Songs of Sweepers
William Blake is one of the influential poets from the Romantic Period. Born in London, England in 1757 he grew up during the fervor of the Industrial Revolution. As reflected in his poems, The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience) the Industrial Revolution/Romantic Time Period was an evolving yet degrading time. A lot of great things came out of this time period such as poets like William Blake but a lot of negative ideals were employed such as child labor. Child labor is the topic of both Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper poems which are reflecting on the effect this monstrosity had on children. Written in 1789 and 1794, Blake’s poems were crafted at a time where he was able to observe widespread
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In The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence, the tone of the poem is innocent and shifts from sad to hopeful. Blake uses such diction as “And my father sold me while yet my tongue could scarcely cry ‘weep! weep! weep! weep!’”(lines 2-3) and “in soot I sleep”(line 4) to give the beginning of the poem a depressing tone which evokes sympathy from the readers about the speaker’s deplorable situation. As the poem continues the tone shifts to hopeful as the speaker tries to reassure his friend Tom that everything will be alright, “’Hush, Tom! Never mind it,’” (line 7). In Tom’s dream he imagines freedom and happiness going “down a green plain leaping, laughing” (line 15) as they “sport in the wind” (line 18). The dream takes place in a pastoral idyll opposite of the monochrome darkness of the real world in which the boys are subject to a capitalist economy where they can only weep over their degradation (Norton). Tom’s dream is reflective of the innocent tone of this poem in that he is still able to be hopeful in such a horrid and desolate situation. The lines most convincing of the shift in tone to hopeful are the last lines, lines 23 and 24: “Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm; so if all do their duty they need not fear harm.” This is a dramatic turn of events from Tom crying about having to get his head shaved to being happy to start a days’ work in soot …show more content…
In assistance to creating awareness about the true working conditions for child laborers, Blake uses multiple symbols in his The Chimney Sweeper poems. In the poem from Songs of Innocence the freedom from the factories depicted in Tom’s dream was a symbol for death, suggesting that the only way that children could be freed from the harming environment of that time was to die. White, which is used multiple times throughout the first poem, symbolizes innocence and purity; “You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair” (line 8), “bright key” (line 13), and “naked and white” (line 17). In contrast to white the black soot symbolizes death, along with Tom’s dream. In the second poem the child is depicted as a “little black thing in the snow” (line 1), literally meaning covered in soot but symbolically meaning consumed by the fear of death brought about by the speakers’
From childhood he was unlike those around him. He went to school to study art and found his love of poetry. From his early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions. He spoke of seeing God and the Angels. He married his with Catherine Boucher in 1782. His brother, Robert died, but this is where Blake got a lot of inspiration for his work. In 1789 Blake wrote and illustrated the popular Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience in 1794. His poetry was extremely non-conformist and focused on imagination, rather than reason. Both works have many common parallels and themes. His poetry also deals with the common aspect of a romanticism work; it has moments of sin, suffering and salvation. In Songs of Innocence, The Chimney Sweeper, it is a heartbreaking poem about the young children that were forced into doing labor as chimneysweepers. Mostly because they were the only ones small enough to fit in the spaces and they were sold into that work. It was damaging and cruel how they treated these children and Blake writes about it in such a powerful way. In the first stanza alone the reader learns about the difficult life and the suffering this child has had to overcome, “When my mother died when I was young, my father sold me while yet my tongue…so, your Chimney’s I sweep and in soot I sleep.” (Songs of Innocence) This poor child is portrayed so innocently and gentle, yet leads this suffering unfortunate life. People treated
The fact that they feel they can sit about the knee of their mother, in this stereotypical image of a happy family doesn’t suggest that the children in this poem are oppressed... ... middle of paper ... ... y has a negative view of the childish desire for play which clearly has an effect on the children. The fact that they the are whispering shows that they are afraid of the nurse, and that they cannot express their true thoughts and desires freely, which is why they whisper, and therefore shows that Blake feels that children are oppressed. I feel that the two poems from innocence which are ‘The Echoing Green,’ and ‘The Nurses Song,’ display Blake’s ideological view of country life which I referred to in my introduction, and show his desire for childhood to be enjoyed.
