One of the best readers of the poem from What I’ve heard on RU-vid. He gives it a sense of drama that is lost on other readings and intensifies the tension towards the end
"What dread hand and what dread feet" is so powerfully evocative, you can picture the tiger in your mind leaping to with its front claws and teeth bared. Makes a shiver go down your spine.
I honestly looked this up just to hear how "symmetry" is supposed to be pronounced. I wondered if back in Blake's time, "symmetry" was pronounced so that it rhymed with "eye."
All these years and I just realized why the invisible animal episode of X-files is titled Fearful Symmetry. What a perfect example of sublimity in literature...gorgeous.
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry
*Rhyming the words by saying them wrong, Is the correct way to sing this song, So make 'symmetry' rhyme with 'eye', That's how they read Shakespeare and other poetry in the days of old, And it sounds much better if the truth be told. Plus it tends to make the audience giggle.
