General Discussion Topic: Tyger Tales

[Amanda_R]

Read and discuss the poem from which the book's title is taken, "The Tyger." (An excerpt is on page 275.) What is its significance in terms of the novel and the characters? Why do you think Chevalier chose a phrase from this poem for her title?

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Note: This discussion topic is particularly suitable for those who have finished or nearly finished Burning Bright.

[Mariposa]

If I recall from my college days (100 years ago), "The Tyger" was in Songs of Experience and it was the counter to "The Lamb" in Songs of Innocence. I think the poem asked how the God that made the lamb also made the tiger. It was kind of a spiritual question with no answer that life has a dual nature: innocence and experience. I see it as a balance between the lamb on one end and the tiger on the other. Neither is really good or bad as long as you don't get to the extremes. So even in the book, when the innocent become experienced, you don't get the sense that they are being condemned for their actions, rather more that it is a kind of growing up. Any other thoughts on this?

Lizabeth

[TinaSChang]

I can see many reasons:

"Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright" is one of the most well known phrases by Blake.

"Burning Bright" gives a sense of urgency and creative spirit as well as foreboding. It conjures up another image of a life that burns brightly and is too short.

There is also the idea of a light in the darkness that was London.

[psb]

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Amanda_R wrote:
Read and discuss the poem from which the book's title is taken, "The Tyger." (An excerpt is on page 275.) What is its significance in terms of the novel and the characters? Why do you think Chevalier chose a phrase from this poem for her title?

---

Note: This discussion topic is particularly suitable for those who have finished or nearly finished Burning Bright.

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Even before reading her book, Tracy Chevalier's choice of "Burning Bright" for her title made me think of our need to confront Blake's tyger, what it symbolizes and its presence in our world- that beautiful, terrifying, fiery, powerful tyger that exists in the dark yet burns so brightly. We have to accept that both the tyger and lamb exist.

[maxcat]

I have read the Tiger also and it is a counter to the Lamb. It is sort of the way nature follows its course, the tiger will eat the lamb and the is how things go. In the book, I think things went as should have been in the 1700's. If you were pregnant, there wasn't birth control or abortion clinics. If there was war, you went off to war. Events take their natural course and that's what I read into the poem.

[kiakar]

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psb wrote:

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Amanda_R wrote:
Read and discuss the poem from which the book's title is taken, "The Tyger." (An excerpt is on page 275.) What is its significance in terms of the novel and the characters? Why do you think Chevalier chose a phrase from this poem for her title?

---

Note: This discussion topic is particularly suitable for those who have finished or nearly finished Burning Bright.

---

Even before reading her book, Tracy Chevalier's choice of "Burning Bright" for her title made me think of our need to confront Blake's tyger, what it symbolizes and its presence in our world- that beautiful, terrifying, fiery, powerful tyger that exists in the dark yet burns so brightly. We have to accept that both the tyger and lamb exist.

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I love that thought; the tyger and the lamb reigns in all of us. We just have to find a way to show both characterics as they should be activated.

[JulieZ]

I'm not too knowledgeable about this -- did Blake write Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience as two separate books? Did the two books contain specific poems meant to balance each other? Thanks!

By the way, does anyone have any thoughts on which book was intended for Jem and which for Maggie? It's a very interesting question at the end of the novel. I'm not sure there is an answer; Ms. Chevalier may have left it open to being either of their's on purpose.

[TracyC]

Hi Julie

I can answer some of your questions. Blake wrote and printed Songs of Innocence in 1788. Then in 1792-93 he began writing Songs of Experience, both as a counterbalance to Songs of Innocence and also in response to the souring of the French Revolution and his experience of repression by the British government for his earlier support of the Revolution. He printed a couple of copies of Experience, and then decided to put them together with Innocence, so in 1794 he came out with Songs of Innocence and of Experience. He would periodically reprint them, changing the running order - and even which poems went in which volume - each time.

As for which volume Jem and Maggie get, I deliberately left it open, but I sort of had in the back of my mind that Blake would give Jem Experience and Maggie Innocence, so that they could "get" what they didn't already have. But that isn't set in stone. The idea really is that the two need to go together.