An analysis of William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper.

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Date: 02/05/07        GCSE English        Paul Lowther

William Blake – The Chimney Sweeper

William Blake was a religious artist and poet who lived in the later 18th and early 19th century. His most popular pieces came from two collections, Songs of Innocence written in 1789 and Songs of Experience written in 1794.

William Blake’s art and poetry is critical of many aspects of organised religion and during his life he was an outsider among the people of his time.

The two poems I am going to be comparing are The Chimney Sweeper poems from both the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. This is to see how a man’s opinion can change with time, as the title is only on of the few things left in common between the two poems.

The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence is divided into six stanzas, all with the matching rhyme pattern aabb. This is called rhyming couplets.

The first stanza catches our attention instantly with the mention of the death of the chimney sweeper’s mother. The stanza sticks to tone of the first line, by continuing to say how young the child was when his father sold him when he was so young that he couldn’t even cry the traditional street cry of the chimney sweepers (sweep, sweep, sweep). The stanza finishes by describing the poor conditions that the child has to live in.

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The second stanza then goes on to describe another chimney sweeper called Tom Dacre, a child who is crying because his hair has just been shaved off, the other child comforts Tom, telling him that his hair colour will no longer be spoiled by the soot. The description “That curl’d like a lamb’s back” tells us that the children are treated like farm animals, and have no say in their life. Picking a lamb as the animal also a reference to the lamb of god and innocence, a theme reflected thought Songs of Innocence.

The third stanza shows us the ...

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