Golden Link – Romanticism: What can you
remember?
• What is Romanticism?
• What are some features of Romantic
literature?
• Which other poem/s have we read from the
Romantic period?
• You can also recap here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c57PdX85c
Do
Image taken from original publication of ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience.’
Week 26– The Tyger (p.68)
Follow Lesson 1
Learning Outcomes
• Understand ‘The Tyger’ and its context.
.
• Annotate the poem, looking closely at
language.
Who is William Blake?
• Romantic poet/artist (1757 -1827)
• From childhood he believed in the
power of the supernatural.
• He thought that there was
evidence of God in the works of
nature and that if you looked hard
nature would show it to you.
• Blake was an engraver by trade
and made and illustrated all of his
own works by hand.
• He was politically revolutionary
and got into trouble in his
republican views.
Watch & Listen
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=fXsiW7A--dY
The Tyger
Published in a collection of poems called
Songs of Experience in 1794, Blake wrote
"The Tyger" during his more radical
period. He wrote most of his major
works during this time, often railing
against oppressive institutions like the
church or the monarchy, or any and all
cultural traditions – sexist, racist, or
classist – which stifled imagination or
passion
"The Tyger" is a poem made of
questions. There are no less than
thirteen question marks and only
one full sentence that ends with a
period instead of a question mark.
Addressing "The Tyger," the speaker
questions it as to its creation –
essentially: "Who made you Mr.
Tyger?" "How were you made?
Where? Why? What was the person
or thing like that made you?"
How to approach the poem.
The poem is tricky because it looks simple,
and like there isn’t much to say about it.
However it a poem that is full of deeper
meanings.
We will look at both meanings.
The simple stuff
On the surface the poem is pretty simple –
it describes a Tiger.
You can see that all the questions and lines
build up a picture of the animal.
What words in the poem describe the
animal?
Unpicking the deeper meanings…
• Blake believed that God was a kind of
Blacksmith that had fashioned the world
like smiths fashion horseshoes.
• He also believed that God was a kind of
artist who had made the world incredibly
beautifully and artistically.
• Just like some people question the
existence of God – Blake tries to show it
through a series of Rhetorical Questions.
*Grab some highlighters
LETS ANNOTATE THE POEM: LOOK FOR
POETIC DEVICES - METAPHOR, ALLITERATION, RHYME
SCHEME, REPETITION, PUNCTUATION ETC..
Stanza 1
• 1-4: Many have considered this tiger representing the dark
shadow of the human soul. This is the beastly part of
ourselves that we would prefer to keep only in our dreams
at night. Night in Blake's poetry often seems to suggest this
sort of dream time. The forests might represent the wild
landscape of our imagination under the influence of this
beast.
• The "immortal hand or eye," symbols of sight and
creation, immediately conjure references to a creative God.
• "Fearful" references the scariness of a tiger. ‘Symmetry’ is a
classical quality of the divine, as well as the defining factor
of artistic beauty.
Stanza 2
• 5-8: Blake uses the metaphor of fire to describe the way
the tiger sees and is seen. This is not the vision of the
lamb. The tiger has fury and grounds to believe in its own
strength. The tiger could be understood as similar to our
psychological view of the ego. Our ego is the part of us that
believes in its own power, in its own vision. It could be
debated that Blake argues here that the Fallen Archangel
Lucifer is the creator of the tiger, or the beastly part of our
own nature.
Stanza 3
9-12: The first 2 lines speak to the very power and strength of the tiger, and
of its creator. Shoulders and art both carry responsibilities and burdens.
Blake seems to be suggesting that the creator of this powerful creature is
awesome in its own right. The heart represents not only the biological
engine of the tiger, but perhaps its passion for living. Line 11 means the tiger
now has a life of its own. Line 12 is an attempt to reconcile the wild beast
with a sense of order about the universe and its workings. Can God have
created a dreadful creature, and if so does this task make God's hands
dreadful?
Stanza 3
Stanza 4
Stanza 5
Stanza 5
Stanza 5
Stanza 6
The poem ends with the same question with which it
began, suggesting there has not been an answer found
which adequately explains God’s actions in making the
tiger. Moreover, the replacement of the word ‘could’ with
‘Dare’ leaves the reader dwelling upon the reckless
nature of a god who created the ultimate killing machine
to prey upon mankind.
Structure and form
• The Tyger is a lyric poem (Poetry that presents the
deep feelings and emotions of the poet)
• The poem is comprised of six quatrains (4 lined
stanzas) in rhymed couplets (aabb rhyme scheme).
