Blake, William - Complementary opposites

William Blake's visionary experiences

William Blake was a misunderstood artist and poet during the Romantic Age and was known to be a visionary because he had been experiencing vision since he was a boy.
William Blake defined the dualism of the “Complementary opposites”; he believed that the possibility of progress and the likelihood of achieving conscience of what we really are, lies in the tension between opposite states of the mind, like Reason and Energy, Love and Hate. For Blake, the two opposite states of mind, are necessary to Human Existence and they coexist not only in the human being but also in the figure of the Creator.

The sublime Tyger

This poem represents the celebration of the sublime animal, the Tyger. In the first scene Blake describes the Tyger while it is coming out brightly from the night and from the dark forest. The poet wonders about who could have created an animal of such beauty and at the same time, so terrible and threatening. Blake uses the words “fearful symmetry” which leaves people astonished. Both night and fear are elements of the Sublime which causes Astonishment. Fear robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning and, moreover, whatever is terrible is sublime too.