The Chimney Sweeper: William Blake's Poem of Innocence - Essay Sample

Introduction

Songs of Innocence is a collection of romanticism poems written by English writer William Blake and published in 1794. The anthology contains some of the most outstanding poems written by Blake and one of them is “The Chimney Sweeper”. The large chimneys of modern cities periodically needed to be cleaned inside. Until the early decades of the twentieth century, this work was carried out by children, who entered the chimney and climbed to the top, cleaning it. These were children from poor families, who were often even sold by their parents to adult chimney sweeps tasked with the external maintenance of the chimneys. The work was horrendous and it was not uncommon for children to die of accidents. In this poem Blake insists that leaders and even the parents of the children themselves, think that they have done nothing wrong and will not hurt their children with the work, which in reality is a very dangerous act and brings suffering to the children.

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They are several reasons for choosing the poem "The Chimney Sweeper" as material for analyzing poetic devices. This poem is one of the best poems by William Blake and it will be an interesting study topic because of the choice of beautiful and complex words accompanied by the use of imagery, metaphors, simile, poetry, rhyme, and speech that increasingly makes this poem more meaningful. Besides, this poem was made written the background of the industrial revolution which had a bad impact on children. The current research will focus on the main poetry elements used in “The Chimney Sweeper” and how Blake uses these elements to convey his message and how important these elements are.

Literature Review

According to Risdianto (2014), poetry contains the experience of the author. In poetry, the experience of the writer can be displayed through imaging or imagery, rhyme, simile, and symbols among other elements. These elements give life to the poem. They beautify the language of the poem, make it more entertaining and moving. A good poem incorporates all or some of these poetic devices. With his rejection of Enlightenment ideals, Blake is considered one of the precursors of the romantic movement. At the center of his poetry, expressed in the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience, is the creative power of the imagination, metaphors, simile, symbols, sound, and meaning, rhyme and meter. Maiti (2016) adds that Blake’s poems are full of the poetic repertoire of biblical images and drawings for children such as the Shepherd, the Mother, the Nurse, the Lamb, the Bird, the Lion, the Tiger, the Fly, themes that become characters and that Blake uses with great poetic ability, in melodious and enchanted verses. They echo traditional folk ballads, religious psalms, lullabies, street voices. They become catchy poems, easy to memorize, written in a language that seems to come from a sort of universal popular folklore.

According to Gummesson (2011), Blake makes his own child's language to communicate to adults the cycle of human vision of existence based on love, freedom, justice, cruelty, divine and creative force that can be found in the universe. People live, according to this vision, in a world that contains both the Lamb and the Tiger. The simplicity of the verses and images relaunches a continuous current of doubts that provoke irony and ambiguous symbolism. According to Maiti (2016), this poem shows William Blake's expertise in choosing words so that the beauty of this poem is visible. The imagery used in this poem also varies so that this poem is not boring to read. Visual and Kinesthetic are two of the most widely used imagery in this poem. There is also a metaphorical tense with the use of the word coffins of black which describes the suffering of their lives. Similes are also used in plenty throughout the poem. Assonance is also used, for example, the first stanza of the poem consists of four lines. The final word in each line shows the assonance of the first stanza of this poem (Gummesson, 2011). The last words in the first and second lines are young and tongue, these two words are rhyming and there is an element of musicality in them. The last words of the third and fourth lines are weep and sleep respectively. The two words also rhyme and the repetition of the sound can easily be noticed. There are two images contained in this stanza namely auditory (hearing) contained in the third line which reads “Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" and Organic imagery in the first, second and final lines. Word repetition is also used in the third line in the word weep weep weep (Blake, 2014).

Methodology

The poem will be analysed from the perspective of imagery, metaphor and simile, symbols, rhyme and meter, and sound and meaning. Imagery refers to the elements in a poem that activate and ignite the senses. These are elements that engage one of the five human senses, for example, touch, sight, taste, hearing, and smell. Metaphors create comparisons between two or more things. Regarding poems, they are used in explaining and elucidating feelings and emotions that cannot be described in plain language (Risdianto, 2014). A simile also compares elements between two things however, compared to a metaphor, a simile uses words such as “like.” Symbols are used to represent something and convey a certain meaning to the audience. Rhyme is the occurrence of two or more words with similar sounds while meter is a linguistic sound pattern and provides a rhythmical sound in a poem (Risdianto, 2014). Sound poetry is when vowel sounds in assonance are in agreement and consonant sounds repeat themselves. All these different elements are crucial when it comes to the analysis of a poem and they help in understanding the deeper meaning of a poem.

References

Gummesson, K. (2011). William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper: A Stylistic and Allegorical Study. Halmstad Högskola. Retrieved from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:557766/fulltext01.pdf

Maiti, A. (2016). The Poetic Imagination of William Blake: Retracing The Symphony Between the Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience. Journal of English Language and Literature 3(4), 11-15. Accessed online http://joell.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/The-Poetic-Imagination-of-William-Blake.pdf

Risdianto, F. (2014). A handbook of English Literature. Chapter V-Poetry, pp.31-49. Yogyakarta: Javakarsa Media. Accessed online from https://www.academia.edu/14725230/BASIC_ELEMENTS_OF_POETRY