Previous

William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience

For insight into how “The Tyger” fits in with other key poems in Blake’s important collection Songs of Innocence and Experience, consult this guide.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Like the other British Romantic poets, Blake was deeply influenced by John Milton’s epic poem of 1667. This work issued profound questions about Christian theology and how it frames the distinction between what’s good and what’s evil. Though in less obvious ways, “The Tyger” reflects similar questions about God as creator.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Published nearly a century after “The Tyger,” Dostoevsky’s deeply philosophical novel features a similar exploration of how to account for the existence of evil. In particular, the character Ivan Karamazov spends much of the novel struggling to comprehend how suffering and wickedness can exist in a world created by God.

Previous section Historical & Literary Context

Take a Study Break