It’s written in breathless trochaic tetrameter, with the final foot cut short (the technical term is “catalectic”). Blake uses on purpose the spelling of “tiger” which was already archaic in his times, maybe to signal that it’s not the actual animal he’s describing. And if despite his being “dead” he seems happy, then the real death doesn’t matter, because it seems you can be happy in death, too.Īs for “The Tyger”, the single most famous poem in the English language, I throw up my hands. This could be interpreted in the following way: his life is as thoughtless and careless as that of the fly, so it’s the same as death. ) If thought = life and lack of thought = death, then, as the speaker argues, he’s a happy fly, regardless of whether he lives or not. Isn’t he just like a fly or a fly just like a man? He plays and dances and sings until some careless hand brushes him away, too (echoing perhaps the famous line from King Lear “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods,/They kill us for their sport”. Did he have a right to do it, he wonders. In “The Fly” the speaker muses upon the fly which he has just carelessly killed. James Joyce – “Ulyss… on James Joyce – “The… James Joyce – “Ulyss… on James Joyce – “Ulysses” (“Lest…
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |