The Voice of the Chimney Sweepers

1183 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on blake's songs of innocence

William Blake (1757-1827) led a relatively happy life. At an early age, he claimed that he could see God, Angels, and other important Italian figures. Blake’s parents encouraged him to keep a record of all the masters he claimed to keep in contact with. Blake’s father, James Blake, gave him casts and engravings to keep this record. At the age of ten, Blake started at a drawing school named Henry Pars’ Drawing School. Three years later, he was apprenticed to a Master Engraver, James Basire. Blake worked with Basire for seven years, and then attended the Royal Academy School to further his study in drawing, painting, and printmaking. After his studies, he started out engraving and producing illustrations for magazines. In 1783, he happily wed Catherine Boucher, and taught her to paint and draw. She was devoted to Blake, and helped him print in what would be an unsuccessful attempt at opening his own print shop. They had no children. He began to experiment with engravings, and drawings, and in such, became famous for them. People of his time thought him to be rather insane, because his artworks were so strange to the public. While he didn’t get much recognition for his first set of poems published in 1783, a book of poetry appropriately named Poetical Sketches, he is known for the gentle, yet outspoken poetry of his 1789 published work, Songs of Innocence, and his rather profound disillusionment of his 1794 collection, Songs of Experience. In these works, he proposed the ideal that society is the key destroyer of childhood innocence, but, keeping a strong imagination could ultimately help redeem the fallen world.

During Blake’s life, he was known for his painting, his engraving, his artistry, his love of music, and his strong opin...

... middle of paper ...

... the younger boys, and assures them that all hope is not lost. Though he has matured, seeing the crying faces on the younger boys, the speaker is still able to remain optimistic in the face of cruelty. It is this story that Blake tells.

Works Cited

Liukkonen, Petri. "William Blake (1757-1827)." William Blake. Creative Commons Nimeä-Epäkaupallinen-Ei muutettuja teoksia 1.0 Suomi (Finland) lisenssillä., 2008. Web. 24 Feb 2012. .

Mayhew, Justin. "The Chimney Sweeper." The Chimney Sweeper. N.p., 12 02 2009. Web. 24 Feb 2012. .

Vines, Timothy. "AN ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE AS A RESPONSE TO THE COLLAPSE OF VALUES." ch12.pdf (application/pdf Object). N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb 2012. .

Show More
Related

  • Innocence and Experience in William Blake's Literature

    493 Words  | 1 Pages

    Blake's poems of innocence and experience are a reflection of Heaven and Hell. The innocence in Blake's earlier poems represents the people who will get into Heaven. They do not feel the emotions of anger and jealousy Satan wants humans to feel to lure them to Hell. The poems of experience reflect those feelings. This is illustrated by comparing and contrasting A Divine Image to a portion of The Divine Image.

    Read More

  • The Violation of William Blake's Songs of Innocence

    2435 Words  | 5 Pages

    Mason, Michael. Notes to William Blake: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Ed. Michael Mason. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

    Read More

  • The Mental Traveller by William Blake

    1708 Words  | 4 Pages

    Nurmi, Martin K. "Joy, Love, and Innocence in Blake's “The Mental Traveller"" William Blake: The Politics of Vision (1946): 81-82. Web

    Read More

  • Anaysis of William Blake's The Lamb, The Tyger, and Proverbs of Hell

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Natoli, Joseph. "William Blake." Critical Survey Of Poetry, Second Revised Edition (2002): 1-12. Literary Reference Center. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Theme of the Suffering Innocent in Blake's London

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Songs about Life

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789 and 1794), William Blake arouses readers' minds and leads them into a path of finding their own answers and conclusions to his poems. He sets up his poems in the first book, Songs of Innocence, with a few questions as if they were asked from a child's perspective since children are considered the closest representation of innocence in life. However, in the second book, Songs of Experience, Blake's continues to write his poems about thought-provoking concepts except the concepts happen to be a little bit more complex and relevant to experience and time than Songs of Innocence.