• The meter is regular and rhythmic, its hammering
beat suggestive of the smithy that is the poem’s
central image.
• The simplicity and neat proportions of the poems
form perfectly suit its regular structure, in which a
string of questions all contribute to the articulation
of a single, central idea.
• The speaker of the poem is ambiguous
Structure and Form
• Rhythmic pattern: Trochaic tetrameter -it refers to a
line of four trochaic feet. The word "tetrameter"
simply means that the poem has four trochees. A
trochee is a stressed syllable, followed by a short, or
unstressed, one (reverse of iambic tetrameter).
• The rhythm and rhyme scheme of the poem have a clear structure. Each line of
the poem has seven syllables. This means the lines have a strong rhythm, like
the beating of a hammer or the padding of stealthy paws. Because the last
syllable of the trochaic tetrameter seems to be omitted there is a sense of
something left unfinished. This reflects the way the poem fails to answer the
speaker’s question, communicating instead how difficult it is to understand
God. The rhyme scheme of the poem is AABB. This uniformity again provides a
strong impression of the pounding of the tiger’s feet.
To finish…
What is the tiger, or what does it represent?
The TygerAdditional Resources/Revision Tasks
.
Religion
Working class
background
William Blake
was an artist and
an engraver.
Blake’s later
poetry attempts
to re-write the
story of creation
and the entire
history of
humanity
Blake wrote at
the start of the
industrial
revolution
Blake had radical ,
eccentric ideas.
He pointed out
what was wrong
with the world as
he saw it; he was
considered by
some to be mad.
Summary
The poem begins with the speaker asking a fearsome tiger
what kind of divine being could have created it: “What
immortal hand or eye/ Could frame they fearful symmetry?”
Each subsequent stanza contains further questions, all of
which refine this first one. From what part of the cosmos could
the tiger’s fiery eyes have come, and who would have dared
to handle that fire? What sort of physical presence, and what
kind of dark craftsmanship, would have been required to “twist
the sinews” of the tiger’s heart? The speaker wonders how,
once that horrible heart “began to beat,” its creator would
have had the courage to continue the job. Comparing the
creator to a blacksmith, he ponders about the anvil and the
furnace that the project would have required and the smith
who could have wielded them. And when the job was done,
the speaker wonders, how would the creator have felt? “Did
he smile his work to see?” Could this possibly be the same
being who made the lamb?
Structure and Form
How many stanzas?
(verses- like a
poem’s paragraphs)
Does it rhyme?
Yes? How? Note
the pattern.
No?- Free verse or
blank verse?
How many
lines per
stanza?
Does it have a
rhythm?
Where is the
punctuation? Any
enjambment?
Caesura?
Is it a form I should
recognise? i.e.
sonnet (square
poems- 14 lines)
1. In your own words, write out the question that the first verse asks
the reader.
2. Why do you think the poet uses the words ‘distant deeps or
skies’?
3. Pick out the words and phrases from the first four verses that
make the tiger sound fierce and write them down.
4. Write down the words from verse four that suggest industry.
5. Look at the last two line of verse five. Who is ‘he’ that the poet
refers to?
6. Although verse one and verse six appear the same, what word
changes?
7. Why has the poet changed this word? What does he want us the
reader to think?
8. Why has the poet set the poem out as a series of questions?
What does he want us to think about?
• What does the Tyger represent?
Evil? Violence? Predation? Suffering?
• What about the idea that God made the
world in his own image – what does the
Tyger suggest about God?
Find references to a blacksmith in ‘The Tyger’
Why does Blake use the image of a blacksmith
as the tiger’s creator?
The Tyger: a metaphor for
the Industrial revolution?
• One complex aspect of Blake’s metaphor is that, unlike the lamb, who is ‘made’
by God, the tiger owes its existence to a combination of human labour and
industrial process. Stanza three focuses on human effort, the shoulder and the art
which ‘twist the sinews of thy heart’. Stanza four conceives of the tiger’s creation
in terms of industry, using a series of word associations for the blacksmith’s
forge: ‘hammer’, ‘chain’, ‘furnace’, ‘anvil’.
