Grecian Urn

Published in 1794 as one of the Songs of Experience, Blake's "The Tyger"

is a poem about the nature of creation, much as is his earlier poem from

the Songs of Innocence, "The Lamb." However, this poem takes on the

darker side of creation, when its benefits are less obvious than simple

joys. Blake's simplicity in language and construction contradicts the

complexity of his ideas. This poem is meant to be interpreted in

comparison and contrast to "The Lamb," showing the "two contrary states

of the human soul" with respect to creation. It has been said many times

that Blake believed that a person had to pass through an innocent state

of being, like that of the lamb, and also absorb the contrasting

conditions of experience, like those of the tiger, in order to reach a

higher level of consciousness. In any case, Blake's vision of a creative

force in the universe making a balance of innocence and experience is at

the heart of this poem.The poem's speaker is never defined, and so may

be more closely aligned with Blake himself than in his other poems. One

interpretation could be that it is the Bard from the Introduction to the

Songs of Experience walking through the ancient forest and encountering

the beast within himself, or within the material world. The poem

reflects primarily the speaker's response to the tiger, rather than the

tiger's response to the world.It important to remember that Blake lived

in a time that had never heard of popular psychology as we understand it

today. He wrote the mass of his work before the Romantic movement in

English literature. He lived