Skip to content
Storgy

The TygerShort story by William Blake

Flashcards for The Tyger

29 cards · 4 characters · 8 key quotes · 5 symbols · 12 literary devices. Nothing is saved and nothing is asked for — close the tab and the deck resets.

Tool · Flashcards

Card 1 of 29 · 0 of 29 marked known

Every card

Front and back, in deck order — print this page to cut them out.

Characters · 4

  1. The Creator

    The Creator is the silent, mysterious divine figure at the center of William Blake's "The Tyger" (1794, Songs of Experience).

    character

  2. The Lamb

    The Lamb shows up in William Blake's "The Tyger" not as a vivid character but as an evocative symbolic counterpoint brought up in the poem's most philosophically intense stanza.

    character

  3. The Speaker

    The Speaker is the unnamed poetic voice in William Blake's "The Tyger" (1794, Songs of Experience), acting as both narrator and philosophical questioner.

    character

  4. The Tyger

    The Tyger is the central, mysterious figure in William Blake's brief yet powerful poem of the same name.

    character

Key quotes · 8

  1. “When the stars threw down their spears / And water'd heaven with their tears:”

    These lines come from William Blake's poem "The Tyger," featured in Songs of Experience (1794).

    Unnamed lyric speaker · Stanza 5

  2. “Did he smile his work to see? / Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

    These two rhetorical questions come just before the climax of William Blake's poem "The Tyger," which appeared in Songs of Experience (1794).

    The unnamed human speaker · Songs of Experience (1794)

  3. “Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night;”

    These are the famous opening lines of "The Tyger" by William Blake, published in Songs of Experience (1794).

    The unnamed speaker (Blake's lyric voice) · Songs of Experience

  4. “In what distant deeps or skies, / Burnt the fire of thine eyes?”

    These opening lines from the second stanza of William Blake's "The Tyger" (1794), found in Songs of Experience, come from an unnamed speaker who addresses the fearsome tiger directly.

    Lyric Speaker (anonymous) · Stanza 2

  5. “What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

    These lines open — and nearly close — William Blake's poem "The Tyger," published in Songs of Experience (1794).

    The poetic speaker / narrator · Stanza 1 (repeated in Stanza 6)

  6. “And what shoulder, & what art, / Could twist the sinews of thy heart?”

    These lines are from William Blake's poem "The Tyger," which was published in Songs of Experience in 1794.

    The unnamed poetic speaker

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

    This is the opening (and closing) stanza of William Blake's poem "The Tyger," published in Songs of Experience (1794).

    The lyric speaker (Blake's persona) · Stanza 1 and Stanza 6 (final stanza)

  8. “What the hammer? what the chain, / In what furnace was thy brain?”

    These lines are from William Blake's poem "The Tyger," which was published in Songs of Experience in 1794.

    The unnamed lyric speaker

Symbols · 5

  1. Fire

    In William Blake's "The Tyger," fire serves as the main symbol of awe-inspiring creative energy and divine power.

  2. The Forest of the Night

    In William Blake's "The Tyger," the "forests of the night" represent the dark, mysterious world from which the fearsome tiger emerges.

  3. The Hammer and Anvil

    In William Blake's "The Tyger," the hammer and anvil evoke the awe-inspiring and fearsome power of the divine Creator.

  4. The Stars

    In William Blake's "The Tyger," the stars represent the established cosmic and divine order — a rational, obedient heavenly hierarchy that contrasts sharply with the terrifying, fiery energy of the Tyger.

  5. The Tyger

    In William Blake's poem The Tyger (from Songs of Experience, 1794), the tiger serves as a powerful symbol, embodying the awe-inspiring and terrifying aspects of creation, as well as the darker elements of existence.

Literary devices · 12

  1. Rhetorical Question

    The poem flows like a stream of unanswered questions aimed at the tiger.

  2. Symbolism

    The Tyger works on two levels: as a literal animal and as a cosmic symbol.

  3. Imagery

    Blake constructs the tiger using striking, industrial imagery instead of typical natural descriptions.

  4. Juxtaposition

    Blake directly sets 'The Tyger' against its counterpart 'The Lamb' from Songs of Innocence.

  5. Repetition

    Repetition acts as the backbone of the poem.

  6. Alliteration

    The poem begins with Blake's most famous alliterative line: 'Tyger Tyger, burning bright.'

  7. Meter

    Blake uses trochaic tetrameter — a rhythm where the stress comes first, creating a driving force that feels urgent and incantatory, quite different from the softer iambic rhythm typical of much English poetry.

  8. Trochee

    The trochaic foot — consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one — is the main unit in the poem and its most unique sound choice.

  9. Apostrophe

    The whole poem acts as an apostrophe, meaning it's a direct address to an absent or non-human entity—in this case, the tiger itself.

  10. Allusion

    Blake's imagery of the forge references the myth of Prometheus, the Titan who took fire from the gods and faced severe punishment for it.

  11. Paradox

    The poem's central paradox can be summed up in the phrase "fearful symmetry."

  12. Volta

    The poem's most striking shift happens in the fifth stanza, where the vast cosmic scale suddenly narrows to a moment of what seems like divine uncertainty: 'When the stars threw down their spears, / And watered heaven with their tears, / Did he smile his work to see?'