In William Blake’s poem “The Tyger,” the speaker repeatedly addresses a tiger. The poem opens with the memorable question “Tyger Tyger, burning bright,” presenting the animal as a magnificent and frightening creation.
Blake’s tiger is not described through ordinary natural history. Its fiery imagery, powerful symmetry, and mysterious maker make it a symbol of energy, danger, artistic creation, and the troubling grandeur of existence. The speaker asks what kind of being could create such a creature.
“The Tyger” is often paired with Blake’s poem “The Lamb.” Both poems ask questions about creation, but the tiger represents a much more terrifying form of power. Readers sometimes treat the poems as simple opposites; Blake’s symbolism is more complicated, since innocence and experience belong to the same imaginative universe.
The poem was published in Blake’s illuminated collection “Songs of Experience” in 1794. Its spelling “Tyger” is part of Blake’s original title and is normally retained when referring to the poem.