The Tyger

"The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his "Songs of Experience" collection and rising to notoriety in the romantic period. It has been the subject of both literary criticism and many adaptations, including various musical versions. The poem is widely considered to be one of the most anthologised in the . The poem explores and questions Christian religious paradigms prevalent in late 18th century and early 19th century England; predominantly forming discussion regarding God's intention and motivation for creating both the tiger and the lamb.
The Songs of Experience.
The "Songs of Experience" was published in 1794 as a follow up to Blake's 1789 "Songs of Innocence." The two books were published together under the merged title "Songs of Innocence and of Experience, showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul: the author and printer, W. Blake" featuring 54 plates. The illustrations are arranged differently in some copies, while a number of poems were moved from "Songs of Innocence" to "Songs of Experience." Blake continued to print the work throughout his life. Of the copies of the original collection, only 28 published during his life are known to exist, with an additional 16 published posthumously. Only five of the poems from "Songs of Experience" appeared individually before 1839.
Structure.
"The Tyger" is six stanzas in length, each stanza being four lines long. Much of the poem follows the metrical pattern of its first line and can be scanned as trochaic tetrameter catalectic. A number of lines, however, such as line four in the first stanza, fall into iambic tetrameter. 
The poem is structured around core 'religious' and Christian-centered questions by the persona concerning 'the creature' including the phrase "Who made thee?". These questions utilise the repetition of alliteration ("frame" and "fearful") combined with imagery (burning, fire, eyes) to frame the arc of the poem. 
The first stanza opens the poem with a line of central questioning stating "What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?". This direct address to the creature serves as a foundation for the poem's contemplative style as "the Tyger" cannot provide the lyrical "I" with a satisfactory answer. The second stanza questions "the Tyger" about where he was created, while the third stanza sees the focus move from the tiger, the creation, to the creator – of whom the narrator wonders "What dread hand? & what dread feet?". The fourth stanza questions what tools were used in the tiger's creation. In the fifth stanza, the narrator wonders how the creator reacted to "the Tyger", and questions who created the creature. Finally, the sixth stanza is identical to the poem's first stanza but rephrases the last line, altering its meaning. Rather than question who or what "could" create "the Tyger", the speaker wonders: "who dares". 
Themes and critical analysis.
"The Tyger" is the sister poem to "The Lamb" (from "Songs of Innocence"), a reflection of similar ideas from a different perspective (Blake's concept of "contraries"), with "The Lamb" bringing attention to innocence. In "The Tyger", there is a duality between aesthetic beauty and primal ferocity, with Blake suggesting that to see one, the hand that created "The Lamb", one must also see the other, the hand that created "The Tyger”: "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"
The "Songs of Experience" were written as a contrary to the "Songs of Innocence" – a central tenet in Blake's philosophy, and central theme in his work. The struggle of humanity is based on the concept of the contrary nature of things, Blake believed, and thus, to achieve truth one must see the contraries in innocence and experience. Experience, he argues, is not the face of evil but rather another facet of that which created us. Kazin says of Blake, "Never is he more heretical than ... where he glories in the hammer and fire out of which are struck ... the Tyger". Rather than believing in war between good and evil or heaven and hell, Blake thought each man must first see and then resolve the contraries of existence and life. In "The Tyger" he presents a poem of "triumphant human awareness" and "a hymn to pure being", according to Kazin.
Musical versions.
Blake's original tunes for his poems have been lost in time, but many artists have tried to create their own versions of the tunes. 
Bob Dylan also refers to Blake’s poem in “Roll on John” (2012).