The Use Of Poetry In The Chimney Sweeper By William Blake

1039 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Critically appreciate of William Blake the chimney sweeper

Poetry is painting with words through the use of diction and imagery. The art of poetry is one that affects all in a different manner. While some poems may be labeled as depressing and others as uplifting, William Blake’s poem, “The Chimney Sweeper”, is an ingenious combination of both. The speaker’s voice and diction throughout the poem are used to create a spiraling tornado ranging from utter hopelessness to joyous delight. This beautifully transitioned poem illustrates the mistreatment of extremely young boys in England during the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. The young lads were utilized because of their small size, which allowed them to crawl through the cramped chimneys with ease. The speaker wields the figurative hammer when he employs …show more content…

The opening lines of the poem read, “When my mother died I was very young, / And my father sold me while yet my tongue / Could scarcely cry ‘weep! weep! weep! weep!’” (1-3). The speaker’s young life was dealt an early blow when his mother died. To make matters worse, his father then sold him into the chimney sweeping business before he could even mourn his mother’s death. Merriam-Webster defines scarcely as “almost not at all”. So, before the speaker could even speak, his father sold him into the chimney sweeping enterprise. At first glance, the opening lines appear to give the poem a dreary and dreadful look. However, if one is not scared off by the first three lines, the poem takes an upbeat turn for the better. Immediately following his description of his mother’s death and father’s abandonment, the speaker can be found attempting to comfort young Tom. The speaker employs positive diction and tone when describing Tom’s dream. He states, “And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, / He’d have God for his father and never want joy” (19-20). The speaker’s tone erupts from a depressing personal story to an encouraging and uplifting dream. The unique reading experience brought about in, “The Chimney Sweeper”, is mainly due to the tone and attitude of the

Show More
Related

  • Rosemary Dobson's Poetry To Resonate Across Place

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    Early on, poetry was often used with rhyme to remember things more accurately, this still rings true today, even though its use is more often to entertain. However, although it appeals to both the young, in children's books, and the old, in a more sophisticated and complex form, people are bound to have different preferences towards the different styles of poetry. Dobson’s poetry covers a variation of styles that captivate different individuals. “Her Story” is a lengthy poem with shorter stanzas. It’s free verse structure and simplistic language and face value ideas might appeal better to a younger audience. This poem includes quotes with informal language that children or teens would better understand. It’s narrative-based style is easy to follow, and although the poem covers very basic concepts, it’s message is still communicated subliminally. This particular poem is interesting because it focusses on the universal experience of pain and it’s relation to time. Similar to this is “The Householder”, written in a cyclical style, opening with a “house” and ending with a “home”. With only three stanzas, it is

    Read More

  • kettle bottom

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    The struggles that many face while experiencing poverty are not like any other. When a person is experiencing poverty, they deal with unbearable hardships as well as numerous tragic events. Diane Gilliam Fisher’s collection of poems teaches readers about labor battles within West Virginian territories, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of these battles include the Battle of Matewan and Battle of Blair Mountain. The collection of poems is presented in many different manners, ranging from diary entries to letters to journal entries. These various structures of writing introduce the reader to contrasting images and concepts in an artistic fashion. The reader is able to witness firsthand the hardships and the light and dark times of impoverished people’s lives. He or she also learns about the effects of birth and death on poverty stricken communities. In the collection of poems in Kettle Bottom, Fisher uses imagery and concepts to convey contrast between the positive and negative aspects of the lives of people living in poverty.

    Read More

  • Blake's View on Oppression of Children by Adults

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    But the ‘Nurses Song,’ form experience shows the reality of life: that it is hard, and people, like the nurse in the song aren’t happy and full of joy, like the memories of the old people in ‘The Echoing Green,’ and therefore, Blake’s poetry confirms the view that children are oppressed by

    Read More

  • Father Roles Heaney

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many factors that will shape a young boy’s life, but possibly none more important than the role of that boy’s father. Seamus Heaney and Theodore Roethke both have shown the importance of the father role in their poems “Digging” and “My Papas Waltz.” Although the roles of the fathers in these poems were different, the respect and admiration shown by their sons is one in the same. Weather it is Heaney’s father digging under his window, or Roehtke’s father dancing him around as a little boy, the love shown in these two poems, shows a direct relation on the lives they shared with their fathers.

    Read More

  • Analysis of My Papa's Waltz

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    Indeed, the satirical tone of this poem suggests that the speaker is somewhat critical of his father. The whiskey smell, the roughness, the inconsiderate and reckless actions are under scrutiny. The mother's frowning countenance suggests she too is rather unhappy with the scene. However, the winning tone of the poem is the light and comical one.

    Read More

  • Blake Against the World

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    In William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper,” the speaker, a young boy, introduces himself and relays a common story among all lower-class individuals of the late-eighteenth and early- to mid-nineteenth centuries—that story being a life of woe and untimely death. Blake relays the plight of these victims of the Industrial Revolution in England by using the speaker, a chimney-sweep himself, to retell a story that his young friend told him—one taken from a dream, which, given its subject matter, strangely comforts the dreamer. And this boy, Tom, who is all but born into sorrow, takes solace in the thought of dying, of leaving his earthly toils behind for another, better life with God in heaven. In this poem, Blake essentially takes issue with two powerful forces in eighteenth-century England: a blind government and a pacifist religion.

