the tyger analysis essay

The Tyger Summary & Analysis by William Blake

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
Poetic Devices
Vocabulary & References
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
Line-by-Line Explanations

"The Tyger" is a poem by visionary English poet William Blake, and is often said to be the most widely anthologized poem in the English language. It consists entirely of questions about the nature of God and creation, particularly whether the same God that created vulnerable beings like the lamb could also have made the fearsome tiger. The tiger becomes a symbol for one of religion's most difficult questions: why does God allow evil to exist? At the same time, however, the poem is an expression of marvel and wonder at the tiger and its fearsome power, and by extension the power of both nature and God.

Read the full text of “The Tyger”

The Full Text of “The Tyger”

1 Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

2 In the forests of the night;

3 What immortal hand or eye,

4 Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

5 In what distant deeps or skies.

6 Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

7 On what wings dare he aspire?

8 What the hand, dare seize the fire?

9 And what shoulder, & what art,

10 Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

11 And when thy heart began to beat,

12 What dread hand? & what dread feet?

13 What the hammer? what the chain,

14 In what furnace was thy brain?

15 What the anvil? what dread grasp,

16 Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

17 When the stars threw down their spears

18 And water'd heaven with their tears:

19 Did he smile his work to see?

20 Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

21 Tyger Tyger burning bright,

22 In the forests of the night:

23 What immortal hand or eye,

24 Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“The Tyger” Summary

“the tyger” themes.

The Existence of Evil

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Tyger”

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?

Lines 13-16

What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

Lines 17-20

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?

Lines 21-24

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“The Tyger” Symbols

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Industrial Tools

“the tyger” poetic devices & figurative language, alliteration.

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End-Stopped Line

Rhetorical question, personification, “the tyger” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Tyger”

Rhyme scheme, “the tyger” speaker, “the tyger” setting, literary and historical context of “the tyger”, more “the tyger” resources, external resources.

Blake's Visions — An excerpt from a documentary in which writer Iain Sinclair discusses Blake's religious visions.

A Reading by Ian Richardson — A chillingly beautiful rendition of the poem by actor Ian Richardson.

Illustrations and Other Poems — A resource from the Tate organization, which holds a large collection of Blake originals.

Full Text of Songs of Innocence and Experience — Various formats for the full text in which "The Tyger" is collected.

Illustration and Discussion — A resource from the British Library that shows Blake's illustrations for the poem and discusses it in depth.

Blake's Radicalism — An excerpt from a documentary in which writer Iain Sinclair discusses Blake's radicalism.

LitCharts on Other Poems by William Blake

Ah! Sun-flower

A Poison Tree

Earth's Answer

Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience)

Holy Thursday (Songs of Innocence)

Infant Sorrow

Introduction (Songs of Innocence)

Nurse's Song (Songs of Experience)

Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)

The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)

The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence)

The Clod and the Pebble

The Divine Image

The Ecchoing Green

The Garden of Love

The Human Abstract

The Little Black Boy

The Little Vagabond

The School Boy

The Sick Rose

To the Evening Star

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

A Summary and Analysis of William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Tyger’ is arguably the most famous poem written by William Blake (1757-1827); it’s difficult to say which is more well-known, ‘The Tyger’ or the poem commonly known as ‘Jerusalem’. The poem’s opening line, ‘Tyger Tyger, burning bright’ is among the most famous opening lines in English poetry (it’s sometimes modernised as ‘Tiger, Tiger, burning bright’).

Below is a summary of this iconic poem, along with a close analysis of the poem’s language, imagery, and meaning.

‘The Tyger’ was first published in William Blake’s 1794 volume Songs of Experience , which contains many of his most celebrated poems. The Songs of Experience was designed to complement Blake’s earlier collection, Songs of Innocence (1789), and ‘The Tyger’ should be seen as the later volume’s answer to ‘The Lamb’, the ‘innocent’ poem that had appeared in the earlier volume .

Framed as a series of questions, ‘Tyger Tyger, burning bright’ (as the poem is also often known), in summary, sees Blake’s speaker wondering about the creator responsible for such a fearsome creature as the tiger.

The fiery imagery used throughout the poem conjures the tiger’s aura of danger: fire equates to fear. Don’t get too close to the tiger, Blake’s poem seems to say, otherwise you’ll get burnt.

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

The first stanza and sixth stanza, alike in every respect except for the shift from ‘Could frame’ to ‘ Dare frame’, frame the poem, asking about the immortal creator responsible for the beast.

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?

The second stanza continues the fire imagery established by the image of the tiger ‘burning bright’, with talk of ‘the fire’ of the creature’s eyes, and the notion of the creator fashioning the tiger out of pure fire, as if he (or He) had reached his hand into the fire and moulded the creature from it. (The image succeeds, of course, because of the flame-like appearance of a tiger’s stripes.)

It must have been a god who played with fire who made the tiger.

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?

In the third and fourth stanzas, Blake introduces another central metaphor, explicitly drawing a comparison between God and a blacksmith.

What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

It is as if the Creator made the blacksmith in his forge, hammering the base materials into the living and breathing ferocious creature which now walks the earth.

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?

The fifth stanza is more puzzling, but ‘stars’ have long been associated with human destiny (as the root of ‘astrology’ highlights). For Kathleen Raine, this stanza can be linked with another of William Blake’s works, The Four Zoas , where the phrase which we also find in ‘The Tyger’, ‘the stars threw down their spears’, also appears.

There it is the godlike creator of the universe (Urizen in Blake’s mythology) who utters it; Urizen’s fall, and the fall of the stars and planets, are what brought about the creation of life on Earth in Blake’s Creation story. When the Creator fashioned the Tyger, Blake asks, did he look with pride upon the animal he had created?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The poem ends where it began, with a repetition of the first stanza, though the word Could has been altered to Dare in the final line.

How might we analyse ‘The Tyger’? What does it mean? The broader point is one that many Christian believers have had to grapple with: if God is all-loving, why did he make such a fearsome and dangerous animal? We can’t easily fit the tiger into the ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ view of Christian creation.

As Blake himself asks, ‘Did he who made the Lamb make thee?’ In other words, did God make the gentle and meek animals, but also the destructive and ferocious ones?

What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Presumably the question is rhetorical; the real question-behind-the-question is why. (This might help to explain Blake’s reference to ‘fearful symmetry’: he is describing not only the remarkable patterns on the tiger’s skin and fur which humans have learned to go in fear of, but the ‘symmetry’ between the innocent lamb on the one hand and the fearsome tiger on the other. (‘Fearful’ means ‘fearsome’ here, confusingly.)

Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Indeed, we might take such an analysis further and see the duality between the lamb and the tiger as being specifically about the two versions of God in Christianity: the vengeful and punitive Old Testament God, Yahweh, and the meek and forgiving God presented in the New Testament.

