William Blake
William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper", part of his Songs of Innocence, is about a young boy who was sold as a baby into the life of a chimney sweep. The boy has a dream about the child chimneysweepers' dreadful lives coming to an end, and finally being set free into God's arms. The author of "The Chimney Sweeper," was also an English poet, artist, engraver, mythmaker and visionary. He was the earliest and most independent of the Romantics. Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in London, where he spent most of his life. "He taught himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, and his English was often remarkably original" ("Blake, William"). Blake started writing when he was 12 and friends printed a few of his early poems in 1783. Blake's Songs of Innocence, wrote in 1789, expressed a happy image about the childhood of the soul in an everlasting world sustained by love. Later he wrote the Songs of Experience in 1794, which contained poems that challenged the assumed beneficence of God and society. After his death on August 12, 1827, Blake's works were dispersed and some may have been destroyed. In this poem, it seems as though Blake, who uses the first person voice, is trying to make a clear connection between the exploitation
"In line four, "So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep, (4)" there is clear alliteration. In lines 19 and 20, the poem is summed up to this last, lingering thought: "The Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,He'd have God for his father and never want joy. "The Chimney Sweeper," written in the Romantic Age, thankfully cannot be considered a contemporary piece in the United States today. The rest of the world's children, in other countries, are not so lucky. " In other words, if he lived by the word of God, he would eventually find his peace. It helps to link the curls to something one can imagine, and gives the idea of the sacrificial lamb. This can be seen in lines of Innocence reading, "And got with our bags and our brushes to work," . "So if all do their duty they need not fear harm" (22 and 24), while Experience shows its side with lines such as "They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe" (7-8). Blake describes the sad lives that these child laborers live. The children had no choice to become slaves; they were just born into it. The representation through language of sense experience is called imagery, and it is very plentiful in this poem, especially in stanza four: "And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins and set them all free;Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,And wash in a river, and shine in the sun. Also, Blake raises awareness of the child labor in his time. Where the chimneysweeper of Innocence identifies himself with the images of religion in lines 19 and 20, the chimneysweeper of Experience sees unlawful Christianity in lines 12 and 13: "And are gone to praise God and his Priest and his King, Who make up a heaven of our misery. Child labor was widely practiced in the years ending the Romantic Age.
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