The Tyger

(Songs of Experience)

By William Blake

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 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 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" just might be William Blake’s most famous poem. Kids read it in
elementary school because it rhymes and is about a tiger . Scholars debate about it
because it connects to much of Blake's other work and its themes touch upon a lot of
the central issues of Blake’s craft.

Published in a collection of poems called Songs of Experience in 1794, Blake wrote

"The Tyger" during his more radical period. He wrote most of his major works during
this time, often railing against oppressive institutions like the church or the monarchy,
or any and all cultural traditions – sexist, racist, or classist – which stifled imagination
or passion. Blake published an earlier collection of poetry called the Songs of
Innocence in 1789. Once Songs of Experience came out five years later, the two
were always published together.

In general, Songs of Innocence contains idyllic poems, many of which deal with
childhood and innocence. Idyllic poems have pretty specific qualities: they’re usually
positive, sometimes extremely happy or optimistic and innocent. They also often take
place in pastoral settings (think countryside; springtime; harmless, cute wildlife;
sunsets; babbling brooks; wandering bards; fair maidens) and many times praise
one or more of these things as subjects.

The poems in Songs of Experience, on the other hand, wrestle with issues of what
happens when that innocence is lost. "The Tyger" is often paired with the poem
called "The Lamb" from Songs of Innocence. The former references the latter and
reexamines the themes of "The Lamb" through the lens of experience. "The Lamb" is
one of those idyllic poems which asks the Lamb who made "thee" (just like "The
Tyger"), praises how soft and cute it is, then tells it that God made it and how
wonderful that is. Blake's tone almost seems ironic (i.e., he actually means
something very different than what he seems to be saying). Many scholars have
argued just that, especially when paired next to his poems about the dangers of
religious dogma.
Summary

"The Tyger" contains only six stanzas, and each stanza is four lines long. The first
and last stanzas are the same, except for one word change: "could" becomes "dare."

"The Tyger" is a poem made of questions. There are no less than thirteen question
marks and only one full sentence that ends with a period instead of a question mark.
Addressing "The Tyger," the speaker questions it as to its creation – essentially:
"Who made you Mr. Tyger?" "How were you made? Where? Why? What was the
person or thing like that made you?"

The poem is often interpreted to deal with issues of inspiration, poetry, mystical
knowledge, God, and the sublime (big, mysterious, powerful, and sometimes scary.
Ever heard the phrase, "To love God is to fear him"? That’s talking about something
sublime). But it’s not about any one thing: this is William Blake.

For better or worse, there really is no narrative movement in "The Tyger": nobody
really does anything other than the speaker questioning "the Tyger." The first stanza
opens the central question: "What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful
symmetry?" The second stanza questions "the Tyger" about where he was created,
the third about how the creator formed him, the fourth about what tools were used.
The fifth stanza goes on to ask about how the creator reacted to his creation ("the
Tyger") and who exactly was this creator. Finally, the sixth restates the central
question while raising the stakes; rather than merely question what/who could create
the Tyger, the speaker wonders: who dares.

● Stanza I

Lines 1-2
Tyger Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,

● These first lines set up to whom the poem is addressed: the "Tyger."

● It begins with the repetition of the name ("Tyger, tyger"). The repetition
creates a chant-like mood to the whole poem, which contributes to the
mysteriousness. Reading it, you can’t help but get the feeling this poem is
about way more than the biggest cat in the world.

● What is this about "burning bright, / In the forests of the night"? Tigers don’t
burn.

● "Burning bright" may describe the appearance of the Tyger (tigers have fiery
orange fur), or it may on a deeper level describe a kind of energy or power
that this Tyger has.

● The Tyger's presence in "the forests of the night" further increases the
mystery and power of the creature – it’s elusive, while at the same time
burning with some sort of inner force.

Lines 3-4
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

● These lines introduce the central question of the poem: what "immortal" being
or force is able to contain or produce the Tyger’s sublime form?

● The "immortal hand or eye," symbols of sight and creation, immediately

conjure references to a creative God (in pretty much all cases with Blake,
"God" refers to the Christian God). If this is so, then questioning whether
God could do anything is a direct attack on the omnipotence of such a God.
 ● To "frame," here, is probably to contain, kind of like putting a picture in a
frame. When you frame something, the boundaries are clear, the object isn’t
going anywhere.

● "Fearful symmetry," is a very nuanced quality to have. "Fearful" references the

scariness of a tiger, but also alludes to the sublime. The sublime is an old
notion of really big, powerful, mysterious stuff that terrifies us because it’s big,
powerful and mysterious. The first BIG example that should come to mind:
God, or the divine (that stuff is big and powerful and mysterious).