The Tyger and the Lamb

What bolsters such an interpretation is the long-established associations between the lamb and Jesus Christ. The tiger, whilst not a biblical animal, embodies the violent retribution and awesome might of Yahweh in the Old Testament.

Or, as the Blake scholar D. G. Gillham, in his informative and fascinating study of Blake’s poetry, Blake’s Contrary States: The ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ as Dramatic Poems , puts it: ‘A universe that contains beasts of prey must be a ruthless one, and his questions are so framed that any possible answer must first explain that.’

Certainly, when we contrast ‘The Lamb’ with ‘The Tyger’, we realise that although the speakers of both poems ask questions, the crucial difference is that the questions are left unanswered in the latter poem. Not so in ‘The Lamb’:

Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o’er the mead […] Dost thou know who made thee?

D. G. Gillham observes that whereas the child-speaker of ‘The Lamb’ is confident in, and proud of, his knowledge of the lamb (‘Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee …’), the speaker of ‘The Tyger’ is marked by uncertainty:

Little Lamb I’ll tell thee, Little Lamb I’ll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb:

Question after question comes at us, and an answer to any of them seems impossible: ‘the speaker can do no more than wonder’, as Gillham notes. This is because the Creator who made the tiger is not meant to be understood by us: he works in mysterious ways.

Fire and the Tyger

But is the Christian belief-system the only way of approaching Blake’s Tyger? Returning to the significance of fire in the poem, it’s worth noting that this fiery imagery also summons the idea of Greek myth – specifically, the myth of Prometheus, the deity who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind.

From that daring act of transgression, man’s development followed. Once man had fire, he was free, and had the divine spark (literally, in being able to create fire). Blake’s question ‘What the hand, dare seize the fire?’ alludes to the figure of Prometheus, seizing fire from the gods and giving it to man. The Tyger seems to embody, in part, this transgressive yet divine spirit.

But none of these readings quite settles down into incontrovertible fact. ‘The Tyger’ remains, like the creature itself, an enigma, a fearsome and elusive beast.

Continue to explore the world of Blake’s poetry with our analysis of Blake’s poem about the poison tree , our overview of his poem known as ‘Jerusalem’ and his scathing indictment of poverty and misery in London .

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8 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’”

Reblogged this on newauthoronline .

Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA .

This is an excellent post. Thank you for unpacking the meaning of this wonderful poem so well.

Blake was a rapper before there was rap. Seriously–this poem goes well with a phat beat.

Thanks for a great post. I had forgotten how exciting it was to analyse a poem. You are actually making me believe I am educated.

Reblogged this on Manolis .

Pingback: The Saturday Night Special: “A Short Analysis of William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’” from Interesting Literature | Phil Slattery's Blog

Since studying it at high school, ‘The Tyger’ has been my favourite poem. Great post.

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“The Tyger” by William Blake: Analysis

“The Tyger” by William Blake, published in his 1794 collection Songs of Experience, is a profound and awe-inspiring exploration of creation and the duality of existence.

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?

Introduction: “The Tyger” by William Blake

Table of Contents

“The Tyger” by William Blake, published in his 1794 collection Songs of Experience, is a profound and awe-inspiring exploration of creation and the duality of existence. The poem centers on the image of a tiger, its “fearful symmetry” crafted by an enigmatic, almost paradoxical creator. Blake’s vivid imagery and rhythmic questions delve into themes of beauty and terror, the nature of the divine, and the complex forces governing the universe. Through the tiger, Blake forces the reader to ponder the origins of both good and evil, ultimately challenging conventional notions of God and the world He shaped.

Annotations of “The Tyger” by William Blake

Literary devices in “the tyger” by william blake, sound and poetic devices in “the tyger” by william blake, functions of literary devices in “the tyger” by william blake.

Allusion: In “The Tyger,” William Blake uses allusions to create a sense of cosmic significance and mystery around the Tyger’s creation. For instance, the use of the phrase “immortal hand or eye” in line 3 refers to a divine creator who possesses extraordinary power and skill. Similarly, in line 17, the stars throwing down their spears and watering heaven with their tears create a sense of cosmic drama and tension. These allusions add layers of meaning to the poem and suggest that the Tyger’s creation is not just a mere physical act but rather an event of immense significance.
Repetition: The repetition of the phrase “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” at the beginning and end of the poem creates a sense of symmetry and rhythm. The repetition emphasizes the power and significance of the Tyger while also creating a sense of awe and admiration. Additionally, the repetition of questions throughout the poem, such as “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” (lines 3-4) and “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (line 20), creates a sense of curiosity and wonder, as the speaker tries to understand the Tyger’s creation.
Imagery: William Blake’s use of vivid imagery in “The Tyger” helps to create a sense of the Tyger’s power and majesty. For example, the fire burning in the Tyger’s eyes in line 6 suggests an intensity of passion and ferocity, while the “dread grasp” in line 15 implies a terrifying and deadly strength. Furthermore, the “forests of the night” in line 2 and the “distant deeps or skies” in line 5 create a sense of mystery and wonder. Overall, the vivid imagery helps to convey the speaker’s awe and admiration for the Tyger.
Rhetorical questions: Blake’s use of rhetorical questions in “The Tyger” creates a sense of mystery and uncertainty about the Tyger’s creation. These questions, such as “And when thy heart began to beat./What dread hand? & what dread feet?” (lines 11-12) and “In what furnace was thy brain?” (line 14), emphasize the complexity and enigma of the Tyger’s creation. They also convey the speaker’s sense of wonder and awe as they try to comprehend the power behind the Tyger’s existence.

Themes in “The Tyger” by William Blake

The complexity of creation: The theme of the complexity of creation is evident in the poem as the speaker attempts to understand the nature of the Tyger’s creation. The repeated rhetorical questions throughout the poem emphasize the difficulty of comprehending such a powerful and fearsome creature. The line “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” (lines 3-4) highlights the mystery and complexity of the Tyger’s creation.
The power of nature: The power of nature is another theme in the poem, particularly in the descriptions of the Tyger and its environment. The line “In the forests of the night” (line 2) emphasizes the Tyger’s connection to the natural world, while the description of the Tyger’s fiery eyes and the stars throwing down their spears highlights the raw power of nature.
The duality of creation: The theme of duality is present in the contrast between the Tyger and the Lamb, which are both creations of the same divine force. The line “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (line 20) underscores the contrast between these two creatures and raises questions about the nature of creation.
The role of the artist/creator: The theme of the role of the artist or creator is also evident in the poem. The repeated questions about the identity and methods of the creator suggest a curiosity about the creative process. The line “What the hammer? What the chain,/In what furnace was thy brain?” (lines 13-14) emphasizes the role of the creator in shaping the Tyger’s form and nature.

