The tyger (The Merrill literary casebook series) - Softcover

William Blake was born in Soho in 1757 and lived in London all of his life, with the exception of three years spent in Bognor Regis. In 1772 Blake became an apprentice engraver and went on to study at the Royal Academy, where he exhibited in 1780. Blake married Catherine Boucher in 1782 and the following year his first 'illuminated book' Poetical Sketches was printed. Blake's talents in both the visual arts and literature have made him a seminal figure of the Romantic period and he is regarded as one of Britain's greatest poets. He died in 1827.

Ages 6 and up. "The Tyger," by revolutionary eighteenth-century poet William Blake, remains one of the most anthologized of all poems today. Even young readers are caught by the fiercely physical opening lines ("Tyger, Tyger, burning bright/ In the forests of the night") and by the pounding beat. You may not be at all certain what the poem means, but the sudden astonishing question--"Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"--confronts you with the elemental mystery of creation and of human nature. Waldman's acrylic paintings extend that sense of wonder. Within each double-page spread of dark swirling forest, he sets one stanza of the poem and one small frame of brilliant color. These frames are like a window or a lens; we see how the artist works to give shape to exploding energy. Some frames show a part of the tiger--the shoulder or the "dread feet" with their curving stripes. Some frames show a gentler pastoral scene or a wide view of sky and sea. At the end, a double-page spread of the whole tiger in black and white opens out to a four-page full-color panorama that includes all the parts we have seen. The huge, snarling tiger is at the center of a world that includes the lamb, the serpent, the curves of tree and flame, the eye of the artist, and the hand of God. As animal poem, as creation myth, and as introduction to the music of poetry, this book makes a stirring read-aloud. Hazel Rochman