• While, like all the Romantics, Blake was repelled by the Industrial Revolution and
its representation of human beings, stanza three has undeniable energy and a
fascination with what industry can produce: ‘what dread grasp | Dare its deadly
terrors clasp?’ It’s interesting that both the worker and the tiger are represented
by a strange combination of body parts (‘shoulder’, ‘heart’, ‘sinews’, ‘hand’, ‘feet’,
‘brain’). A parallel can perhaps be drawn with the creature constructed in a
‘workshop of filthy creation’ in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Allusion to Greek and Roman mythology and to Milton
https://crossref-it.info/textguide/songs-ofinnocence-and-experience/13/1583
Icarus
‘on what wings dare he aspire?’
Icarus flew too close to the sunhumankind reaching beyond its
limits.
Paradise Lost- Milton
‘the stars threw down their spears’
Prometheus
‘what the hand dare seize the fire’
Stole fire from the gods and
gave it to humans.
Punishment was to have his
liver eaten each day.
May refer to fallen angels when Satan
rebelled against God
These allusions make us feel that the creator of the
tiger has gone too far in creating something beautiful
yet so terrible.
What is the link to rebellion? Think of the historical
context- what was happening when Blake was writing?
The Tyger’ gives no visible answers
except offering more questions.
• Blake is building on the conventional idea that
nature, like a work of art, must in some way contain
a reflection of its creator. The tiger is strikingly
beautiful yet also horrific in its capacity for violence.
What kind of a God, then, could or would design
such a terrifying beast as the tiger?
• In more general terms, what does the undeniable
existence of evil and violence in the world tell us
about the nature of God, and what does it mean to
live in a world where a being can at once contain
both beauty and horror?
The Lamb: from the book
‘Songs of Innocence’
The Lamb
• Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
• Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Explode a quotation (P.E.E.-Explain)
Looking back at the anthology poems we covered in Term 1‘Half-past Two’ (p.60)
And She said he’d done
Something Very Wrong, and must
Stay in the school-room till half-past two.
Week 26 – War Photographer (p.67)
Follow Lesson 2
Learning Outcomes
• Analyse language, structure and form in
.
‘War Photographer.’
• Establish the meaning/message behind
the poem.
WHAT IS THE MESSAGE OF THE ARTIST?
The artist’s message is that media is biased: society does not necessarily have access to the truth.
CAN YOU LINK THIS IMAGE WITH THE TITLE OF THE POEM?
‘War Photographers’ work for the media and therefore will have first hand
experience of the media’s selective approach to content.
LOOK OUT FOR SIMILAR MESSAGES AS WE READ THE POEM, ‘WAR PHOTOGRAPHER’
Let’s watch and listen
•
This student won a film-making competition in
Asia with this version of the poem. If we have
any budding videographers who would like to
. based on an anthology poem, we
create a video
would be very happy to share them in our
Literature course!
https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=B_trzujXt8k
In his dark room he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered
rows. The only light is red and softly
glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is
grass.
‘War Photographer’ by Carol Anne Duffy
Something is happening. A stranger’s
features faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the
cries of this man’s wife, how he sought
approval without words to do what someone
must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays A hundred agonies in black and white
beneath his hands, which did not tremble from which his editor will pick out five or six
then though seem to now. Rural England. for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s
Home again to ordinary pain which simple eyeballs prick with tears between the bath
weather can dispel, to fields which don’t
and pre-lunch beers. From the aeroplane he
explode beneath the feet
stares impassively at where he earns his
WRITE
A SUMMARY
your understanding
of the
and
meaning, message and
living
andpoet
they
dopoem’s
not care.
of running
children intoashow
nightmare
heat.
purpose.
The poem is written about a war photographer who has returned home and is developing his photos. The poem is looking at
the contrast between the war zones and safety of being back home and the way people just do not understand the truth,
after all a single photo cannot show everything. War photographers do a very dangerous job, many are killed and injured as
they must get in harms way to get the photos they are after.
49
50
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER, PART 1
Personifies the
photographs, ‘suffering’
Finally implies he is constantly
haunted by his experiences
Image of uniformity implies he
In his dark room he is finally alone
try to bring order to the chaos
with spools of suffering set out in orderedis
of his subject, war.
Atmospheric use of colour,
rows. The only light is red and softly
‘red’ – connotation of
glows,
Juxtaposition of concepts of ‘church’
danger, death, blood
as though this were a church and with
he warzones amplifies the horror he has
Contextual reference to method
seen
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Metaphor emphasises the scale
of developing photographs
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is
of death and fragility of life,
Semantics – implies if the world grass.
suggests that this life is as
could see what he could, war
would cease
STRUCTURE
MEANING
IMAGERY
LANGUAGE
EMOTION
meaningless to people at home
as mowing the lawn.
