This excellent poem from Blake's monumental
Songs of Innocence and Experience is perhaps one of his most
powerful works as it focuses on the tiger of the title as an amazing symbol of energy,
power and strength. The speaker is so impressed by the tiger that the speaker, in a
series of questions, asks what immortal being, divine or demonic, could have possibly
fashioned such a fearsome and awe-inspiring creature, and how. It is most appropriate
then to describe the tone of this poem as one of awe and wonder, as the speaker
contemplates the majesty of the tiger and wonders about its true source. Consider the
following stanza:
In what distant deeps or
skies
Burnt the fire of thine
eyes?
On what wings dare he
aspire?
What the hand dare seize the
fire?
The relentless
questioning that carries on throughout the poem combined with the admiration and also
fear that the tiger obviously inspires in the speaker, and his curiosity as to the
precise origin of such a beast, establishes the tone of wonder and awe that dominates
the poem.
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