Starting with the first stanza, Blake creates a dark and depressing tone. He uses words such as died, weep, soot, and cry to support this tone. In the first two lines the child shares his family with us, stating his mother’s death and the fact that his father sold him sharing that the child must come from a poor background “When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue”(Lines 1-2). The image of a poor child getting tossed into another unhappy place sets the tone for the beginning of this poem. Blake uses the word “weep”, instead of “sweep” in the first stanza to show the innocence of the child “Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep”(3). The fact that the child cried “weep” instead of sweep shows that the child could not be any older than four. Blake describes that they sleep in soot also meaning they are sleeping in their death bed. The average life span of children who work in chimneys is ten years due to the harsh work environment. The child portrays sorrow in the last line of the first stanza “So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.”(4)
The difference in the time periods of these two poems is crucial, as it severely alters the upbringing of the characters, their social projection, their self-image, and the types of problems that they face. The upbringing of children often has a great deal to do with their mental health and how they portray themselves to others as they grow older. After she mutilates herself in an attempt to make herself look beautiful, others take notice and comment on how pretty her corpse looks laying in the casket. In The Chimney Sweeper, the young chimney sweep finds enough hope in religion to keep him going.
In lines 4 – 8 when Blake writes, “There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved: so I said ‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’ These lines symbolize faith in the biblical sense. Young Tom’s is like that of the sacrificial lamb of God and when the narrator tells Tom to stop crying because he knows that the soot can not longer spoil his white hair he, is saying to Tom, once he makes this sacrifice nothing else can hurt him. Blake is saying that if the children make the sacrifice of living out their lives here on Earth, no matter how dark and dismal their lives may seem at the time, they will be rewarded in heaven as long as they know the glory of God and trust in him.
William Blake was an English romantic poet who lived from 1757 to 1827 through both the American and the French revolutions. Although he lived during the Romantic Age, and was clearly part of the movement, Blake was a modern thinker who had a rebellious political spirit. He was the first to turn poetry and art into sociopolitical weapons to be raised rebelliously against the establishment. His poetry exemplified many of the same topics being discussed today. Although he was known as both a madman and a mystic, (Elliott) his poetry is both relevant and radical. He employed a brilliant approach as he took in the uncomfortable political and moral topics of his day and from them he created unique artistic representations. His poetry recounts in symbolic allegory the negative effects of the French and American revolutions and his visual art portrays the violence and sadistic nature of slavery. Blake was arguably one of the most stubbornly anti-oppression and anti-establishment writers in the English canon.
(Biography.com). Perhaps his own frustration at being unappreciated telegraphed into his poetry as many of them are shrouded in morose feeling. ‘The chimney sweeper’ in songs of experience nicely shows Blake’s concept of innocence and experience. Although the poem is included in the book ‘Songs of experience’ it is quite an innocent poem, with decidedly darker undertones. It is quite pessimistic about the afterlife and again has a religious undertone. Blake appears to have little faith in God, ‘heaven of our misery’ (Songs of Innocence and Experience, object 37). It is interesting to note that ‘The chimney sweeper’ mentioned previously is not the only poem of that title written by Blake. He wrote another by the same name in ‘Songs of Innocence’. Compared to the poem in ‘songs of experience’, this one is much more innocent but also far more upsetting. It showcases Blake’s views on the similarities between innocence and naivety as it is based around a child who readily believes that in return for their work as chimney sweeps they will be granted access to heaven when they inevitably die from the harsh and inhumane conditions. While it is not an overly heavy poem at first glance it is certainly weighed down by the presence of death as one reads closer. Human life appears indispensable to those meant to be the experienced ones whom the children can look
The entire poem uses images to enlighten its meaning. For example, in lines 2-3, "Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless naked piping loud..." Blake writes in such a way that allows the reader to see the change that takes place, when a baby enters this world. The poem reveals that it is not a pleasant and peaceful entrance, but an unkind and dishonest world that the innocent is forced to come into. Also, lines 5-6, "Struggling in my fathers hands: Striving against my swaddling bands..." give the reader vivid images. In these lines, the reader can see the baby squirming and trying to move in the tightly wrapped blanket. This shows how the baby will have to go through many struggles in life and the parents will try to protect the child and try to hold the child back from all the harms and troubles that he or she might have to go through.