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands, which did not tremble Contrasts chaos of war with
then though seem to now. Rural England. the calm of ‘Rural England’
Home again to ordinary pain which simple exaggerating the absurdity
and barbarity of war.
weather can dispel, to fields which don’t
Contrast
supported
familiar ‘weather stereotypes
explode
beneath
thebyfeet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
All Flesh is Grass
This is a biblical quotation from Isaiah 40:6-8
The full quotation reads:
“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is the
flower of the field. The grass withers, the
flower fades when the breath of the Lord
blows on it; surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the
word of our God will stand forever.”
The point being made is that compared to the eternal and
everlasting word of God, human life is fleeting and
transient. It is a reminder that we are all mortal.
52
• In the poem this reference adds to the images of death which
abound: “mass...explode beneath the feet of running children...halfformed ghost...blood stained into foreign dust...agonies...” The
photographer’s job means he is constantly faced with death. He of
all people must know that “all flesh is grass”.
• Positioning the biblical reference after a list of war-torn countries
also emphasises the shortness of life experienced by people caught
up in those conflicts. Indeed, the lives of the people the
photographer captures are likely to be even shorter than any other
human elsewhere on the planet.
• The word ‘grass’ forms a rhyming couplet with the word ‘mass'
before it. Taken alongside ‘Phnom Penh’, the reader is perhaps
reminded of a mass grave – biodegrade into the soil. This is
enhanced by the word ‘flesh’ which dehumanises the bodies of the
dead: they are simply meat.
53
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER, PART 2
Double meaning the photo itself
is taking form, however the
subjects themselves may have
been in pain, twisting.
Caesura changes tone and builds tension.
Something is happening. A stranger’s
features faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the
Metaphor shows the still faint
cries of this man’s wife, how he sought
origins of the photo but also
implies that the subject may well approval without words to do what someone
must
now be dead.
and how the blood stained into foreign dust
Pun / dark humour, bitter. Black
and white in the newspapers but
also emphasis on morality, war is
black and white
STRUCTUR
E
MEANING
IMAGERY
LANGUAGE
EMOTION
Personal Pronoun ‘he’
emphasises a
namelessness, that he is
one of many, but also a
sense of detachment
and guilt in the tone.
Adjective emphasis on
the fact it is far away, not
at home. It makes the
noun ‘dust’ a possession.
A hundred agonies in black and white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s
eyeballs prick with tears between the bath
and pre-lunch beers. From the aeroplane he
impassively at where
he earns
his emotion, he feels numb/helpless
collective pronounstares
creates accusation-like
‘Impassive’
without
tone. Final lines emphasise
his they
resentment.
living and
do not care.
Structure
• 4 stanzas
• 6 lines per stanza
• Regular rhyme scheme – ABBCDD, etc.
WHY?
• Imposes order in the chaos of war
• Like the photographer – order with the photos, making
sense of the chaos
War Photographer
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don't explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
A
A
B
B
C
C
D
D
56
War Photographer: is there rhythm?
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don't explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
57
War Photographer: the meter revealed
11In his darkroom he is finally alone
11/12with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
10The only light is red and softly glows,
8as though this were a church and he
10a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
10Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
12He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
10beneath his hands which did not tremble then
11though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
12to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
10to fields which don't explode beneath the feet
10of running children in a nightmare heat.
58
Checkpoint
Write three sentences about the poem, War Photographer.
• Language sentence
• Structure sentence
• Form sentence
Week 26 Literature Homework- War
Photographer Quiz
1. Ensure you have responded to feedback on your
OMAM essay.
2. Complete the War Photographer quiz.
3. Look through the extra resources and complete your
annotations on both ‘The Tyger’ and ‘War
Photographer.’
60
Golden Link: Respond to feedback (OMAM Essay)
If you submitted this work, please go to the assignment now and respond to my
feedback using the system below.
If you did not submit this homework, please look again at the questions on the next
slide and begin a plan for one of them. Your teacher may also have example essays to
share (one on Lennie can be found in the Literature course- Week 24
1. Click ‘View feedback.’ Look for ticks on your work. Choose three ticks. Click to reveal a
box and type in the reason you think you received each tick.
2. Find and correct any SPAG errors in the same way.
3. Read your target and use the Golden Link target sheet to work out how to achieve
your target. Redraft any sections suggested in my marking.
Last term’s OMAM Essay Task
•
•
•
•
Take time to plan your essay. There is a planning template in the learning platform (W25).
