The first poem that I will look at is London. This poem gives the reader an insight into what London was like in the time of the Industrial revolution here in Britain. Blake has given us this insight by depicting what it was like to live in London. The poem is as if we are traveling through London, seeing and hearing all of the actions in the poem.
This poem is very dark. It shows us how the children of London were treated. It gives a very negative view about their childhood. It also shows how this is happening to every body and not just a few. It show that it is everybody by the use of the word ‘every’. It shows that all the children are miserable for the fact that the young children are crying. He shows this by saying “In every infant’s cry of fear”. This quote shows how the infants are scared of what is around them. This is not an image that we hope we would not see today. He here shows that the infants are afraid of the world around them. Also that the young females are forced into prostitution
“How the youthful harlot’s curse”.
The fact that then they may pass or be passed on sexually transmitted diseases “And blights with plagues the marriage hearse” this helps to show that the problem is occurring. London shows a very negative view of childhood.
Children should not be treated in this way at all. The next two poems Chimney Sweeper Innocence and experience talk about the jobs the children had to endure in more detail.
In the Chimney Sweeper (Innocence) the children are treated very badly. This poem is told from the child’s perspective. He is innocent hence the title. Blake is asking us to be outraged for this innocent child. We hear that before he started sweeping the chimneys, he had already had bad experiences, with his mother dying and his Father selling him.
“When my mother died I was very young And my father sold me while yet my tongue”
Above are the opening two lines of this poem. It shows that his mother died and his father sold him, all when he was very young.
Also in the poem, Blake compares coffins to the chimneys. This suggests to me that once up a chimney it was like been locked up in a coffin dead.
“And he opened the coffins and set them all free”
This extract from Chimney sweeper innocence shows how Blake compared the coffins to the chimneys.
Blake wrote two Chimney sweeper poems, Chimney sweeper innocence and Chimney sweeper experience. These poems link very closely. In Innocence we hear of the little Tom Dacre whose hair was white that was covered in soot, and in experience we hear of a little black thing that is in the snow. To me the little black thing is a little chimney sweeper covered in soot. The Chimney sweeper innocence is told from a Childs point of view that has no choice on being a chimney sweeper, in other word he has been put in this situation. In Experience the poem is been told from a persons point of view who has been in a chimney sweepers position and is telling us his experiences of been a chimney sweeper. Blake wants us, the readers to be far more outraged, than we are to the poem where the child is innocent.
The way Blake has made these into poems and not just short stories is by giving it rhyme and rhythm. In Chimney sweeper experience the words at the end of every other line an sometimes every line rhyme. Some pairs of these are- snow, woe – say, pray – king, sing. In the Eccohing Green Blake has given it a much faster rhythm compared to London or the Chimney sweeper poems. This is because it is of happy thoughts and represents the children having fun not working up a chimney.
Not all of Blake’s poems are negative. The final poem that I will look at is The Eccohing Green. In this poem we do not hear the harsh sounds of London but the harmony of the Eccohing Green. We see people as one, purity and the adults and children as one.
It also shows how the rural life is staying the same from generation to generation
“Such, such were the joys When we all, girls & boys In our youth time were seen on the Ecchoing Green.”
This shows that the children live staying the same in society. Where as in the other poems the situation is getting worse every year. Although it is staying the same at the end of the poem it gives a sense of getting worse.
To conclude the presentation of children on the whole has been negative although Ecchoing Green is the only contrast. From looking at Blake’s poems I have learned what it must have been like for children of my own age back in the 18th century and what their lifestyle must have been like. Another key point that I have learned is what our capital London would have been like back in the Industrial Revolution.