References:

“What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” (lines 3-4)
“In the forests of the night” (line 2)
“And when thy heart began to beat./What dread hand? & what dread feet?” (lines 11-12)
“Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (line 20)
“What the hammer? What the chain,/In what furnace was thy brain?” (lines 13-14)

Literary Theories and Interpretations of “The Tyger” by William Blake

Reader-Response Theory: Reader-response theory suggests that the meaning of a literary work is constructed by the reader’s personal response to the text. In the case of “The Tyger,” the reader’s interpretation of the poem may be influenced by their own experiences and beliefs about the nature of good and evil. For example, a reader who believes in a benevolent God may see the Tyger as a symbol of evil, while a reader who believes in a more ambiguous or dualistic view of the universe may see the Tyger as a powerful and necessary force. The ambiguity of the poem allows for multiple interpretations, making it a rich text for reader-response analysis.
New Criticism: New Criticism focuses on the text itself, rather than its historical or biographical context. In “The Tyger,” New Criticism would emphasize the imagery and symbolism used by Blake to create a powerful and ambiguous portrait of the Tyger. For example, the Tyger’s “fearful symmetry” may be interpreted as a symbol of the paradoxical nature of the universe, where good and evil are often intertwined. The repetition of the phrase “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” and the use of rhetorical questions may also be analyzed for their impact on the poem’s meaning.
Marxist Criticism: Marxist criticism focuses on the political and economic context of a literary work. In the case of “The Tyger,” a Marxist reading might analyze the poem as a critique of industrial capitalism and its effects on the natural world. The Tyger’s fiery eyes and fierce demeanor could be seen as a symbol of the destructive power of industrialization, which has the potential to destroy both the natural world and the human spirit. The poem’s emphasis on the creator’s power and the question of whether the same creator made the Lamb and the Tyger could also be analyzed from a Marxist perspective, as a commentary on the unequal distribution of power in society.
Psychoanalytic Criticism: Psychoanalytic criticism analyzes literary works through the lens of psychology and the unconscious mind. In “The Tyger,” a psychoanalytic interpretation might focus on the speaker’s sense of fear and awe in the face of the Tyger’s power, and the unconscious desires and fears that this power represents. The Tyger could be seen as a symbol of the repressed or dangerous aspects of the speaker’s psyche, while the Lamb represents innocence and purity. The repetition of the questions throughout the poem could also be analyzed from a psychoanalytic perspective, as a manifestation of the speaker’s unconscious desire for understanding and meaning.

Essay Topics, Questions and Thesis Statements about “The Tyger” by William Blake

Topic: The Significance of Religious Imagery in “The Tyger” by William Blake

Question on Topic : How does the use of religious imagery in “The Tyger” contribute to the poem’s themes and meaning?

Thesis Statement: In “The Tyger,” William Blake uses religious imagery to convey the idea that the natural world is both beautiful and terrifying, and that its creator is both benevolent and fearsome, ultimately suggesting that the mysteries of creation are beyond human understanding.

Topic: The Symbolism of the Tyger in “The Tyger” by William Blake

Question on Topic: What does the Tyger symbolize in “The Tyger” and how does this contribute to the poem’s meaning?

Thesis Statement: Through the powerful symbolism of the Tyger in “The Tyger,” William Blake explores the dual nature of creation, using the Tyger as a symbol of the natural world’s beauty, power, and terror, ultimately suggesting that the mysteries of creation are both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

Topic: The Role of Literary Devices in “The Tyger” by William Blake

Question on Topic: How do the literary devices used in “The Tyger” contribute to the poem’s meaning and effect?

Thesis Statement: Through the use of vivid imagery, rhetorical questions, and repetition, William Blake creates a sense of wonder and awe in “The Tyger,” ultimately suggesting that the mysteries of creation are beyond human understanding and that the natural world is both beautiful and terrifying.

Topic: The Relationship between “The Tyger” and “The Lamb” in William Blake’s Poetry

Question on Topic: How does “The Tyger” relate to “The Lamb” in William Blake’s poetry and what does this suggest about his worldview?

Thesis Statement: Through the contrast between “The Tyger” and “The Lamb” in his poetry, William Blake explores the dual nature of creation and suggests that the mysteries of existence are both beautiful and terrifying, ultimately offering a vision of the divine that is both benevolent and fearsome.

Short Questions-Answers about “The Tyger” by William Blake

How does the poem illustrate the Romantic literary movement?

Answer: “The Tyger” embodies many of the Romantic literary ideals, including the celebration of nature, the expression of emotion, and the rejection of rationalism. The poem’s focus on the awe-inspiring power of the Tyger and the use of vivid imagery to convey this power illustrate the Romantic emphasis on emotion and imagination. Additionally, the poem’s allusions to religious and mythological figures suggest a connection to the natural world and the divine, which is a common theme in Romantic literature.

How does the poem explore the theme of creation?

Answer: “The Tyger” is primarily concerned with the question of how the Tyger came to be, and the poem explores this theme through the use of vivid imagery and rhetorical questions. The repeated refrain of “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” emphasizes the power and significance of the Tyger’s creation, while the speaker’s questions about the Tyger’s origins and the process of its creation suggest a sense of wonder and mystery. The poem ultimately suggests that the Tyger’s creation is a complex and awe-inspiring process that is beyond human understanding.

How does the poem use literary devices to convey its message?

Answer: “The Tyger” makes use of several literary devices, including repetition, allusion, imagery, and rhetorical questions, to convey its message about the power and complexity of creation. The repetition of the phrase “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” emphasizes the significance of the Tyger and creates a sense of symmetry throughout the poem. The allusions to religious and mythological figures suggest a cosmic significance to the Tyger’s creation. The vivid imagery of the fire burning in the Tyger’s eyes and the stars throwing down their spears conveys the power and majesty of the Tyger. Finally, the rhetorical questions throughout the poem create a sense of wonder and uncertainty about the Tyger’s creation.

How does “The Tyger” reflect the cultural and historical context of its time?

Answer: “The Tyger” was written during the Romantic period, a time of significant social and cultural change in Europe. The poem reflects the Romantic emphasis on emotion and imagination, as well as the rejection of rationalism and the celebration of nature. Additionally, the poem’s exploration of the theme of creation reflects the cultural and intellectual context of the time, which saw a growing interest in scientific inquiry and the natural world. Finally, the poem’s use of religious and mythological allusions reflects the ongoing influence of religion on culture and thought during this period.

