Illustrations and Words

As a very visual person, I thought Professor Porter's challenge to compare the illustrations and the text of the original manuscripts was very interesting.  There is without a doubt a strong connection between the visual and the written word.  The aesthetic qualities of a text can influence your interpretation or set a tone before one word is read.  Specifically, I looked at "The Tygre" and how its manuscript illustrations evolved over time.  The poem "The Tygre" centers around the question of God's creation of the tiger.  The speaker asks how the same God who made the sweet lamb could create something as vicious as a tiger.  The speaker wonders if the Creator could have been happy to create something so terrifying.  These questions about the tiger have larger implications.  They fundamentally question the nature and character of God.  The speaker wonders how God could make things that are so good and so evil.  Moreover, this makes us wonder about the existence of good and evil in the world.   Do we need evil to have good?  This poem prompts us to ask difficult questions about God and the world.  The illustrations for this poem center on the idea of the tiger; it is the title after all.   In each manuscript, we see a tiger who more or less stays the same in shape throughout the years.  What is important to notice is the color of the tiger and the outdoor scene that surrounds him.  The 1794 and 1795 colors are quite light and  not very forbidding.  However, beginning in 1789, 1795, 1826 there is a strong move towards dark, deeper colors.  The tiger is more frightening and the background of the manuscript is painted; together these things create a feeling of darkness and perhaps mysterious.  Then, in the last three images (1821, 1789, 1825) there is a return to lighter colors.   Another important thing to discuss concerning the illustrations is the rather fairy tale shape to the lion and the background.  Lions are frightening creatures in the wild, but this image (especially when light colors were used) makes the lion seem more like a fairy tale than ferocious.  This fairy tale shape of the lion seems paradoxical to the deep questions begin asked.  Yet, considered in light of blake's other work, this is not as surprising.  One theme that we see in his work is using a lighter mode of presenting a rather deep, difficult message.  Perhaps this similar tactic reflects in the images.