Anna Gallegos
O. Ochoa
AP ENG 4
February 17, 2017 AP Essay
The Chimney Sweepers was published in 1789 and 1794. William Blake was the author of both poems that are named the same thing but are honestly completely different. First of all, The Chimney Sweeper that was published in 1789.In this poem it describes how a child sticks to himself because that’s all he has, his dad sold him to become a slave in sweeping chimneys and his mother died from sweeping also. This describes that the boy only sweeps to survive but just like it’s keeping him alive it’s also killing him. The mom had died from that too and it seemed like it was dangerous and even more for a child. In addition, the
These two poems address the same problem: chimney sweepers. They are similar in structure because they both rhyme with the last words of each line like aabb. For instance, in the first poem the rhyming goes like this, “When my mother died I was very young, (line 1) And my father sold me while yet my tongue (line 2) Could scarcely cry “‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep” (line 3) So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep” (line 4). The second poem incorporates a similar rhyme scheme. For example, “A little black thing among the snow (line 1) Crying “‘weep! ‘weep,” in notes of woe! (line 2) “Where are thy father & mother? Say?” (line 3) “They are both gone up to the church to pray” (line 4). Blake most likely generated the analogous rhyme scheme in order to portray the identical
Throughout the poems, us the readers, visualized the different techniques William Blake uses. As well as how different and similar both of them are. The Chimney Sweeper, in my opinion, talks about how the parents of a child don’t really want him or her in their lives because of how they are trying to get rid of them. Yet on the second poem, Blake went straight to the point by not using many stanzas. He uses several types of figurative language that guide us through both of the poems. Which made them sound more interesting and understandable to the readers.
Blake’s poem title ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ was used in two of his collections; ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience’, but each of the poems have different qualities. The perspective Blake took in ‘Songs of Innocence’ has a rather softer tone than ‘Songs of Experiment’.
How would we do a poetry explication on “The Chimney Sweeper” (from songs of experience) by William Blake? We would start by analyzing “The Chimney Sweeper” and breaking it down into our own meaning or interpretation. In “The Chimney Sweeper” there are two speakers the child who is found in the snow and the person that finds him.
Likewise in the Chimney Sweeper by Samuel Taylor Coleridge- it was actually a poem in his book Songs of Innocence-
He accomplished this through poetry such as “The Chimney Sweeper”, which tells the story of a young chimney sweep who was forced into the corrupt world of child labor, and suffered immensely as a
The "Chimney Sweep" poems of Experience and Innocence are different and similar in tone all threw out the poems in many ways. From the way the kids are feeling, to the way the author describes the way the characters act in the poem.
Author’s Background: J.D. Salinger was born on January 1, 1919, in New York City, New York. Jerome David Salinger was born to Sol Salinger and his wife Miriam (J.D. Salinger). Though he was a bright young man, when he attended McBurney School, he ended up flunking out and was soon after sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania (J.D. Salinger). After graduating Valley Forge, a couple years later, Salinger finally found the right school, Columbia University, where he met Whit Burnett, who helped him take off in his writing career (J.D. Salinger). After returning to
William Blake wrote both London and The Chimney Sweeper. The ideas in both poems reflect their views on London in 1790’s-1800’s. In year 1794, London was published in Songs of Experience. It is one of the few poems in Song of Experience to not have been corresponding poem in Songs of Innocence. Meanwhile, in 1789, The Chimney Sweeper was published in the Songs of Innocence and in the Songs of Experience in 1794. The Songs of Innocence consists of poems that are positive, celebrate love, childhood and nature. However, the second part which is The Songs of Experience poems contradict with the first part and portrays how modern life affects people and nature. Some of the main issues that Blake explores through both poems are dangerous industrial conditions, child labor, prostitution and poverty that shows difficult life condition in London during 1800’s. Most of the citizens during the Industrial Revolution left their hometown and came to the city and worked at the
“I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am - I really do - but people never notice it. People never notice anything” (Salinger 12). In the book, The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger talks about growing up and how depressing it can really be. Throughout the story he makes many comments about adults being phony, shallow, and hypocrites. He explains how children are none of these and they need to cherish their childhood. Holden Caulfield is a teenager who was kicked out of Pencey Prep for failing all but one of his classes, then he went to New York City. He goes through the struggle of making a connection with other people, growing up, and dealing with phonies. He witnesses the reality of growing up and he hopes that his sister, Phoebe, never grows up which is inevitable. Ultimately, The Catcher in the Rye is a sad book because it shows how terrible it is to have to grow up.
