Darkside of the Industrial Revolution Exposed in Poems by William Blake, Michael Thomas Sadler, and Percy Bysshe Shelley

However the industrial revolution was not all good. The working class had no other option but to turn up at the factories for work. The factory system resulted in over-crowding and unhygienic conditions and also the development of slum areas. Many factory owners who needed cheap, unskilled labour, profited greatly by using children and women to run the machines and because they were small and could fit in tunnels as well not only that they were more suited for factory life because they could adopt more quickly and easily than men. By the age of 6, many children were already working twelve hours a day in factories. These children had no free time to do anything plus they earned low wages. Hardly any of the children went to school they had to work in factories to earn money. Quite a lot of the people who worked at factories got sick and died because of the toxic fumes in the factories. While others were severely injured because the machines didn't have safety guards so many children got killed by machinery when they fell asleep and got caught up in the machines. Many of the children who were orphans, hired by the employers would

At the time living conditions during the Industrial Revolution were poor. In Manchester the houses are overcrowded (Document 2). Most people lacked beds, food, clothing and more (Document 7). Most people spent 12-14 hours in a factory working with little to none breaks, enclosed rooms that are polluted, and not good pay. (Document 7). This

Dangerous factory conditions created a harmful environment for people, especially children, to work in. They had no safety and had a high risk for permanent deformities and injuries. Air and water pollution posed a high risk for health problems from breathing in the air and drinking the contaminated water. An enormous lack of labor restrictions allowed children that were of very young ages to work in dangerous environments, allotted long hours of consistent labor, and held a high probability of damaging family relationships. Although there were some positive effects and reforms through technology and health, I believe the industrialization period was mostly negative because it held consequences for people’s health and relationships, which I consider to be more important than any piece of technology the world has

The Romantic Period centered on creative imagination, nature, mythology, symbolism, feelings and intuition, freedom from laws, impulsiveness, simplistic language, personal experiences, democracy, and liberty, significant in various art forms including poetry. The development of the self and self-awareness became a major theme as the Romantic Period was seen as an unpredictable release of artistic energy, new found confidence, and creative power found in the writings of the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley, who made a substantial impact on the world of poetry. Two of the Romantic poets, William Blake, and Percy Bysshe Shelley rebelled against convention and authority in search of personal, political and artistic freedom. Blake and Shelley attempted to liberate the subjugated people through the contrary state of human existence prevalent throughout their writings, including Blake’s “The Chimney Sweepers,” from “Songs of Innocence”, “London,” from “Songs of Experience” and Shelley’s A Song: “Men of England.”

Mortality rates were decreasing rapidly. This was not only an effect of the poor living conditions, but also of the high pollution that was being created by the factories. Without the proper piping that is needed, the streets which were already filled with trash, also became smoggy and polluted. Women and child labor were very common in the industrial revolution with employees working from twelve to sixteen hours a day and being paid scarcely enough to get by.

The Industrial Revolution was a very gloomy time period. There were many horrible things going on at this time. One major thing was child labor. Child labor was happening everywhere. Also the dangerous working conditions for the many workers and the long, tiring hours the people had to work in those harmful polluted factories.

The first line in the poem says, “Tyger Tyger, burning bright.” By Blake repeating the word Tyger twice, it feels to the reader as if we are speaking directly to the tiger. The

As well as living conditions, working conditions were also appalling during the industrial revolution. Factories were a new thing in the industrial revolution so there were no health and safety acts or child protection laws. The conditions in factories were awful; the workers had to work up to twelve hours starting very early in the morning. The work included managing dangerous machinery which was very repetitive and tiring and had to be done stood up. Some workers had to carry very heavy loads to fill or empty the machines. Many employees were injured or died in factories due to the hazardous machinery. Clothing could easily get caught up in the machinery and this could be fatal. The factory owners were responsible for feeding their workers. However, the food they gave them contained no nutrition in it and the workers were given miniscule amounts. This brought about diseases such as TB which was caused by under nourishment and little food. The fumes inside factories were also dangerous; in cotton factories the air around the workers was filled with little bits of cotton which were breathed in by the workers. These clogged up the trachea, bronchioles and the lungs and caused asthma and chest infections which could be fatal due to the lack of medical knowledge. The death rates in factories were very high but it was not as bad as the public health during this era. It contributed towards the dreadful public health as the factory owners paid the worker low wages

