William Blake- subject, language and form

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Blake’s poems put forward a powerful social message which reflects the time in which he was writing. With reference to at least five of his poems, show how Blake achieves this through his use of subject, language and form

In this essay I will be analysing five of Blake’s poems which are ‘A Poison Tree’, ‘The Chimney-Sweeper (experience)’, ‘The Chimney-Sweeper (innocence)’ ‘London’ and ‘The Human Abstract’. Each of Blake’s poems has a powerful social message, and my aim is to analyse the message he is trying to portray through these poems. The subject, language and form his poems uphold are some of the main devices that help put forward his opinion at his present time, the 18th century. The powerful social message Blake was trying to convey to his readers was human suffering during his era, he showed this through his poems which marks his sympathy.

   At this day and age modern readers understand Blake as a writer and see the message he is trying to put forth through his poems. Although in his time, Blake was considered very strange. Born in 1757 into a Christian but non conformist London family, most of his life he spent in London. In 1783 he published his first volume of poems. Many changes were taking place in Blake’s society, between 1750 and 1850, late 18th century the industrial revolution was changing the society through huge revolutions in technology in England. England changed from a rural population made from agriculture to a manufacturing society consisting of factories.  Oppression of women and children was apparent so they worked for lower wages. Employment laws did not exist yet, some may have had to work up to 14 hour days with low wages. Now a days, these things are seen as wrong, throughout the 18th-19th century employing children and women with low wages and others with ridiculously long hours was seen as normal and no action was taken against it by either the establishment, monarchy or church, this caused Blake to be against all establishments which did not try and help the problems 18th century England was facing. Blake, being the rare few of many in England, became aware of these faults. His views were similar to our contemporary day. Many writers were moved by the industrial revolution. They felt it was important to shine light on the poor conditions of the working class and use of child labour. This change changed the attitudes of those living in England, many rich well off people became ignorant towards the conditions many poor, lower class, people were facing. The attitude of many high class people was apparent as growth and human spirit was not possible under conditions of social oppression. Also the establishment did nothing about the poor working conditions. In the 18th century poetry was used to spread news about life in general. Blake made a lot of reference to the bible in most of the poems he wrote. In his poems his ideas are powerful and convincing. Blake did not agree with political radicalism, he was strongly anti-establishment (government monarchy). He believed everyone should be as a liberating force. The need of individual imagination was important to Blake and the feeling above reason. He had love of nature and the natural, referring to the world before the industrial revolution, especially in reflecting the spirituality of things. He was against the church as it was an establishment and did nothing about the poor conditions many endured but he was for the religion of Christianity as it is strongly portrayed through his poems with the constant reference to biblical terms. The bible was most easily accessible to Blake as he was self taught.

   

Chimney sweeping was not seen as wrong as child labour was not morally wrong. Blake wanted to show his feelings towards this wrong way of labour. In the 18th century the church did nothing about this cruel situation where children were being treated like slaves. The church let this cruelty act go on, the words of the church were being voiced through the chimney sweeping children.

 The poem called “The Chimney-Sweeper innocence” is about a young boy being sold, by his father, into the recruiting of young children to clean chimneys. A boy, the narrator, in this poem is so innocent he doesn’t know any better and does not see it as wrong. The father is selling the boy for money, as it must’ve been scarce for most dealing with the new ways of the revolution. In this poem Blake is trying to emphasise child labour and uses it from a child’s perspective to evoke emotion out of the reader as the reader would more likely feel sorry for a child.

  His innocence is apparent in the first stanza as in the first verse it is written that the boy is not articulate “while yet my tongue could scarcely cry”. The boy is unable to pronounce sweep and instead pronounces “weep” yet again showing his innocence and intensifies his youth. The reader is directly address when it says “so your chimney I sweep” This triggers guilt in the reader, knowing such a young boy, unable to even pronounce sweep, is cleaning your chimney. At the end of stanza one alliteration is present “sweep and in soot o sleep” the pronunciation of ‘s’ shows his progress.

  In stanza 2 the narrator refers to his friend “There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried” This gives off the persona of a child as children talk about a friend to put across their feelings on that person. “That curled like a lamb’s back” a lamb is a symbol of sacrifice in a biblical sense. Tom is sacrificing himself to cleaning the chimneys this is represented by him having his head shaved.

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   A very vivid image is mentioned in stanza three it talks about Tom having a night mare about his many friends “locked up in coffins of black” the picture being painted in your mind is relating to the black, also meaning fear and dark, chimneys the boys have to climb and clean. It is suggesting that the sweeping of the chimneys will be the death of them. The term locked up could also suggest that they will be cleaning chimneys forever. Coffin is also a sense of claustrophobia, being locked up inside a coffin or chimney would be considered ...

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