Certain aspects of innocence are difficult for adults to understand. Mainly, because once innocence is lost, so are the reasoning’s that one had to make sense of everything. The loss of innocence causes doubt and fear. Blake uses time to demonstrate the notion of innocence in “The Shepherd” and “The Ecchoing Green”. “The Shephard” demonstrates innocence through the job that the title character holds. However, the innocence of his life is broken up by day and night. During the day, the poet illustrates the “shepherd’s sweet lot” (Placeholder3), saying that all he does is follow sheep all day. He does not have any worries or cares. As he shifts to the night time he points to how the shepherd just listens to the lamb’s innocent call and
William Blake presents two poems both titled The Chimney Sweeper, but both have a different perspective. The first poem that Blake wrote titled The Chimney Sweeper comes from Blake’s book Songs of Innocence and comes from the perspective of an innocent and ignorant mind. The second poem titled The Chimney Sweeper, was included in Blake’s book Songs of Experience and has a matured perspective. Blake utilizes both versions of The Chimney Sweeper in order to present his social critique of society. I believe that William Blake’s Songs of Experience version of The Chimney Sweeper presents social criticism better than Songs of Innocence version of The Chimney Sweeper because Songs of Experience articulates an outspoken and direct criticism of child labour while Songs of Innocence criticism is more implicit.
William Blake was a painter, poet, and engraver of the Romantic era. He was born in London on November 28, 1757 as the third of five children. He claimed to have experienced visions when he was young, as early as four years old, when he saw God’s head in a window, and then again at the age of nine when he saw a tree filled with angels. Blake learned to read and write at an early age, having briefly attended school but primarily being taught at home by his mother.
Stanza three explains what life was like at the farm he lived on, as the previous stanzas have. Line twenty describes the landscape and how beautiful it is. It describes it as Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air,” (20). Lines twenty one through twenty three use more imagery to describe the landscape. They use words such as “lovely and watery” (21) to show how pleasant it was to gaze upon the land. The word “And” is also repeated in the beginning of each of these lines which creates suspense. They also show repetition by repeating words such as “green” and it brings up the starry night again. Line twenty four talks about owls and how they are starting to come out. The day is starting to end and there is still beauty in everything. Now night has begun and all the things that made the day happy and carefree are starting to disappear. Lines twenty five through twenty seven use imagery to show that the moon is appearing and the horses and everything else is disappearing into the night. This begins to show that the youth the speaker is experiencing is starting to
The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence) is told from the point of view of a young chimney sweeper, this persona is put on by the poet and is established in the opening stanza when the boy says "So your chimneys I sweep..." this poem is almost told in the form of a narrative and it is about a young boy telling of how his mother died and it does not mention any other details of her death other than the fact that she perished while he was very young. Then, it is said that his father sold him into slavery “while yet my tongue could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!” this ultimately makes the audience feel very sympatric toward the boy and we can see that he has accepted his lot in life. But, this is also the first place in the poem where the opposing attitudes of the chimney sweeper and the poet are present. Initially, upon reading the poem all the reader thinks of is the poor little boy, but here the poet is being sarcastic as he is saying the boy was made into a chimney sweep before he could even say the word “sweep” in the case that the s- sound was left off and the word left his mouth as “ ‘weep” which is also why the he uses the repetition of the word to emphasize the child’s misery while im...
Sociological criticism emphasizes the political, economic, and cultural aspects of literature, and one of its main focuses is evaluating writing from a Marxist perspective, which examines the writing in mostly political and economic fashion, including ideas such as communism and social inequality. The idea of class oppression is clearly represented in many of William Blake’s writings. Blake’s opposition to the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists is obvious in many of his poems. Blake’s ideology of an equalitarian society could be described in the sayings of Karl Marx. Marxist criticism explains the reasons behind Blake’s anger towards social inequality. Poems like “The Chimney Sweeper” and “London” illustrate Blake’s despairing sadness towards the phenomena produced by the unjust inequality in 18th century England. In “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake expresses his anger at the late 18th and 19th century's use of child labor in urban England. In “London,” Blake illustrates the depressing class oppression that could be easily seen through the streets of London.
In the poem, “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake, the author attempts to educate the reader about the horrors experienced by young children who are forced into labor at an early age cleaning chimneys for the wealthy. The poem begins with a young boy who has lost his mother but has no time to properly grieve because his father has sold him into a life of filth and despair. The child weeps not only for the loss of his mother and father’s betrayal, but also for the loss of his childhood and innocence. Blake uses poetry in an attempt to provoke outrage over the inhumane and dangerous practice of exploiting children and attempts to shine a light on the plight of the children by appealing to the reader’s conscience in order to free the children from their nightmare existence. Right away in the first lines of the poem we learn through the child narrator that his life is about to change dramatically for the worse.