this.  He, like the fly, will live for a
while until the hand of God brings death ("till some blind hand / Shall brush my wing").  The final two stanzas are
quite complicated. Basically, what the poet seems to be saying is this:  If we are important, if our presence on the
earth is noticed by someone (by God, for example) then we have importance and significance whether we are dead 
or alive.  In other words, if we matter to God, then nothing can change that - not even being dead.  The same is true of 
the fly who is also one of God's creatures.











"The Chimney Sweeper"

It is significant that the little chimney sweep cries "'weep! 'weep!" because, although he means "sweep" it
actually signifies his real sorrow.  The fourth line of the first stanza is very ironic: his parents who make him 
suffer so much have gone to church to pray and be "good" people.  The second stanza suggests that his parents do
not understand their own cruelty - they do not understand the suffering of their child.  The poem seems to make two 
important points: (1) it is possible to be suffer and to be happy; and (2) we offer misunderstand the suffering that
people endure in the world, and the final stanza in particular suggests that we should not allow the appearances of 
children to deceive us.  They may look happy but they can actually be very sad.














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