Beginning in the 1670s children were often used as chimney sweeps in England. After the Great Fire of London, new building regulations were designed to keep the city safer. Fireplaces were required to be built a certain way, with narrower chimneys; and it became more important to ensure that the chimneys were free of obstruction after a liberal amount of usage. Since the chimneys were so cramped, this task was given to children, the only people petite enough to fit inside the chimneys. Most of the children who were chimney sweeps were often orphans who were apprenticed to a “Master Sweep” who would be their boss and take care of them. Consequently, during this time period, the terrible abuse of children as chimney sweeps became widespread. William Blake was an author during this time period who realized how horrible the chimney sweeping industry was. Blake was so disgusted with the industry that he wrote two poems about it, one in Songs of Innocence and another in Songs of Experience. In Songs of Experience, William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” uses a critical tone of society to give a voice to social groups who did not have the ability to use their voices.
Sociologist Max Weber recognized that, as technology expands, as does the gap between the lower class and rich. His studies came from watching the Industrial Revolution take place and the social system change from feudalism to capitalism. Similarly, William Blake, who lived in Industrial Revolution-era England, witnessed this widening gap firsthand. Commenting on the inhumane labor practices common to the poor in 19th century England, he wrote 2 versions of a poem called "The Chimney Sweeper" in different collections- Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794). With these poems, Blake comments on the practice of using small children as chimney sweepers, drawing attention to the inhumanity and immorality of the practice and the way it's overlooked.
The way in which both poems are structured is also important in understanding the relationship between innocence and experience. As one becomes less ignorant towards the suffrage around them, they become bitter towards their own society, which is clearly reflected in the structure of the poems. Blake’s Innocent Chimney Sweeper is perfectly symmetrical, consisting of six stanzas, each containing four lines of four beats. This gives the poem a song-like quality, which is effective in highlighting the sadness of the subject matter. Child labour is not a joyful subject matter and should not be associated with upbeat songs. It can be argued that Blake structures the poem in this way to illustrate that the narrator uses song to cope through his intensive labour, for it is the only part of his childhood that he can still cling to. This also contributes towards showing how young the children are, because the lyrical quality and the positive tone used throughout the poem reflects the youthfulness of the narrator. The contrast between the sound of the poem and its content highlights the narrator’s way of trying to preserve his own innocence. This contrast is also effective in showing that Tom Darce is ignorant, and therefore, still innocent towards suffrage because he uses songs and daydreams to mask his painful reality, illustrated when he envisions running down a “green plain, leaping, laughing.” As the poem progresses, the rhymes eventually become less regular, which ruins the
The late eighteenth century in England children as young as five years of age were bought, sold, and traded into a life that was completely at the mercy of their owner. These were children without a childhood. Almost two hundred years later America followed suit with this behavior as black Americans were forced to sit in the back of buses, use separate facilities, and attend different schools. The corruption of these contrasting societies is vividly depicted in William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" and Robert Hayden's "Monet's Waterlilies", respectively. Both poems offer a clear understanding of how society can negatively shape a being with false
“The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence in 1789 and “The chimney sweeper “from songs of experience in 1794 both are written by William Blake who is the one of the first writers of the "Romantic Period." The first poem is indescribable litter chimney sweepers who hold hope in their hearts and feel warm although they are abandoned by their parents and are living a miserable life in the actual world. The second poem talks about the child who is unhappy and hopeless, what’s worse the “adult” make them more painful, although they are trying to become happy. Thus, both of the two poems talk about what a hard life children live at that time, but the difference