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

The poem opens with these famous lines in which the speaker addresses the tiger and asks a rhetorical question about what kind of creator could have made such a “fearful” creature. In asking this question, the speaker initiates a sustained line of inquiry that will continue throughout the rest of the poem. Part of what is significant about this opening question is the way the speaker uses the tiger as a conduit for indirectly addressing the tiger’s maker. That is, by ostensibly talking to the tiger, it’s clear from the beginning that the speaker is more interested in the “immortal hand or eye” that is responsible for the tiger’s creation. The other reason this opening stanza is significant is that the speaker repeats it in nearly identical form as the poem’s final stanza (lines 21–24). The main change that takes place occurs in the wording of the final question. Whereas the speaker begins by asking what creator “could” make a fearsome creature like the tiger, the speaker ends by asking what creator would “dare” (line 24) do such a thing. The change in verb signals a shift in tone. The speaker, feeling more fearful, grows slightly more aggressive in the questioning.

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

In the poem’s fourth stanza (lines 13–16), the speaker continues the line of inquiry and asks specifically about the process by which the tiger was made. Here the speaker envisions that some immortal creator must perform his creative labors in a forge. A forge is a specialized type of workshop where metals are formed, either through heating and hammering, or else through melting and casting. The centerpiece of any forge is thus a blazing fire that’s hot enough to melt metal into a molten liquid. The hammer, chain, furnace, and anvil all directly reference this type of workshop. If the speaker imagines that the fearsome tiger must have been created in a forge, it’s partly because a forge can be an intimidating and dangerous place. Particularly significant is the fire at the forge’s heart—a blazing force that also symbolically animates the tiger, which the speaker twice describes as “burning bright” (lines 1 and 21). On a stylistic level, this stanza is also noteworthy for its use of parallelism, a technique where successive lines or clauses share the same grammatical structure. The repeated phrase “what the” creates a parallel structure that accumulates rhetorical force.

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 (lines 17–20) marks a turning point in the poem, where the speaker’s perspective widens out. Here, the speaker asks how the creator felt about his creation once he finished forging it. The language here is notable for the way it echoes the biblical Book of Genesis. That book recounts the process by which God created the world. Throughout its narrative, the speaker notes how, at every stage in the process of making the world, God gazed upon his creation and “saw that it was good.” The speaker of the poem wants to know whether the creator of the tiger likewise stood back and “saw that it was good.” If so, then the speaker also wants to know whether the same creator who made the fearsome tiger could have made the gentle lamb. If the same creator made both creatures, then he is capable of bringing vastly differing things into the world. The implication, then, is that this creator is capable of marvels beyond comprehension. This revelation ultimately leads the speaker back to the question with which the poem opened, slightly reframed to convey a growing sense of fear.

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