Blake’s poem, “London” represent how the city life has taken away the freedom of the people. Blake uses skills of alliteration, imagery, and word choice to create his poem. In the first two stanzas, Blake uses repetition to

A Comparison of Poems About London 'London', by William Blake, and William Wordsworth's untitled poem, composed on Westminster Bridge, are two different poems written with different styles and techniques to portray their feelings towards London. They are both written in the romantic era and are very passionate in the way they convey their (as both are written in first person) differing opinions on London. Wordsworth's sonnet shows all the positive points and that in his opinion London is an admirable place. However, Blake speaks of a much bleaker London, which contrasts greatly in opinion. Rather than writing his poem on opinion, he uses fact to inform and protest against what he feels is wrong

poem’s theme is about how both bad and good can be created by one person. William Blake uses contrast of describing the light of the tyger as things that are not usually associated with light. He says “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” and “What immortal hand or eye/ could frame thy fearful symmetry?” The speaker also says “in what distant deeps and skies/Burnt the fire of thine eyes?” and “What the hand, dare sieze the fire?” This shows how the author is baffled by who would dare to mess with something so fearful in its light.

During the Romantic Period, poets believed themselves to be very politically aware and important. William Blake and Charlotte Smith are those amongst those Romantic Poets who took it upon themselves to educate the public on the events of the time; particularly the established Church, the Industrial Revolution and the Slave Trade in Haiti: ‘[Poetry] speaks to a divided society in an attempt to constitute its readers as citizens of what [Geoffrey] Hill calls… the just kingdom… and the commonwealth’.

The two authors have very different ways of expressing their own views on London. While Blake may use crude language to describe his experience, Wordsworth makes the city appear so pleasant and warm. When Wordsworth writes about London, he describes it as a beautiful, charming place that is clear and peaceful; Like when he writes “All bright and glittering in the smokeless air” (8) he describes the air as a bright place that isn’t polluted with the factories and mess. Unlike Wordsworth, Blake describes London as a dark dirty place filled with desperation and fear. For example, when Blake writes “In every cry of every man” (5) he tells the reader about the people of London who are crying for help in the painful, tear-jerking city of London; due to the fact that this was written in a time of the industrial revolution when children were forced into labor, and families were torn apart with work and couldn’t provide. The world in which Blake was experiencing was a sad and desperate time, unlike Wordsworth. Despite the constant contrast of language and descriptives, they are both still talking about the same city.

In stanza one it can be seen with line 1 and 2 couplet “friend” and “end”. The anger with his friend ended. The next couplet is “foe” and “grow” which is exactly what happened with the anger it grew because of his foe. The rhyme also seemed to speed up the poem and gives it a smooth pattern. The narrator wastes no time to explain how his anger has built up and has not shared his feelings with his foe. On line 11 and 12 the end couplets were “shine” and “mine” where he compares his anger to an apple that shines and then he says how his foe now knows about his anger. Rhyme helped show the narrator’s train of thought through the couplets because Blake made sure to put the couplets specifically with corresponding words to the meaning he was trying to

Blake uses traditional symbols of angels and devils, animal imagery, and especially images of fire and flame to: 1) set up a dual world, a confrontation of opposites or "contraries" which illustrate how the rules of Reason and Religion repress and pervert the basic creative energy of humanity, 2) argues for apocalyptic transformation of the self "through the radical regeneration of each person's own power to imagine" (Johnson/Grant, xxiv), and 3) reconstructs Man in a new image, a fully realized Man who is both rational and imaginative, partaking of his divinity through creativity. The form of the poem consists of "The Argument," expositions on his concepts of the "contraries" and of "expanded perception" which are both interspersed with "Memorable Fancies" that explicate and enlarge on his expositions, and concludes with "A Song of Liberty," a prophecy of a future heaven on earth.