Aim to write it fully in 45 minutes.
You might want to consider handwriting this as practice for the eventual examinations.
Proof read and submit your response. Make sure you indicate which question you have chosen.
War PhotographerAdditional Resources/Revision Tasks
.
Let’s recap some of the
annotations we made last
lesson, zooming in on key
lines to check our
understanding
Stanza One
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What person is the poem written in?
Is the person narrating the poem the poet?
Is it about the poet herself?
“he is finally alone” – Why is he only now alone? What does this imply about before the poem?
“spools of suffering” – Discuss the techniques in this line. Why is it used?
“ordered rows” – What else comes in ordered rows? Why might he set them out so orderly?
“light is red” – Why is this? Where else do you have red light? What does this make you think
of? Connotations?
8. What does the concept of the “priest preparing to intone a Mass” add to the idea of the
photographer and how serious he takes his job?
9. Why is the quote from Isaiah included in the poem? And why with the list of places?
64
Stanza Two
1. In the first two lines of Stanza two – what is the contrast? (Hint:
think about the photographer…)
2. “Solutions slop in trays” – What is the literal and metaphorical
meanings of this phrase “solutions” in terms of the poem?
3. How does Duffy give the impression of the British as whiny and
complacent?
4. “nightmare heat” – is an example of which technique? What does
it refer to, do you think?
65
1. “Something is happening”. What does this sentence do to the
stanza, as a start? Why does he “seek approval/ without words”?
2. What moral predicament is the photographer in, in stanza three?
3. “the blood stained into foreign dust” – what effect does “stained”
have as a verb? Analyse the idea of the atrocity staining…
4. Why does the photographer feel he must do “what someone
must”?
66
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Another contrast! – The sensitivity of the photographer contrasts with
what in this stanza?
“hundred agonies in black-and-white” – Firstly what technique is this?
What purpose does this technique serve, in terms of this image?
“his editor will pick out five or six” – Evaluate this phrase – how do you
feel about what the editor is doing? What criteria do you think he’ll use?
“The reader’s eyeballs prick/ with tears between bath and pre-lunch
beers” – How long does the reader’s supposed sympathy last for?
Why do you think Duffy writes about the reader?
How should we react to terrible suffering in other countries?
67
Onwards, ever onwards…
Contrast: In the poem, what is the contrast?
How does the contrast make you feel?
- Aware of the gulf between our lives and those of the people in the
photographs?
- Appreciative of and thankful for what we have?
- Guilty?
- Like it’s hard to relate to those in the photos?
Don’t just give an opinion – how can you prove this from the poem?
Think Evaluation!
On the next slide is a table, copy and complete with lines from the
poem that you believe show effective contrast in the poem.
68
Contrast continued…
War Zones:
“Fields… explode
beneath the feet/ of
running children in a
nightmare heat
England:
“Ordinary pain which
simple weather can
dispel”
69
“People travel to faraway places to watch, in
fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.”
- Dagobert D. Runes
Attitude: Duffy’s and the photographer.
Having read the entire poem by now, and analysed
more than half… can you prove your opinions?
- What do you think Duffy’s attitude is to war, and how
the public deal with what happens in other countries?
- How do you think the photographer feels about his
job?
70
The Whole Poem.
Imagery: Duffy creates some powerful and
disturbing images in the poem. Four in particular
stand out:
“fields which don’t explode beneath the feet/ of
running children in a nightmare heat”
“how the blood stained into foreign dust”
“a hundred agonies in black-and-white”
“The reader’s eyeballs prick/ with tears between the
bath and pre-lunch beers”
71
P.E.E Example
It can be difficult for us to relate to suffering in faraway countries, and so to
make us feel anger, guilt and inevitably despair about it, Duffy has to use
disturbing and powerful images These are images we would rather not think
about, or really see. She says we, in the Western world, live by
“fields which don’t explode beneath the feet/ Of running children in a nightmare heat.”
This image is effective because we would normally associate images of
children with freedom, innocence and fun. The idea of the children running
in ‘fields’ has connotations of innocent fun and play. We also associate
children with guiltless lives, and this brings out our protective instincts when
we imagine them being hurt. Duffy does not tell us what these children are
running from; some kind of “nightmare heat”. The idea of a nightmare as our
very worst fears instigates our imaginings of horror and immeasurable pain.
This image in itself is horrific to the reader, as we cannot begin to imagine
the pain and suffering. It shames us to be so well off in comparison to these
children.
72