Literary Works Similar to “The Tyger” by William Blake

“The Lamb” by William Blake: The companion poem to “The Tyger” from Blake’s Songs of Innocence , offering a contrasting view of creation. It explores innocence, gentleness, and a benevolent creator.
“Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake: This lengthy poem presents a series of paradoxes, examining the interconnectedness of good and evil, beauty and suffering, mirroring the complexities of “The Tyger”.
Paradise Lost by John Milton: Milton’s epic poem grapples with the fall of Satan and the origins of evil, a core theme Blake also questions in “The Tyger”.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Shelley’s novel explores dangerous creation, the consequences of playing God, and the line between creator and creation, similar to the dynamic explored in “The Tyger”.
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats: Keats’ poem delves into themes of beauty, mortality, and the enduring nature of art, resonating with Blake’s immortalization of the tyger.
“The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats: This apocalyptic poem shares a sense of awe and dread with “The Tyger”, exploring a chaotic, powerful force reshaping the world.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of William Blake’s The Tyger

Analysis of William Blake’s The Tyger

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on February 17, 2021 • ( 0 )

The Tyger is the terrifying pendant to The Lamb in William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience as its climactic rhetorical question makes clear: “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” Like “The Lamb,” it takes the form of an address to the animal that is the poem’s subject, and as in the other poem, it asks the question, “Who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?” The speaker of “The Tyger” is not a child, though, but a man overwhelmed by the fierceness that the tiger embodies. Where the lamb is an embodiment of gentleness, innocence, and trust, the tiger represents everything dreadful about life—about the forests of the night where we spend the half of our lives in which we are the prey of experience.

“The Lamb” alerts us to one important element of “The Tyger,” which is the way the creature represents his creator. The creator of the lamb calls himself a lamb and is childlike. The creator of the tiger is dreadful. The poem gives us as much a bodily sense of the creator as of the creation: It is God’s shoulder that provides the force to twist the sinews of the tiger’s heart, so that we can see in those sinews the straining sinews that formed them. God’s dread hand formed the tiger’s dread feet, the dreadfulness of one making palpable the dreadfulness of the other.

The tiger’s fierceness is so overwhelming that the stars themselves throw down their spears and water heaven with their tears. Within the context of the poem, this means that the celestial phenomena of starlight and rain reach us as a kind of cosmic response to the creation of the tiger. The animal then becomes pure representation: He represents God’s power rather than being an actual element in the speaker’s world.

This is evident in the famous change from the first to the last stanza, where the final question is altered from: “What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” to “What immortal hand or eye, / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” The first question is addressed to the tiger, just as the child has addressed the lamb. But even though the rest of the poem continues to apostrophize the tiger, he feels less and less present as a separate being, becoming more and more an object of the speaker’s own fierce contemplation. His final question is the culmination of his questions about God. It addresses the tiger only in form, but it is purely rhetorical.

The interesting thing about that rhetorical question is that its answer is not obvious. That is to say, the question may be rephrased as this: “Who but Jehovah himself could dare such a thing?” Or it may instead be rephrased this way: “ How could any immortal, even Jehovah himself, dare frame such a creature?” The first question implies an answer in which the tiger represents the awe-inspring power of the creator. The second implies a different answer: the creator’s willingness to create a world of inhuman ferocity.

Notice that unlike the lamb, the tiger is not blessed at the end of the poem, nor is he cursed. This is because he does not belong to the world he represents. He has become instead the sign, or avatar, of the world’s ferocity, and perhaps a sign that that ferocity is intended by God and not just the random workings of nature.

In any case, it is worth considering the status of the lamb after reading “The Tyger.” The rhetorical questions that end the penultimate stanza ask:

Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

That last question is climactic and is put in a suggestive parallel with the question before it. The work at issue is the tiger, and so the smile lines up with the lamb, perhaps the most terrifying idea in the poem. But it need not be, since whatever doubt it casts on the gentleness or genuiness of God’s smile, the lamb is immune to that doubt. “Did he smile his work to see?” might mean that God’s smile is not one to trust. But the lamb does not represent the untrustworthiness of “The Tyger”’s God. It represents the still undeterred alternative to the tiger. That the creator of the lamb could also create the tiger is terrifying, but that means the lamb is still one of the irreducible terms in the representation of this terror, and that means that he resists and overcomes it, so that the lamb’s power of salvation—or of innocence, truth, or hope—are just as much represented by the purely representational tiger as are their opposites. And remember that the lamb is real, in its poem, whereas the tiger is an imaginary vision.

Bibliography Bloom, Harold. Blake’s Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1970. ———. Poetry and Repression: Revisionism from Blake to Stevens. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976. Damrosch, Leopold. Symbol and Truth in Blake’s Myth. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. Erdmann, David V. Blake, Prophet against Empire: A Poet’s Interpretation of the History of His Own Times. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977. Fry, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974. Gilchrist, Alexander. Life of William Blake, with Selections from His Poems and Other Writings. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1973. Hollander, John. “Blake and the Metrical Contract,” In From Sensibility to Romanticism, edited by Frederick Hilles and Harold Bloom, 293–310. New York: Oxford, 1965. Reprinted in John Hollander, Vision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form, 187–211. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. Ostriker, Alicia. “Desire Gratified and Ungratified: William Blake and Sexuality.” Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly 16 (1982–83): 156–165. Raine, Kathleen. Blake and Antiquity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977. Thompson, E. P., Witness against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger

Meanings of The Tyger by William Blake

The poem “The Tyger” by William Blake presents the main idea of the destructive power of the Divine and God’s creation. The poet presents his idea of innocence against experience and its bright and dark sides.

Meanings of Stanza -1

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

Using repetitions and alliterations in the very first line, the poet presents the beast, the tiger, that seems angry when it comes out in the forest at night. However, the poet rather feels mesmerized by its beauty and thinks about the Creator, who has created this creature with a fearful symmetry, using an interrogative sentence . This inquiry of the poet brings a plethora of results with another set of questions. In fact, this stanza supports the main idea by questioning the innocence of this creature.

Meanings of Stanza -2

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?

The poet poses more questions to the tiger. He asks the tiger where it gets the fire of its eyes from. He also questions it his aspiration, which is akin to flying. Then he questions the hands who could seize this fire of the eyes of the tiger. The innocent questions, however, show the inquisitive nature of the poet, who wants to discover the motive of the Creator behind this creation. This stanza further contributes to the main idea of the poem, which is the experience of innocence.

Meanings of Stanza -3

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?

The poet is mesmerized by the beauty of the tiger that is due to “fearful symmetry.” He says that the beauty of the shoulder and sinews of the heart of the tiger is mesmerizing as he asks the tiger about it. He again questions it about the beating of the heart and the dread that the hands and feet cause. In fact, the poet wants to know how the Creator has created this beautiful yet fearful creature. This stanza contributes to the main idea of the poem by inquiring more about this seemingly innocent creature.

