Programme 1

The Tyger

  William Blake (1757-1827)

The greatest of the several mysteries posed by ‘The Tyger’ (‘Songs of Experience’, 1794) profoundly questions, ‘Did he who made the Lamb make thee?’.

Blake had already offered the simple answer to that question in ‘The Lamb’ (‘Songs of Innocence’, 1789). However, as well as such innocent apprehension of the wonder of the natural world, there inevitably comes the more complex and fearful awareness of a wild ferocious power in (human) nature that we ‘dread’ and which is beyond our control. Whether or not he who made the lamb did also make the tiger, might also the poetic creator artistically dare to construct or ‘frame’ such ‘fearful symmetry’? How symmetrical is Blake’s control of his material?

The rhythm, rhyme, imagery and theme of ‘The Tyger’ are each considered closely by the programme’s interviewees: Kate Clanchy, Michael Donaghy, Jamie McKendrick, Tom Paulin and Clare Pollard.