How does William Blake use his work to show his disapproval of the society of his time

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How does William Blake use his work to show his disapproval of the society of his time?

William Blake was one of the first romantic poets, writing during the French and American revolutions in 1780. Romantic poets believe that people should be free to follow their own desires, everyone has a right to pursue and fulfil their desires in order to be happy, that imagination is more important than science and logic, and that childhood is important and should be innocent. Blake was a visionary writer, he talked to God and angels came to him in his dreams and visions. He translates these experiences into his poems. He viewed God as an artist, active and full of passion and love, rather than a scientist. However, Blake disliked institutions such as the Church and formal religion, the government and the royal family. Blake believed that people should have open marriages and to enjoy sex, possibly with multiple partners, and was also against unions such as marriages. Society and the Church taught people to think that sex was sinful and wrong, whereas Blake believed sex and desire is a connection to God and spirituality. Blake was especially frustrated with the Church, he thought they were controlling people, especially the poor and working classes. These institutions would teach that although people may be poor and unhappy in this life, if they do not rebel they will be able to go to Heaven and be rewarded. This was seen by Blake as a form of brain washing,

Blake demonstrated his views in his collection of poems called the Songs of Experience and the Songs of Innocence. Children are born into the world of innocence, where they are allowed to be free and happy, and are also protected from the world of experience for as long as possible by adults. Blake would have hoped that adults would enter the world of experience but someday return to innocence, and protect the children. The world of experience to Blake and other romantic writers was inevitable yet a harsh, cruel and unhappy place full of restrictions and frustration. Blake suggests in his poems that people and children are not in control of their own lives, they are not allowed to think for themselves and are restricted by a corrupt, uncaring Church and monarchy.

In this essay I will discuss how William Blake objected to the poverty suffered by most of the society, neglect by the government and how children were used and not allowed a childhood. I will also look at religion’s disapproval of sex and its agreement with the state to keep the poor, ‘poor’, for their own moral good.

There are two ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ poems, one in the Songs of Experience and one in Innocence. The boy in the songs of innocence has maintained his innocence despite experiencing the death of his mother and his father selling him at such a young age. In this first stanza, Blake uses end rhyme for ‘young’ and ‘tongue’ to indicate how young this child is to be sold and not have a family to  protect him.

‘‘weep!’ ‘weep!’ ‘weep!’ ‘weep!’’

is repeated and followed by exclamation marks to emphasise how awful that ‘weep!’ is the first thing this child says, when babies are supposedly born into pure innocence and should be happy.

‘So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.’ ,

Ends in a full stop and indicates that this child is doomed to be unhappy, he has been brain washed into accepting his situation and does not aspire to be anything other than a chimney sweeper, and believes he can only be happy in death.

In the second stanza, when Tom Darce’s head is shaved, the narrating boy is positive and practical in saying that at least the soot will not spoil his hair. Blake uses run on lines to reinforce the youth of these children, and their vulnerability with the line

‘ “Hush, Tom! Never mind it, for when your head’s bare

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”’.

Without realising, the boy is helping to brain wash Tom by telling him to accept the situation. Tom’s hair was white and with the soot had become black, symbolic of the end of innocence.

Blake believed that in dreams and in our imaginations, we are truly free. However, this boy dreams of angels. Blake is showing how deeply brain washed by the Church this child must be for dreaming of angels and still believing that if

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‘he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.’

These chimney sweepers are so desperately unhappy, they are looking forward to their deaths in order for them to be free and happy. Blake is also criticising the God and angels in this poem for being too passive in the lives of these young, unhappy children.

Symbolic words such as ‘bright key’, ‘free’, ‘green’, ‘leaping, laughing, they run’, ‘lamb’s back’ and ‘joy’ are all associated with the world of innocence, however there are also words such as ‘soot’ and ‘coffins of ...

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