Meanings of Stanza -4

What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

The poet poses more questions. He inquires about the hammer that has shaped the chain that has bound the tiger. He also wants to know the furnace where his brain was prepared. He asks about the entire workmanship, including the anvil but then feels surprised, asking questions about any grasp that could clasp the tiger with its terror. This shows that the poet is now asking questions about the terrible organs and things and their making. This stanza contributes to the main idea of the poem by showing the dark sides of the seemingly innocent creatures.

Meanings of Stanza -5

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?

This stanza presents the situation where the creature was created. The poet asks whether the heaven has created the tiger when the stars threw their spears and wept over this creature. Whether the Creator smiled when creating this creature or not is another question that comes into the mind of the poet. In fact, the poet uses simple creator but, in fact, he means God, though, he uses small letter initials. But he immediately questions whether God also creates the lamb, an innocent creature, and the tiger, this fearful creature, simultaneously. This stanza contributes to the overall meaning of innocence versus experience.

Meanings of Stanza -6

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The argument of the creature by the Creator has come full circle in this stanza. The poet repeats the first stanza with the same alliterations and repetitions to stress his point about the “fearful symmetry” of the tiger in which lies its beauty. However, it has been inquired through an interrogative sentence that shows the poetic quality of the verses . The poet asks whether these burning the same Immortal Hand or Eye has created these bright eyes. However, instead of having an answer, the poet poses more questions to show this side of the creation. This stanza completes the main idea of the poem, which is innocence versus experience.

Summary of The Tyger

Popularity of “The Tyger”: William Blake, a great artist, and poet, wrote ‘The Tyger’. It is known as the most cryptic lyrical poem of English literature and was first published in 1794 in Blake’s first volume of Songs of Experience . The poem presents the amazement of the speaker about the creation of a fiery tiger. It also illustrates the significance of God’s power and the existence of the divine will.
“The Tyger” “As a Representative of Wonder” : As this poem is about the creation of a tiger, the writer expresses that everything present in the universe reflects the image of its creator despite its cruel nature. The emphatically striking image of the tiger makes him think of its creator, and he doubts if this violent thing is created by God or Satan. In fact, he gets puzzled at the sight of a tiger in the dark. Therefore, he poses a series of questions about his fierce appearance and the creator who has created it. On seeing its perfect symmetry, he questions what tools God could have used to craft its body. He also resolves as his questions are unanswerable and beyond human understanding by comparing the tiger with fire and talks about the existence of evil in the world. However, what enchants the readers is the way he juxtaposes evil and good in the poem.
Major Themes in “The Tyger”: Wonder and good versus evil are the major themes in the poem. The writer has used visual imagery coupled with other literary elements to incorporate these themes in the text. Throughout the poem, the speaker shows a sense of awe and wonder about the creation of the tiger. While observing the astounding symmetry of the tiger, he fails to understand how the same God who created the gentle lamb could also make the vicious Tiger. However, the poem reflects that humans cannot understand the supremacy of God’s and his work.

Analysis of Literary Devices in The Tyger

literary devices are tools that enable writers to present their ideas, emotions, and feelings with the use of these devices. Blake has also used literary devices in this poem to show the fearsome and yet magnificent image of a tiger. The analysis of some of the literary devices used in this poem has been analyzed below.

Assonance : Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line such as the sound of/i/ in “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” and /ae/ sound in “Dare its deadly terrors clasp!”
Metaphor : It is a figure of speech used to compare two objects or persons different in nature. There are two metaphors in the poem. The first is used in the second line, “In the forests of the night” he compares tiger with darkness and repression. The second is used in the sixth line, “Burnt the fire of thine eyes?” he compares its eyes with fire or something evil.
Rhetorical Question : Rhetorical Question is a question that is not asked to receive an answer; it is just posed to make the point clear. Blake has used a series of questions in this poem to emphasize his point such as given below:

“What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp.”

Personification : Personification is to attribute human qualities to inanimate things. Blake has used personification in the fifth stanza where he considers stars as humans,

“When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears:”

Alliteration : Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /t/ and /b/ in “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” and the sound of /f/ in “Dare frame thy fearful symmetry”.
Apostrophe : An apostrophe is a device used to call somebody from far. The poet has used this device in the first line, “Tyger Tyger, burning bright.”
Symbolism : Symbolism is using symbols to signify ideas and qualities, giving them symbolic meanings that are different from the literal meanings. “The Tyger” represents the evil and beauty too, “the forest of the night” represents unknown challenges, “the blacksmith” represents the creator and “the fearful symmetry” symbolizes the existence of both good and evil.
Imagery : Imagery is used to make the readers perceive things with their five senses. Blake has used imagery to show the unique creation of God such as, “What immortal hand or eye,”, “Burnt the fire of thine eyes?” and “In the forests of the night.”

The literary analysis shows that Blake has skillfully employed these devices to make the poem simple to understand.

Analysis of Poetic Devices in The Tyger

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is an analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

Stanza : A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are six stanzas in this poem with each stanza having four lines in it.
Quatrain : A quatrain is a four-lined stanza borrowed from Persian poetry. Here, each stanza is quatrain as the first one or the second one.
Rhyme Scheme : The rhyme scheme followed in the entire poem is AABB.
End Rhyme : End rhyme is used to make the stanza melodious. End rhyme occurs within the second and third lines and again within the second and fourth lines. The rhyming words are, “bright”, “night”, “skies” and “eyes.”
Repetition : There is a repetition of the phrase , “Tyger Tyger burning bright”, which has created a musical quality in the poem.
Refrain : The words that are repeated at some distance in the poem are called refrain . The phrase, “Tyger Tyger burning bright” is repeated with the same words; it has become a refrain as it has been repeated in the first and last stanzas.

Quotes to be Used

The lines quoted below can be used when describing a tiger in a science class or while sharing a fantasy story with a tiger in it.

A Poison Tree
Auguries of Innocence
The Chimney Sweeper
The Little Black Boy
The Sick Rose
Mother to Son
She Walks in Beauty
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
O Captain! My Captain!
Phenomenal Woman
The Waste Land
A Dream within a Dream
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
We Wear the Mask
The World is Too Much With Us
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be
In Flanders Fields
Little Bo-Peep
Acquainted with the Night
When You Are Old
Those Winter Sundays
Mary Had a Little Lamb
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways
Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word
Jabberwocky
See It Through
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
The Highwayman
Success is Counted Sweetest
Lift Every Voice and Sing
The Wreck of the Hesperus
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Lady Lazarus
The Twelve Days of Christmas
The Cremation of Sam McGee
Ballad of Birmingham
I Hear America Singing
Sailing to Byzantium
Of Modern Poetry
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Song of the Open Road
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Little Miss Muffet
O Me! O Life!
The Albatross
My Life Had Stood – a Loaded Gun
The Snow Man
Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
The Man He Killed
Abou Ben Adhem
Verses upon the Burning of Our House
The Song of Wandering Aengus
The Mother
Frost at Midnight
On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
The Convergence of the Twain
Sunflower Sutra
Composed upon Westminster Bridge
A Supermarket in California
Concord Hymn
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Song: To Celia
Love Among The Ruins
Carrion Comfort
Fra Lippo Lippi
Speech: “Is this a dagger which I see before me
Que Sera Sera
After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes
The Black-Faced Sheep
Never Seek to Tell thy Love
A Cradle Song
Infant Sorrow
The Echoing Green
The Wildflower’s Song

Poetry Contests

‘The Tyger’ by William Blake: Poem and Analysis

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?

