Poem+Comparison

POEM COMPARISON


 * 2. Carving A Name**

I wrote my name upon the sand, And trusted it would stand for aye; But, soon, alas! the refluent sea Had washed my feeble lines away.

I carved my name upon the wood, And, after years, returned again; I missed the shadow of the tree That stretched of old upon the plain.

To solid marble next, my name I gave as a perpetual trust; An earthquake rent it to its base, And now it lies, o'erlaid with dust.

All these have failed. In wiser mood I turn and ask myself, "What then?" If I would have my name endure, I'll write it on the hearts of men,

In characters of living light, Of kindly deeds and actions wrought. And these, beyond the touch of time, Shall live immortal as my thought.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
 * Tyger**

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze 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 watered 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? _____________________________________________________________________________________ Both Tyger and Carving a Name have many poetic devices such as metaphors and rhythm and rhyme. An ABCB rhyme pattern (I carved my name upon the wood, And, after years, returned __again;__ I missed the shadow of the tree That stretched of old upon the __plain__.) is in Carving a Name, an AABB pattern (In what distant deeps or __skies__ Burnt the fire of thine __eyes__? On what wings dare he //aspire//? What the hand dare sieze the //fire//? ) in Tyger both give each pattern a beat to read to. However in Tyger every line rhymes with either the one before it or the one after it, but it Carving a name only 2 out of every 4 lines per stanza rhymes. Metaphors from Carving Name include //‘I'll write it on the hearts of men’.// The narrator won’t literally take a pen and write on someone’s heart, but it means instead he’ll give them something to remember. In Tyger, //‘Could twist the sinews of thy heart?’// doesn’t refer to literally wringing out a heart, but more ‘What could you love?’, because the tyger is so evil and vicious. A hyperbole from Tyger is ‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright!”. The tyger isn’t actually on fire, but ‘burning bright’ refers to his/her/it’s bright orange colouring against the dark night. Another hyperbole, this one in Carving a Name, is ‘live immortal’. The narrator will not live forever. What he means is that his kind deeds and actions will be remembered for a long time. Back in Tyger, one more metaphor is ‘What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’ This does not mean a god putting thier hands aroung the tyger as frame. It means ‘what god/spirit/immortal powerful being could make Tyger?’ because Tygers are terrible.

Carving a Name is a poem that has a plot a and a story, unlike Tyger, which mainly asks questions. Carving a Name starts with someone writing their name in sand to preserve, only to have it washed away. Then, they try again with wood and stone, each time having the record destroyed. In the end, they see the way to be remembered is by being remembered by people by having done good deeds and actions. Tyger has no such plot. It begins with asking what god could create such a terrible being, goes on to ask what terrible place it was made, why, and if it could possibly love anything. It ends with asking how anyone/any god who make such an innocent thing such as a Lamb could make such an evil thing like a tiger. Despite differences in story lines, both poems are as if read by someone telling their own story, however Tyger does not use “I”. There is no ‘I asked what immortal hand or eye...’. Carving a Name uses ‘I’ many times: “I wrote my name upon the sand” instead of “A person wrote their name upon the sand”. Neither poem tells someone else’s story, though Tyger tells about the tyger. Both poems use punctuation.

Carving a Name is about having yourself remembered. The person, “I”, tries physically writing their name in several places, but it always gets destroyed. They then do good deeds and actions as to be remembered from that by other people. This means the theme is you can be remembered through memories of good deeds. Tyger asks how could god(s) create the evil tiger? Where? When? Why? Maybe it doesn’t just ask about the tiger, but evil in general. ‘Tyger’ could be replaced with another evil, like death. A few replacements of descriptions (burning bright with looming dark, Lamb with Life) and now the poem is completely renovated to fit another evil. Both reflect fear. Carving a Name is the fear of being forgotten, solved by doing good things to be remembered by future generations, and Tyger is the fear of evil. Both are very human fears. Another possible fear from Tyger could be the fear of god(s) no longer caring: no longer creating Lambs/good, now creating Tygers/evil. This could also be a fear of being forgotten; forgotten by god(s). Both Carving a Name and Tyger are poems about humanity’s fears.