    Read More

  • Rebellion As Art By William Blake

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • William Blake: Exposing the Harsh Realties of Life

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sir William Blake was known for his lucid writings and childlike imagination when it came down to his writings. Some will say that his writings were like day and night; for example, "The Lamb" and "The Tiger" or "The Little Boy Lost" and "The Little Boy Found." Born in the 18th century, Blake witnessed the cruel acts of the French and American Revolutions so his writings also, "revealed and exposed the harsh realities of life (Biography William Blake)". Although he never gained fame during his lifetime, Blake's work is thought of as to be genius and well respected today. "The lack of public recognition sent him into a severe depression which lasted from 1810-1817, and even his close friends thought him insane (William Blake,)". Blake once stated, "Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you (http://brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_blake.html )."

    Read More

  • Blake's Writing on Chimney Sweepers

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    When Blake was inspired to write about these boys, their barbaric lives were not only common knowledge, but accepted. Throughout the passing years, however, history has lost sight of the horror they faced everyday. Therefore, familiarity with such details does help the reader to see more clearly Blake's indictment of a society that allows children to be subjected to almost unbelievable wretched conditions, and it also gives more force and point to the realism and imagery. (Nurmi, 15) History reveals that children usually began these lives at the age of 6 or 7 or even earlier. The job tormented their small bodies, leaving them to die with deformed ankles, twisted kneecaps and spines, or with "chimney sweeps cancer." The boys began their days long before sunrise until about noon when they "cried the streets" for more business. When it was time to return these young boys carried heavy bags of soot to the cellars and attics where they slept. Even the task of sleeping was torture. The boys owned nothing and were given nothing, leaving them with only the bags of soot that had swept for a bed.

    Read More

  • The Chimney Sweeper Poems

    1209 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience provide social criticism on the dangers that child chimney sweepers endure but, Songs of Experience provides better social commentary as Songs of Experience directly identifies the potential for death unlike Songs of Innocence which implicitly identifies the dangers child sweeps endure. In Songs of Innocence, the child chimney sweeper dreams that while he was “lock’d up in coffins of black…an Angel who had a bright key… open’d the coffins…set them all free” (Blake, “Innocence” 12-14). The child’s dream of freedom appears happy and optimistic when in reality it is quite chilling that the child views death as freedom. Blake presents the child chimney sweeper as optimistic to suggest that society needs to help the children find freedom so they do not wish to die. The social commentary in Songs of Innocence is implicit in order to emphasize the child’s inability to fully understand and c...

    Read More

  • Childhood

    1788 Words  | 4 Pages

    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. In the William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the vision of children and adults is placed in opposition to one another. Blake portrays childhood as a time of optimism and positivity, of heightened connection with the natural world, and where joy is the overpowering emotion. This joyful nature is shown in Infant Joy, where the speaker, a newborn baby, states “’I am happy, Joy is my name.’” (Line 4-5).

    Read More

  • Sociological Criticism on William Blake’s Poetry

    1509 Words  | 4 Pages

    "William Blake - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss." The Literature Network: Online Classic Literature, Poems, and Quotes. Essays & Summaries. Web. 07 July 2011. .

    Read More

  • Child Labor Exposed in The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...stence. “And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark, / And got with our bags & our brushes to work” (21-22). Reality has returned, the dark is back but a newfound acceptance and optimism has replaced the despair. “Tom was happy & warm; / So if all do their duty they need not fear harm”, (23-24). The hypocrisy of a society charged with protecting but failing in their obligation to the children has not gone unnoticed. Ironically, in the end, it is society who really lost their humanity, not the children. Blake hopes by exposing this tragedy through his poem and the child’s voice that society will right the wrong of robbing children of their youth and innocence and putting an end to forced child labor.

    Read More

  • The Chimney Sweeper Analysis

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis of "A Poison Tree"

    1373 Words  | 3 Pages

    Johnson, Mary Lynn and John E. Grant, eds. Blake's Poetry and Designs. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1979.

    Read More

More about The Voice of the Chimney Sweepers

Open Document