Analysis of the Poem

This poem contemplates a question arising from the idea of creation by an intelligent creator. The question is this: If there is a loving, compassionate God or gods who created human beings and whose great powers exceed the comprehension of human beings, as many major religions hold, then why would such a powerful being allow evil into the world?

Evil here is represented by a tiger that might, should you be strolling in the Indian or African wild in the 1700s, have leapt out and killed you. What would have created such a dangerous and evil creature? How could it possibly be the same divine blacksmith who created a cute, harmless, fluffy lamb or who created Jesus, also known as the “Lamb of God” (which the devoutly Christian Blake was probably also referring to here).

To put it another way, why would such a divine blacksmith create beautiful, innocent children and then also allow such children to be slaughtered. The battery of questions brings this mystery to life with lavish intensity. Does Blake offer an answer to this question of evil from a good God? It would seem not on the surface. But this wouldn’t be a great poem if it were really that open-ended. The answer comes in the way that Blake explains the question.

Blake’s language peels away the mundane world and offers a look at the super-reality that poets are privy to. We fly about in “forests of the night” through “distant deeps or skies,” looking for where the fire in the tiger’s eye was taken from by the Creator. This is the reality of expanded time, space, and perception that Blake so clearly elucidates elsewhere with the lines “To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, / And eternity in an hour” (“Auguries of Innocence”). This indirectly tells us that the reality we ordinarily know and perceive is really insufficient, shallow, and deceptive.

Where we perceive the injustice of the wild tiger, something else entirely may be transpiring. What we ordinarily take for truth may really be far from it: a thought that is scary, yet also sublime or beautiful—like the beautiful and fearsome tiger. Thus, this poem is great because it concisely and compellingly presents a question that still plagues humanity today, as well as a key clue to the answer.

William Blake was an English poet of the early Romantic period. He was also a skilled engraver and artist. Although against organized religion, he was passionately Christian and frequently had visions, which, combined with the spiritual nature of his poetry and art, led to his often being thought of as a lunatic.

Analysis by Society of Classical Poets Editor Evan Mantyk. An earlier version of this analysis appeared here .

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.

CODEC Stories:

4 Responses

That was back when SCP was just getting started. My, but it has come a long way. This entry was from almost six years ago. Keep up the good work.

Hello, I am wondering who had written this analysis, as I am citing this for a paper I am writing.

Please, and thanks.

My first comment was in reply to Caleb, but this is now independent. Thanks.

The analysis author is now above. It is by Society of Classical Poets Editor Evan Mantyk

“The Tyger” by William Blake Essay

Introduction, the major theme of the poem, the stunning imagery of the poem, the literary devices used in the poem, the significance of the poem, reference list.

William Blake is one of the most renowned English men of letters. “The Tyger” is one of his most famous poems, which is highly analyzed. This popularity can be explained by a number of factors. The poem was created in 1794 and rather a few people actually saw a tiger. Therefore, for some people the poem was a kind of reminding of the fearful experience and for others the poem was a source of ‘bright’ and ‘evocative’ knowledge.

The poet depicts one of the most majestic animals in the world and he manages to reveal the beauty and covert danger. The poem is rightfully regarded as one of the best literary works in the world literature due to the stunning imagery with its special grave mood created by the author and the use of bright literary devices and figures of speech which help the poet reveal his vision.

To begin with, the poem is quite short and it has a single theme. The entire poem is a depiction of a tiger. Of course, this is a literary work and the depiction involves the poet’s evaluation or rather contemplation. Blake does not simply provide physical characteristics of the animal. The poet keeps depicting the animal as a beautiful but dangerous beast whose “fearful symmetry” makes people tremble (Blake, 2008, p. 24).

This precision and even certain density make the work really evocative. The poet manages to reveal his major message, i.e. fascination for the dangerous beauty of the animal and appreciation of the superior forces which created this amazing beast. Thus, the poet does not simply provide a picture, but he creates a small world where the “tyger” reigns.

It is necessary to note that this world is bright and full of rich color. Remarkably, there are hardly particular images or objects. The poem provides some tinges of colors and some shapes of objects. The poet does not describe stars, but he focuses on “their spears” and “water’d heaven with their tears” (Blake, 2008, p. 24). Furthermore, Blake provides really stunning imagery as he contemplates on the creation of the beast.

Again, the poet does not depict some consecutive actions or the creator. The poet concentrates on the tools. Blake enquires, “What the hammer? What the chain,/ In what furnace was thy brain? / What the anvil?” (Blake, 2008, p. 25). Thus, Blake uses some bright details which do not show the entire picture but help to recreate it. Notably, the poet makes the reader use his/her imagination. Thus, the reader is a co-creator of the world.

It is also necessary to note that the imagery of the poem creates a really special mood. The mood is somewhat grave as the poet is talking about a ‘fearful’ beast and its creation. Blake mentions the creator and it is impossible to think of another mood when dealing with such essential things.

It goes without saying that the poet exploits a number of literary devices and figures of speech to create his world. The poem is full of metaphors. For example, instead of saying dark forests, the poet uses the metaphor “forests of the night” (Blake, 2008, p. 24). This contributes to creation of the grave mood of the poem. Again, Blake makes the reader imagine his/her own forest, which makes the poem even more appealing.

The poet also uses an allusion instead of simply saying that God (or, maybe, Devil) is the creator. The poet enquires, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (Blake, 2008, p. 25).

This allusion refers to God. However, the poet expresses his doubt that such a terrifying beast could be created by such a kind God. At any rate, Blake claims that the beast was created by superior forces and it is the reader who is to decide which forces, good or evil, are the creators.

To sum up, it is necessary to note that Blake’s poem “The Tyger” is one of the most remarkable poems as it is characterized by bright imagery and brilliant literary devices. The poet creates a very special atmosphere where the tiger is created by the forces of the good or the evil. The poet manages to reveal the way he sees the beast. Obviously, Blake is fascinated by the beauty of the animal, but the poet also claims that this is dangerous and fearful beauty.

