Comparing and Contrasting The Chimney Sweeper Poems
William Blake was never well known as an author in his on life time. He was considered to be an eccentric man, who questioned everything in society. Blake was religious, yet he wanted no part of the Anglican Church. He created his own personal mythology, for, as he would say: "Must create a system or be enslaved by another man's". Blake thought the Anglican Church corrupted and cynical - that it made the lives for those who were poor, a living hell. He was very concerned with working class children. He found their life situation unbearable. One area in particular captured Blake's anger, and this was the situation of those young boys who were sold to work as chimney sweepers. Provoked by their poor quality of life, he wrote two poems about them, both called "The Chimney Sweeper". One of the poems was in his poetry collection Songs of Innocence, and the other in the collection named Songs of Experience. To make it easier, I will from now on refer to the poem from Songs of Innocence as poem 1, and the poem from Songs of Experience, poem 2.As stated, both poems are about the unfortunate destinies of many little children who at a very young age were dressed in black and recruited as chimney sweepers. Through these poems, Blake is mak
They clothed me in the clothes of death, I found that even though the speaker in poem 1 is innocent, he seems to take on a role as a caring father figure for his fellow chimney sweeper - Little Tom Dacre. Underlining this is the second stanza: Then naked & white, all their bags left behind, Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head And by came an Angel who had a bright key, The speaker in poem 2 is, as stated, showing signs of bitterness. This suggests that he has become experienced enough to understand why his life is the way it is. At first he blames his parents for putting him in such a miserable situation. This can be seen in the second stanza, and the first two lines of the third stanza:
Some topics in this essay:
Songs Experience,
Ned Jack,
Priest King,
Tom Dacre's,
Anglican Church,
He’d God,
Songs Innocence,
Hush Tom,
William Blake,
poem 1,
poem 2,
Tom Dacre,
chimney sweeper,
chimney sweepers,
speaker poem,
poor quality,
stanza poem,
'weep 'weep,
speaker poem 2,
songs experience,
quality life,
poor quality life,
chimney sweeper songs,
clothes death taught,
speaker chimney sweeper,
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Approximate Word count = 2076
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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