● Symmetry is a classical quality of the divine, as well as the defining factor of

artistic beauty.

Stanza II

Lines 5-6
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

● These lines ask where the Tyger was created, and also add to the growing
image the reader has of the Tyger.

● The use of "distant deeps or skies" seems to refer to an otherworldly

("distant") place, perhaps a kind of Hell ("deeps") or Heaven ("skies").

● The metaphor of "burning" from line 1 returns with the burning "fire" of the
Tyger’s eyes, adding to the power and fearfulness of the image.

Lines 7-8
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

● Who is "he"? It may be God, it may be the poet, it may be the artist, it’s
unclear – what "he" is for sure, is the creator of this Tyger. The Tyger – that
we know is a big, powerful, mysterious thing – must have a pretty big,
powerful, mysterious creator.

● The "hand" returns from line 3 as well as "fire," and the image of flying on
wings is added, alluding to supernatural power, but not necessarily a divine
one.

● Also, the notion of daring is introduced, which will be echoed in the last
stanza.

Stanza III and IV

Lines 9-12
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?

● This stanza continues the questioning of who/what the creator of the Tyger is
(notice the "And" continues the thought from the previous stanza).

● What "shoulder" roughly means what kind of bodily strength could create the
Tyger ("twist the sinews of thy heart").

● What "art" refers to the skill that could put the Tyger all together.

● Lines 11 and 12 are more mysterious, in that they're really vague. From
earlier in the poem we know that hands and eyes frame (stanza 1), hands
seize (line 8), shoulders twist (lines 9 and 10), but what do these hands and
feet do after the heart begins to beat? Whose hands and feet? Again, not
sure.

● Whatever the answer, the use of "dread" increases the same big, powerful,
mysterious quality known as "the sublime."

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!

● These lines further question how the Tyger was created.

● Blake uses the metaphor of the blacksmith, who forms metal with a hammer,
furnace (fire), and anvil.

● The stanza is very rhythmic, adding further to the chant-like quality that we
talked about in lines 1-2.

● We also get the sense that the pace and volume is picking up, since the
questions are now coming faster and Blake uses his first exclamation point.

Stanza V and VI

Lines 17-20
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?

● These lines are the most clearly "Christian" of the poem.

 ● Lines 17 and 18 are a bit ambiguous, and may refer to the casting down of the
angels after Satan rebelled against God (see Paradise Lost).

● The same "he" reappears here as in line 7, but in a much more Christian
setting, more closely referencing God than the other stanza.

● The "Lamb" is a traditional Christian symbol for Jesus Christ (who was "made"
by God). It also refers back to Blake’s poem "The Lamb" in Songs of
Innocence.

Lines 21-24
Tyger Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

● The final stanza echoes the first, but why?

● Along with the rhyming and chant-like rhythm, the repetition may be like a
refrain, like song’s chorus.

● The repetition is also a very clever device to get us to notice the one change
that is made to the stanza: "could" is switched to "dare."

● Now, instead of questioning the ability of the creator, Blake questions

his [Link] seems to challenge the courage of whatever/whoever tried or
tries to contain ("frame") the big, powerful, mysteriousness of the Tyger.

Analysis
Setting

An abstract setting; "Forests of the night" and "distant deeps or

skies"
The setting of "The Tyger," or at least the worlds this poem seems to conjure up, are
extremely varied. In general, though, it takes place in the abstract, without much more than
"Forests of the night," and "distant deeps or skies," to give the reader any sense of location.
However, the lack of a concrete setting is just as important as the presence. Think of
watching a play in a theater in which the whole stage is dark except for one spotlight. There
is no setting in the sense of it taking place in a house or in a field – it’s abstract. The most
important quality, then, is that it has no obvious setting, just like the poem. Blake has placed
the spotlight on the Tyger, but where it is, or where the speaker is, are not part of the
equation.

The "forests of the night" are dark and mysterious, cloaking and hiding the fiery symbol of
the Tyger. The "distant deeps or skies" bring to mind the notions of Hell being underground
and Heaven being in the sky. Since the Tyger may have been created in either Hell (deeps)
"or" Heaven (skies), it remains ambiguous as to whether the Tyger is good or bad.
Regardless, it would seem to us that being in the forests of the night with a "fearful,"
"burning" Tyger on the loose, is scary, whether abstract or not.

Form and Meter

"The Tyger" is to say it's written in six quatrains of rhyming couplets with a pulsing,
steady, mostly-trochaic rhythm.
A quatrain is a stanza with four lines. Rhyming couplets are pairs of lines, the last
words of which rhyme.: in the first and last stanzas, "eye" doesn't rhyme with
"symmetry." However, they do rhyme if you pronounce "symmetry" in an old-
fashioned way, as "simm-a-try" (as in "I’m gonna try"). So two lines make a couplet,
and two couplets make a quatrain or stanza.