Blake, W. (2008). The complete poetry and prose of William Blake . Berkley, LA: University of South California Press.

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Bibliography

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The Tyger by William Blake – Summary and Questions

Table of Contents

The Tyger by William Blake

Introduction “The Tyger” is a poem by William Blake that was first published in 1794 as part of the Songs of Experience collection. Alfred Kazin, a literary critic, describes it as “the most famous of his poems,” and The Cambridge Companion to William Blake describes it as “the most anthologized poem in English.” It is one of the most frequently reinterpreted and arranged works by Blake. “The Tiger,” formerly titled “The Tyger,” is a lyric poem about God and his creations. Modern anthologies frequently include “The Tiger” alongside an earlier Blake poem, “The Lamb,” which was published in 1789 in Songs of Innocence.

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Blake published The Songs of Experience in 1794 as a sequel to his 1789 Songs of Innocence. The two books were combined under the title Songs of Innocence and Experience, Demonstrating the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, with 54 plates by author and printer W. Blake. In some copies, the illustrations have been rearranged, and a number of poems have been transferred from Songs of Innocence to Songs of Experience. Blake continued to print the work for the remainder of his years. Only 28 copies of the original collection were known to have been published during his lifetime, with an additional 16 being published posthumously. Only five of the poems from Songs of Experience were published separately prior to 1839.

Short Summary

The Tyger by William Blake is taken from The Songs of Experience. The poem was published in 1794. It is about the essence of creation, much like Blake’s earlier poem, “The Lamb,” from the Songs of Innocence. However, this poem reflects on the darker aspect of life as its benefits are less apparent than simple joys. Blake’s simple vocabulary and formal structure undermine the depth of his ideas. This poem is meant to be viewed in relation and contrast to “The Lamb,” demonstrating the “two opposing states of the human soul” with respect to surrounding creation.

It has been often said that Blake claimed that in order to attain a higher level of consciousness, a human must move through an innocent state of being, like that of the lamb, and also imbibe the contrasting conditions of experience, such as those of the tiger. In any case, Blake’s idea of creative power in the world that makes a harmony between innocence and experience is at the core of this poem

Line – Wise Summary

Lines 1 – 2: William Blake’s tiger is a wild, passionate character . It is a monster, a beast, that lives in the shadows and dark hours of life. Some also found this tiger to reflect the dark shadow of the human soul just as Carl Jung would characterize it more than a century later. It is the beastly aspect of ourselves that we would prefer to keep in our night-time fantasies even if it were to be somewhere. In Blake’s poetry night always seems to indicate such kind of dream time. Under this beast’s influence, the forests may reflect the wild landscape of our imagination.

Lines 3 – 4: In the context of the first two lines in Blake’s poem, The Lamb, these two lines should be familiar. They also rhyme with each other. Since they appear in the companion text to Experience, we may draw the inference that this poem is intended to be interpreted in conjunction with and in contrast to that earlier force. We are told to consider not the tiger’s biological parentage but rather the tiger’s Spiritual Parentage. By doing so, we will begin to equate a lamb’s existence with a tiger and continue to grasp Blake’s theory of creation. The fact that is maybe the same everlasting hand developed both the domesticated and tamed nature of the lamb and the tiger’s wild characteristic is frightening in a way. There’s a balance there, but maybe not the sort of balance we’d want for ourselves given the option.

Lines 9 – 10: These lines refer to the power of the tiger, and of its creator. Shoulders and art both bear obligations and burden. Sinews are the very tendons that make the heart function and are therefore regarded as a source of power and energy. Blake seems to imply that this mighty creature’s creator is amazing in his own right. We get the very picture of imagination here, too, as it happens. We are seeing the shoulders at work. We see the creativity cycle mixing the elements which make up a tiger together. We see material core turning into form. The heart not only reflects the tiger’s biochemical power but probably its love for life.

Lines 11 – 12: Now, the tiger, the creation itself, has a life of its own. No longer under the artist’s influence, Blake wonders what the artist would have thought in making it. Note that Blake, or his protagonist, talks explicitly to the tiger, much as the lamb speaker does. In the concise words, we understand the narrator’s response to speaking explicitly to the tiger, and in these lines, the central idea is “dread.” There appears to be an implied unspoken query here, specifically, “Why?” Perhaps there is an effort to reconcile the wild beast with a sense of balance about the world and its workings. Could God have created a dreadful thing, and if so does this job make the hands of God dreadful?

Lines 13 – 14: The language in these two sentences is, once again, more infernal than divine. Hammers, shackles, and furnaces sound more like the laboratory of an industrial manufacturer than an artist workshop. Condemnation of the Industrial Revolution is one of the themes in Songs of Experience. These lines may indicate that industry’s encroachment on the pastoral landscape of Blake’s childhood was the tangible hell the poet was referring to. Again we have to go back to the picture of a fiery tiger whose very thoughts started in a furnace. Creation here comes not so much from divine inspiration as from divine perspiration.

Lines 15 – 16: An anvil is a tool of art as well as of industry. God or Satan or the artist clasps and seizes with zeal and courage. What makes your bravery and passion so frightening and deadly? The essence of imagination is also Blake’s favourite theme. Through these lines, he is faced with his darkest thoughts about what making entails. However, he also implies the tiger was not to have been made.

Lines 17 – 18:

These lines reinforce the notion of lost and fallen angels. When defeated and doomed to death, Lucifer’s minions were believed to have produced the milky way with their tears. Their fight was about rendering angels in God’s eyes superior to humans, but God refused. The distinction between humans and the angels, it is said, is that human beings have been created with the potential to change. Lucifer, as the Devil will make us forget that possibility. What does this myth have to do with the tiger? Perhaps, Blake is playing with the idea of perception. It is how we perceive the tiger that makes him terrifying or passionate. Remember, if we continue with the JudeoChristianIslamic canon, God created Lucifer and his followers, as well as the lambs. This is a fairly awesome concept. Something beautiful comes out of even the fallen angel’s descent—the stars themselves.

Lines 19 – 20 Eventually, Blake answers the fateful question and gets down to work. Has the same God who made the tiger made the lamb too? This makes the idea of God all the more amazing if it is true. It means God knows what we humans do not. It implies that God has the potential for tenderness and fear and that there is no more joy in either. It also refers to the artists ‘ personal opinions. Often artists make art that is distasteful to the public, but does that mean they shouldn’t smile at their own work and know that it can be best appreciated with time? It must have been something Blake dealt with himself during his lifetime because the world did not accept his work until much later on in his career.

Lines 21- 22: Blake uses repetition to reinforce his ideas and to ask us to take another look at the meaning. If the tiger is not only burning, but it is burning brightly, then isn’t it a creature of light? If it is a creature of light, walking through the darkness, then doesn’t it serve to illuminate the shadows within ourselves, and out in the world? Finally, if this tiger, with its inner strength and prowess, serves as a guiding light through the darkness then doesn’t our fear of it becomes rather shortsighted?

