William Blake wrote, ‘The Chimney Sweeper,’ as his cry against society. After being a witness to the appalling conditions the climbing boys experienced in London society during the French revolution. Blake was able to expose the tragedies of the young lives that lived during that time period; ‘The Chimney Sweeper,’ received public attention resulting in slight improvement of the 1788 Chimney Sweepers’ Act (Mellown 2). Blake’s poem both of Song of Innocence and Songs of Experience conflict the different states of the human soul through articulate literature techniques such as rhyme scheme, the voice of the speaker, and many other effective devices. Blake was able to unite the central themes of the Romantic period: childhood and the impact
The rhyme scheme resembles that of a nursey rhyme. Songs of Innocence contains couplet rhyme while Songs of Experience has an alternate rhyme. Songs of Experience has a child-like speaker but with the alternating rhyme the child is giving the impression that he has an attitude. There’s an ironic usage on the “child-like anapestic rhythm,” exposing a simple stupid sermon (Norton). ‘The Chimney Sweeper,” has a five metrical foot with varying stress patterns: two unstressed syllables followed by one long stress syllable. Blake bends the poetry rules by using both anapestic and iambic tetrameter. The iambic tetrameter is practiced in stanza two and four. Both of which stanzas share an angelic innocence. Blake used precision in his word choice, he included a pun in the first stanza of each set. The children cry out in, “weeps,” and in the next line the speaker states that it is the chimney he, “sweeps.” In Songs of Innocence, Blake exposes the reader to the darkness. Toying with the reader’s emotions by establishing the death of his mother and that his own father sold him but contrasting that with the light the dream represents. The reality is depressing but the end of the poem flows with inspiring
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
William Blake’s writing style was a product of the Romantic Era in which people were more concerned with emotions than reason. This era embodied society’s desire to
William Blake was first and foremost an imaginative genius. He worked as both a painter and an author who beautifully illustrated not only his own works but also illustrated others writings. His artistic skill is unrivalled for diversity as he created each copy of his books with slight differences, mainly in colour and tones. He illustrates his opinions on innocence and experience through numerous poems in his work ‘Songs of innocence and experience’ and numerous other books. Much of his work deals with the concept of both innocence and experience through religion and contrary statements.
"The Lamb," "The Little Black Boy," "The Chimney Sweeper," and "The Garden of Love," by William Blake, are unique in their simple structure and simple choice of words but complex concepts on life and life's experiences. His poems continue to twist and turn minds for centuries due to his style of setting up his poems with both questions and unanswered predicaments, and this is what sets William Blake apart from the rest of the other poets in British literature.
For those living during the eighteenth-century, life was full of innovation and the reconstruction of social classes and societal norms. With the tumultuous effects of the American and French Revolution’s on the world and the Industrial Revolution in their own city, London became fertile soil for a new literary movement to flourish in . The Romantic era invoked in art, literature, and philosophy, a more aesthetic experience. Artist and poet, William Blake, not only lived through this time of great social change, but was an important contributor to the Romantic literary movement that occurred in his lifetime. William Blake uses his intuitive spirituality and artistic skills that he acquired throughout the early years of his life to write about important principles of the human condition and inherent nature of mankind in his works, namely “A Poison Tree”; his simplistic writing style and use of imagery allows his blunt and unflattering religious message to be universally understood and categorizes him as a seminal figure of the romantic era.
William Blake is remembered by his poetry, engravements, printmaking, and paintings. He was born in Soho, London, Great Britain on November 28, 1757. William was the third of seven siblings, which two of them died from infancy. As a kid he didn’t attend school, instead he was homeschooled by his mother. His mother thought him to read and write. As a little boy he was always different. Most kids of his age were going to school, hanging out with friends, or just simply playing. While William was getting visions of unusual things. At the age of four he had a vision of god and when he was nine he had another vision of angles on trees.
