The Tyger: Key Poetic Devices

Alliteration

Alliteration (uh-LIT-er-AY-shun) refers to the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of nearby words. Blake deploys this technique throughout the poem, and two characteristics are worth noting about his use of it. First, all examples of alliteration in the poem involve just two words at a time, creating a sonic relation between them. Second, this sonic relation never crosses a break between two lines, but rather remains within the confines of a single verse. Taken together, these two characteristics help give the individual lines of the poem a sense of internal structure. To get a feeling for this effect, consider the opening stanza:

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

Three instances of alliteration appear here. The first line contains two examples, each of which is neatly separated into one half of the line, thereby giving the line a clear two-part structure. The third instance of alliteration occurs in the fourth line. This example is less sonically forceful than the first two, since it occurs on the second beat of two sequential feet rather than the first. However, this instance is more thematically significant for the way it forges a strong link between the act of creation (“frame”) and the nature of what’s created (“fearful”).

Apostrophe

Apostrophe (uh-PAW-struh-fee) is a rhetorical device that occurs whenever a speaker directly addresses an absent person, an object or an abstract entity. In Blake’s poem, the speaker uses apostrophe to address a nonhuman creature. Significantly, though, the speaker doesn’t address a particular tiger. Rather, the speaker seems to direct questions toward the tiger as an entire species. To make matters even stranger, the speaker speaks directly to the tiger, seeking information pertaining less to this specific creature and more to the creator responsible for making it. In this way, the direct address to the tiger discreetly functions as an indirect address to its creator. We can detect this strangely layered use of apostrophe in the poem’s opening stanza:

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

As indicated in the first line, the speaker clearly addresses these words to the tiger. The speaker further clarifies the object of this address in the fourth line by using the second-person pronoun “thy” to reference the tiger’s “fearful symmetry.” However, something else is going on here. This question about the tiger’s nature is embedded in a larger question. Though centering on the tiger’s fearsome qualities, what the speaker really wants to know is who might be capable of bringing those fearsome qualities into being. The subtext of the question is therefore addressed not to the tiger, but to the tiger’s maker.

Refrain

The term refrain refers to any word, phrase, or line that gets repeated over the course of a poem. As this definition suggests, a refrain is ordinarily limited in scope, rarely exceeding the length of a single line. In the case of “The Tyger,” however, the refrain runs the length of an entire stanza. This stanza appears in nearly identical form in lines 1–4 and 21–24:

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

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

Only two small differences distinguish these two versions of the same stanza. First is the punctuation at the end of the second line. In its first appearance, this line ends with a semicolon, whereas in its second appearance it ends with a colon. More consequential, however, is the difference that appears in the final line. In the poem’s first stanza, the speaker asks who “could frame [the tiger’s] fearful symmetry.” This question is essentially neutral, seeking only to understand the nature of the being who might be capable of creating such a fearsome creature. In the poem’s final stanza, however, this same question takes on a more loaded quality when the speaker replaces could with dare. Here, the speaker wishes to know not just who would be able to make the tiger, but also who would be bold enough to do so.

Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions aren’t generally meant to be answered. Rather, writers use them to make a point or create a dramatic effect. At first glance, it’s difficult to determine the status of the questions that make up “The Tyger.” On the one hand, the very fact that the speaker asks so many questions indicates the earnestness of his or her curiosity. But on the other hand, sometimes the questions seem excessively fanciful and therefore unlikely to receive legitimate answers. In the second stanza, for instance, the speaker asks a question related to the cosmic nature of the tiger’s creation: “In what distant deeps or skies / Burnt the fire of thine eyes?” (lines 5–6). A question like this simply cannot be answered and must therefore be understood as fundamentally rhetorical. Although not all the questions posed by the speaker are as obviously unanswerable as this one, it’s arguably the case that the speaker doesn’t actually expect any of these queries to be answered by a tiger. After all, the speaker has addressed the cascade of questions to a creature that can’t respond in human language. As such, the speaker’s questions should all be understood as rhetorical and therefore meant to inspire contemplation.

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