Read William Blake’s “The Tyger” and describe the poem’s form or structure.

I love this poem, and its counterpart, "The Lamb".  The
Tyger is a poem from the Songs of Experience (how the world effects us as we grow older
and have experiences); the Lamb from the Songs of Innocence (how we are before the world
gets hold of us and turns us into something other than
innocent). 

The format is a question and answer format
where the speaker begins with a question to the tiger--Who created you?  The speaker
wonders how the horrible heart of the tiger began to beat, and compares it to the
blacksmith (a dirty job).  The speaker wants to know if the creator smiled when he
finished created the tiger, and could this creator be the same one who created the
lamb?

There is a hammering rhythm, which again underscores
the comparison with a blacksmith.  The Tiger is a beautiful but deadly creature (he
burns bright)...so how can the same creator make both the tiger and the lamb?  What kind
of God would put both animals on this earth?

The poem is
full of unanswered questions about the complexity of creation and the speaker is
obviously in awe and wonder of the sheer magnitude of God's power.  The mood is one of
open awe of both God and the Tiger's brute strength.

The
blacksmith, too, is a "creator".  He is creative, artistic, and skilled. Blake uses
words like "dare" and "could" in his poem to represent the risk of creating "art" as a
blacksmith.  It is a dangerous and dirty job, but one that is fulfilling.  He risks
fire, injury to his lungs and body, to create and do his job
daily. 

The tiger, perhaps, is the voice of violence and
revolution in the world.  No longer innocent like the lamb, but demanding more beauty
and fairness...brutally taken, if necessary.  There is an element of fear mixed in with
the awe.

Six stanzas, rhyming couplets (some are more sight
or near rhyme than exact rhyme), in a sing-song pattern which helps to give this
dangerous fear a bit more lightness.  However, the hard consonants and hammering rhythm
of the blacksmith bring us the reality of life...it's not all child's play and innocence
like The Lamb.