Blake uses repetition to clarify his theories and challenge others to look at the meaning another way. If not only the tiger burns, but it burns brilliantly, then is it not a creature of light? If it is a creature of light, passing in the dark, does it not illuminate the shadows inside and out of the world? Ultimately, if this tiger, with its inner strength and prowess, acts as a leading light in the darkness then does not our fear of it become very short-sighted?

Once again, it is highly recommended that Blake’s poetry student strive to display his illustrations in accordance with the reading of his poems. There are several different tiger depictions, and in some, it seems to be a fearsome beast, but in other paintings, it seems that the tiger is something like a guiding light. Blake appears to have loved building the same ambiguity he found in the works of God.

Line 23: There is an invincible immortal who created both the docile lamb and the raging tiger. To consider the organism, we are told to consider the maker. In contemplation, we do need to look at the artist’s imagination in this world’s microcosm. It is important that Blake uses the word “dare” in the last paragraph, rather than “might,” as it highlights once again the idea of courage in relation to life. Finally, once again we must equate and contrast the beast with the tamed one, and we must find the correct equilibrium of nature formed by the Divine eye.

Important Questions Answers

Q. How do the first two lines (called a couplet) contrast? Ans . The first line of this poem mentions the dark “forest of the night,” while the second line speaks of the “burning” brightness of the tiger’s colouring. Blake is contrasting images of lightness and darkness to reinforce the tiger’s uniqueness and majesty.

Q. How does the speaker present the Tyger, as compared to the lamb in Blake’s other poem? Ans . The Tyger is more complex and more ferocious than the lamb. It lacks the innocence of the lamb, and serves as a hunter rather than hunted. Lastly, the Tyger is fiery coloured, while the lamb is pure white.

Q. Explain the implications of the two words ‘immortal’ and ‘fearful’ about the image of the tiger. Ans . The poet expresses wonder at the awful beauty of the creature and asks what “immortal hand or eye” could have framed it. Note the two words “immortal” and “fearful”. They signify the fact that the tiger is a symbol of both terror and divinity.

Q. What does the Tyger by William Blake mean? Ans . The Tyger is drawn from The Songs of Experience written by William Blake. The’ Tyger’ is a symbolic tiger symbolic of the evil force of the human soul. It is created in the fire of imagination by God, who has a supreme imagination, spirituality and ideas.

Q. What does the Tyger symbolize? Ans . The ‘tiger’ in William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” is a symbol of evil. The terms used to characterize the tiger include “burning” (line 1) and “fire” (6), both of these mean hell fires. Blake also uses “fearful” (4), “dread” (12,15), and “deadly terrors” (16) to characterize feeling with which the tiger is associated.

Q. What kind of poem is The Tyger by William Blake? Ans . “The Tyger” is a short poem of very standard shape and meter, in the style of a child’s rhyme definitely not in substance and implication. It is written in six quatrains each made up of two rhyming couplets with a pulsing, steady, mostly-trochaic rhythm.

Q. The fourth stanza compares the creator of the Tyger to what/whom? Ans . The speaker uses metaphor to compare the Tyger’s creator to a blacksmith.

Q. Unlike in his “The Lamb,” Blake’s “The Tyger” offers no answers for the speaker’s questions. What does the lack of responses suggest is the poem’s message about creation? Answers may vary. Example: The unanswered questions suggest that the speaker is in awe of the creator. It may also suggest that the speaker would rather have the reader contemplate the difficult questions he asked. The rhetorical questions leave readers questioning their own creation and deliberating the answers for themselves.

Q. What is the main theme in the Tyger? Ans. The main theme of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” is creation and origin. The speaker is in awe because of the tiger’s fearsome quality and sheer elegance, and rhetorically he wonders if the same maker could also have created “the Lamb” (a reference to another of Blake’s poems).

Q. What does burning bright mean in the Tyger? Ans. Burning Bright “may describe the Tyger’s appearance (tigers have fiery orange fur), or it may describe a kind of strength or force that this Tyger holds at a deeper level. Thus, The burning bright means being so fierce, being so capable, so intelligent, and owning the power to do anything. “what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?” The usage of the immortal hand or eye refers to God.

Q. What question does the Speaker of the Tyger ask over and over? Ans. The question that the speaker of “The Tyger” asks over and over again is “What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?” The question is there to say that the tiger is so majestic, almost ideal, but still very threatening and scary.

Q. Why is the Tyger in Songs of Experience? Ans. Blake meant the Songs of Innocence or Experience to display the two contradictory states of the human soul.’ The Tyger’ and ‘The Lamb’ are the two contrary poems in the Songs of Innocence. The Lamb is about a benevolent God who ‘calls himself a Lamb’ and is himself meek and mild.

Q. What is the meaning of fearful symmetry? Ans. Fearful Symmetry is a phrase from a poem entitled “The Tyger” written in 1794 by British author and graphic artist William Blake. Symmetry refers to a sense of proportion and balance which is harmonious and beautiful. In the poem, fearful symmetry can mean something that is terrifying but beautiful.

Q. What is the significance of the one word changed in the last stanza? Ans . The only word that varies between the first and last stanzas is “could,” the word that begins the first stanza’s final line. The word “could” transforms into “dare” in the last stanza. The poem starts by wondering who would construct something as frightening as a tiger.

Q. What does What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry mean? Ans. Blake tops off his first quatrain with a provocative question, “what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?” Blake’s usage of the immortal hand or eye in the line refers to God. So he is expressing what God could create or “frame” is something that is both perfect, symmetrical, and yet scary and threatening.

Q. Which line from the poem The Tyger is an example of alliteration ? Ans. The best example of alliteration in the poem The Tyger is probably the line “Tyger Tyger, burning bright,” which is repeated in the poem to begin the first and last stanzas.

Q. Where in the poem does the speaker wonder of the tiger may have been created by God? Ans. Right in the middle, the speaker asks whether God made the tiger. There are several images which tell us that the tiger may be a demonic creation.

Q. What is the tone of the Tyger? Ans. The tone of the poem “The Tyger” by William Blake is going from awe to terror, to irreverent allegation, to resigned curiosity. In the first eleven lines of the poems, the readers can feel the reverence that the speaker feels for the tiger as a piece of art.

Q. Who is speaking in the Tyger? Ans. The poem deals with open-ended questions that force the reader to think the answers. Unfortunately, the questions are unanswerable for the reader. Therefore, considering that Blake wants the reader to imagine creating the “Tyger,” one might possibly presume Blake is the speaker himself.

Short Answer Questions

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