The "trochaic" refers to the "trochee," of one stressed syllable followed by one
unstressed one . "The Tyger" isn't all trochaic, because there are several exceptions,
but the general rhythmic march when you read it out loud is quintessentially trochaic.

Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay

"The Tyger"
The symbol of the Tyger is one of the two central mysteries of the poem (the other
being the Tyger’s creator). It is unclear what it exactly symbolizes, but scholars have
hypothesized that the Tyger could be inspiration, the divine, artistic creation, history,
the sublime (the big, mysterious, powerful and sometimes scary

"Wings"
Line 7: Wings are what the creator uses to "aspire" to the creation of the Tyger.
Essentially, they are the power or inspiration that allows the creator to "dare" go
about the task of creating the Tyger.

Smith Tools ("Hammer," "chain," "furnace," "anvil")

Stanza 4: In the poem, these tools make up an extended metaphor of the creator
and his creation of the Tyger. A blacksmith uses these tools to make objects out of
super-hot metal. The word "forge" – to create or form – is a smith term as well as
another name for a smith’s furnace. The smith reference also ties into all the fire
imagery associated with the Tyger, and heightens the energy and danger of the
Tyger’s creation

"The Lamb"
Line 20: When you read the word "lamb," always first think: symbol of Jesus Christ
("the Lamb of God"). As the tradition holds, animals such as lambs were sacrificed to
God or gods in general until God offered his Son, Jesus Christ – his lamb – as the
final sacrifice for the sins of mankind. In line 20, Blake references a version of
Christianity that states that God created Jesus (Protestant version vs. the Catholic
doctrine of the Trinity). In any case, you don’t need to know all the theology, just that
it’s a reference to Jesus and an allusion to Christianity. Blake asks whether God,
who created Jesus, also created the Tyger. Also, don’t forget that "The Lamb" is the
title of another poem by Blake, from the Songs of Innocence; the two poems are
often read together.

Body Parts (hands, eyes, shoulders, feet)

The body parts referenced in this poem – hands, eyes, shoulders, and feet – are
examples of synecdoche. Synecdoche is when a part of something is used to refer to
the whole thing. For example, when someone yells "All hands on deck!" he doesn’t
actually mean that he wants a bunch of severed hands on the deck; rather, he wants
the people and their hands to help with the ship. So, the phrase "immortal hand"
references the whole being or person that the hand belongs to, while at the same
time focusing on the hands as the means of creation. The eye is representative of
the whole body and person, but also focuses our attention on the faculty of sight.

Also, by including only parts of the creator in the actually poem, Blake contributes to
the mystery of who or what he actually is.

Fire
The fire serves multiple purposes as an extended metaphor. First, it’s often
associated with the Tyger, which contributes to the Tyger’s ferocity and sublimity (the
fact it’s big, powerful, and mysterious). Fire is also a source of energy, and since the
Tyger seems to be filled with fire, then he must also be filled with energy. In another
sense, the fire of the smith’s furnace is the fire of creation, the means by which the
Tyger was formed.

Themes
Religion

You can’t get away from religion in "The Tyger." In Blake’s day, religious individuals
and their institutions held great sway over people, far more than they do now in
Europe. Questioning God’s absolute supremacy was pretty rare, and was all but
political suicide. Blake, on the other hand, has no problem questioning God, or
dabbling in religious arenas that don’t automatically assume that the Christian God is
actually alpha and omega ("the beginning and the end" of the Greek alphabet). Thus,
Blake questions who "could" create the Tyger, casting aside the notion that such a
being is omnipotent (all-powerful). He also challenges he who "dares" forge the
Tyger, and contain ("frame") its "fearful symmetry." Blake is not afraid of religious
visions, since this poem is full of them, but he's not interested in simply rehashing the
Christian doctrine. Rather, he interacts with Christian religion by challenging its
assumptions.

Awe and Amazement

Closely related to the theme of religion, awe and amazement are what the divine or
sublime inspire. The sublime is a specific term that used to mean more than it does
today. Now, you can say a bowl of ice cream is "just sublime," but back in the day
(say, late 18th century England), people would have no idea what you meant. To
them, the sublime is (typically) big, scary, mysterious, awe-inspiring, and, yes,
amazing.. The sublime is big and unable to be "framed." It’s scary and "fearful," full
of "deadly terrors." It’s mysterious, lurking in the "forests of the night," forcing you to
put thirteen question marks in your poem. It is awe-inspiring and amazing. Thus,
"The Tyger" is in part about the fact that it is mysterious. It is about the awe and
amazement that such mystery and sublimity inspires.