William Blake was born in 1757 during a time when Romanticism was on the rise. Romantic poets of this day and age, living in England, experienced changes from a wealth-centered aristocracy to a modern industrial nation where power shifted to large-scale employers thus leading to the enlargement of the working class. Although Blake is seen as a very skillful writer his greatest successes were his engravings taught to him by a skilled sculpture. Blake differed from other poets in that he never received a formal education. His only education consisted of the arts, and therefore he enrolled in the Royal Academy of the Arts around the age of twelve. It was only in his spare time that he showed any interest in poetry. At the age of twenty-four he married Catherine Boucher who in fact had been illiterate at the time but Blake soon taught her to read. From there he pursued teaching in drawing and painting, illustrated books, and engraved designs made by other artists. It was only after many failures at the attempt of public recognition, and after years of isolation, that Blake had experienced his first audience. It was a small group of painters that admired his works and listened to every one of his talks. Blake is best known for intertwining his artistic talent and poetic flow. Proof of such success is seen in "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience", in which almost every poem has been engraved and beautifully sculpted onto a plaque. These two sets of poems represented what Blake believed to be the "two contrary states of the human soul".
As a child, Blake spent his time engraving drawings of the Greek antiquities his father bought for him “(Early Years”). James and Catherine supported and encouraged Blake’s artistic ability and enrolled him in Henry Par’s drawing school in the Strand when Blake was 10 years old, there he first started writing poetry (Harris 5). He enjoyed the works of Shakespeare, Jonson and Spenser and ancient ballads as opposed to current literature at the time (“The Young Artist”). Some of Blake’s favorite artists ranged from Raphael, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Albrecht Dürer, and Maerten Heemskerck. (Merriman 2)
The theme of the suffering innocent person, dying and being diseased, throws a dark light onto the London seen through the eyes of William Blake. He shows us his experiences, fears and hopes with passionate images and metaphors creating a sensibility against oppression hypocrisy. His words come alive and ask for changes in society, government and church. But they remind us also that the continued renewal of society begins with new ideas, imagination and new works in every area of human experience.
Though this poem mainly describes the suffering of these children, William Blake wrote another poem also titled “The Chimney Sweeper” where he described how as these chimney-sweepers grew older, they began to realize how they were taken advantage of and how the promises of the Church were all just a big hoax. From these two poems, it can be inferred that Blake intentionally pointed out and revealed the malfeasance of the Church and society and how they exploited younger children due to their gullibility and innocence solely for the economy without having any regard for the children’s lives.
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.
The idea of the child’s innocence is shown through their interactions with others and their descriptions in both of these writers’ poems. For example, in the introduction to “Songs of Innocence” the interaction between the child and the narrator depicts the amount of innocence he has for laughing and enjoying life up in a tree while telling the narrator to write about merry cheer and the Lamb. This example shows innocence because innocent children are usually the happiest for they do not know as many of the horrors of life yet. The child being in a tree relates to Wordsworth’s religious view of being one with nature and how children are delightful and free. Another example of childhood innocence, is in William Blake’s poem “Holy Thursday” he refers to the children as innocent looking and having clean faces. When the children are described as being clean or having something of the color white that usually means purity and innocence. Since Blake wrote many of his passages on religion, the color white also has to do with the purity of the soul and being free from sin. Another example of this would be in “The Chimney Sweeper” when the little boy lost his white hair, this refers to the child losing his innocence or
In Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake differentiates between being experienced and being innocent. In the poem "Spring," the speaker focuses on the coming of spring and the excitement surrounding it which is emphasized by the trochaic meter of the poem. Everyone, including the animals and children, is joyful and getting ready for the new season, a season of rebirth and a new arrival of nature’s gifts.
At its fundamental level, adulthood is simply the end of childhood, and the two stages are, by all accounts, drastically different. In the major works of poetry by William Blake and William Wordsworth, the dynamic between these two phases of life is analyzed and articulated. In both Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience and many of Wordsworth’s works, childhood is portrayed as a superior state of mental capacity and freedom. The two poets echo one another in asserting that the individual’s progression into adulthood diminishes this childhood voice. In essence, both poets demonstrate an adoration for the vision possessed by a child, and an aversion to the mental state of adulthood. Although both Blake and Wordsworth show childhood as a state of greater innocence and spiritual vision, their view of its relationship with adulthood differs - Blake believes that childhood is crushed by adulthood, whereas Wordsworth sees childhood living on within the adult.
LaGuardia, Cheryl. "WILLIAM BLAKE: SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE." Library Journal 128.9 (2003): 140. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 13 July 2011.