    Read More

  • The Poet With His Face In His Hands By Mary Oliver Analysis

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the

    Read More

  • Edgar Allen Poe 's The Raven And For Annie

    1934 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.

    Read More

  • The Simple Gift and “The River that wasn’t ours”

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    The verse novel, ‘The Simple Gift’ explores how relationships and place can impact detrimentally on one’s identity and sense of belonging. Herrick uses Billy to highlight how social issues such as dysfunctional families can lead to isolation and loneliness. Using first person narrative, “I”, Herrick in the poem 'Sport' establishes the barriers to belonging. Herrick uses flashback and hyperbole “he came thundering out” to highlight detachment from home prompted by Billy’s abusive alcoholic father. Detailed repetition of “I was ten years old” intensifies the poignant loss of Billy’s innocence and his displacement from a childhood sanctuary. Consequently the poem ‘Longlands Road’, uses personified enjambment, “rocks that bounce and clatter and roll and protest”, to capture the image of an angry boy who is searching for a sense of belonging. Imagery created through vivid descriptive language, “rundown and beat / the grass unmown around the doors”, depicts the impoverishment and disrepair of “Nowheresville”. While Billy’s description of “Mrs Johnston’s mailbox on the ground...” expresses his contempt and frustration. Subsequently, the ramifications of Billy’s discontent, portrayed by the sarcastic statement “It’s the only time my school has come in ...

    Read More

  • William Blake’s Poetry

    1547 Words  | 4 Pages

    William Blake was one of those 19th century figures who could have and should have been beatniks, along with Rimbaud, Verlaine, Manet, Cezanne and Whitman. He began his career as an engraver and artist, and was an apprentice to the highly original Romantic painter Henry Fuseli. In his own time he was valued as an artist, and created a set of watercolor illustrations for the Book of Job that were so wildly but subtly colored they would have looked perfectly at home in next month's issue of Wired.

    Read More

  • The Song Of The Smoke Poem Analysis

    1429 Words  | 3 Pages

    W.E.B. Dubois was one of the most prolific and pioneering leaders during the early Civil Rights era. Throughout his life, he produced numerous works as a commentary on the social construct that existed between whites and blacks, including the groundbreaking collection of essays The Souls of Black Folk published in 1903. These essays detailed the historical, political and sociological plight of African Americans in society after the Civil War. In addition, the essays introduced the concept of double consciousness which referred to the challenge blacks faced in reconciling an African heritage with an American identity, a theory that would disseminate into his later works. Accordingly, his poem “The Song of the Smoke” published in 1907 is an extension of his earlier work in double consciousness, but with an emphasis on the celebration of black heritage. Embedded in these affirmations of blackness; however, is a sense of longing for the unity and equality of all races. In the poem, “The Song of the Smoke”, DuBois reflects on the past, finding grief and courage in the legacy of his slave ancestry and toward the future, hoping a new strength and dignity is formed amongst all Americans.

    Read More

  • Themes Of Isolation In Grass By Carl Sandburg

    776 Words  | 2 Pages

    This poem is about a servant that serves other servants. This servant has to clean up after and feed these men, and their work is never done because it is an endless cycle. This servant is of a lower status than the rest of them because the clean up after everyone, and therefore is seen as lowly and is ignored by them all. This servant is at the bottom of the social ladder and is being isolated because they are different. Then this servant goes on to tell the story of their uncle that had a cage built for him because he was crazy. They go on to say that they are glad they got away from that, they had made jokes about the cage being a jail. That even when they were there with the uncle in the attic, they were still happy enough to have a roof over their head. Even though they are deemed as worthless and lowly as the servants servant, that they will stay because they must be kept and it is better than living outside, although that would mean freedom, the roof is better than the ground. The tone of this poem is very casual, the speaker tells this seemingly sad and unfortunate story in a manner that sounds like casual conversation. This poem had a rhythm to it, that I couldn’t quite get in reading it aloud, but it’s obviously there. The rhythm helped the words flow and tell the

    Read More

  • Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall

    674 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poem “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall, a mother attempted to protect her daughter by sending her to church. However, in the end, the child has her entire life stolen from her. The dramatic situation in the poem is portrayed and developed through Randall’s use of descriptive imagery, dialogue, irony, and a tonal shift.

    Read More

  • Childhood in Robert Frost's Birchess and William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    Robert Frost's view of childhood is much different than that of William Blake, as expressed in their respective poems, "Birches" and "The Chimney Sweeper". Living in the late seventeenth century, Blake saw some hard times; and as such, paints a very non-romantic picture of childhood. Frost, however, sees things differently. The result is two glaringly different poems that goes to prove how very different people are.

    Read More

  • The Attitude Of The Chimney Sweeper In Songs Of Innocence

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence) is a poem about the life of young chimney sweeps. We are presented with two juxtaposed attitudes in this poem and that would be the hope-filled attitude of the speaker pertaining to his lot in life and the attitude of satire that is displayed by the poet himself. In the end the message that conveyed through these conflicting attitudes is one that basically ensures the speaker will not be able to prosper in this life but surly have a chance to in the one after.

    Read More

More about The Use Of Poetry In The Chimney Sweeper By William Blake

Open Document