Holy Thursday by Blake Essay examples

Blake makes a reference to an angel in the first poem, line 13, “And by came an Angel who had a bright key.” Since the first letter of the word angel is capitalized, the reader can conclude that “Angel” refers to religion and God. The angel is supposed to be a messenger sent by God to the chimney sweeper. In the second poem, Blake makes an innuendo to the Bible in line 11, “And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King.” Here the reader can be assured about it dealing with the Bible since God is mentioned. The Priest represents God’s preacher while the King most likely stands for Jesus since he is the king of all Jews and of all creation. Blake used these biblical allusions in order to depict the Christian faith in his poems. He also executes it to allure the religious audience of his poems during this significant time

“The Chimney Sweeper” (128): This version of the Chimney Sweeper is very upfront and saddening. The version that is presented in the songs of innocence is much more of a calm town and is not as straightforward, while this version is very short and to the point. In this version its very deep as the narrator basically just calls out the parents/church for doing these horrible things to the children. I really love all three stanzas of this poem because they all have a really deep meaning and Blake transitions through them very well. Reading this poem over and over I don’t know what to make of it other than it is an absolute horrible situation. I think it can be tied in to

Although the poems London by William Blake and City Johannesburg by Mongane Wally Serote are written in two different time periods, and two different settings, they both share one common theme: Man’s lack of freedom. In both of the poems, this lack of freedom is shown to be caused by the misuse of human power. As a result, the poems reveal that the poets also have one common reaction to the hardship and oppression they experience: they turn to develop a disliking for their home.

Children of a lower social rank were not fortunate enough to receive and education and instead were expected to learn nothing except how to master their given trade. In his poem, Blake implies that due to organized religion and society failing them, these working children were only free in their dreams. He writes about a dream in which an angel came to Tom Dacre and all the sweepers with a key and unlocked them from their black coffins. This symbolizes freeing the boys from their seven by seven holes that they were confined to each day. Once freed by the angel, the boys were no longer required to work and were free to roam and play in the fields similar to how the children of the middle and upper class had done. Enjoying their freedom, the boys, “wash in a river and shine in the Sun” ridding themselves of the soot that had become embedded in their skin as they soaked in the warmth of the sun (Blake 15-16). The angel then came to Tom and told him that “if he'd be a good boy, / He'd have God for his father & never want joy” (Blake 19-20). Tom’s dream acts as a tool for Blake to comment on the lack of involvement and help from the Church upon the failure to do their

Blake makes the vibrant horrors of London very vivid in his writing which sets a very obscure and dreary tone. He describes a time when riots broke out, houses burned, and individuals’ lives were devastated. “In every voice: in every ban… How the Chimney-sweepers cry… Every blackening Church appalls… Every blackning Church appalls, ” (London, 7-10) The speaker emphasizes, on the suffering of the minorities and the ignorance the wealthy and elite display. Blake also talks about the immorality

The foil poems The Chimney Sweeper Songs of Innocence and The Chimney Sweeper Songs of Experience by William Blake show a clear juxtaposition in ideas. Songs of Innocence, shows an idyllic view of religion, with a faithful boy entrusting his future to a higher power. In contrast, the second poem, Songs of Experience, shows a cynical view of religion with no hope for a better future. As a result of these ideas, the author conveys a sense of hopelessness for the future of these children, regardless of their ideals. Through tone and imagery, William Blake shows the hypocrisy of religion in relation to child labor during the eighteenth century.

The onset of winter also has meaning; it usually symbolizes death. Furthermore, the speaker’s mindset throughout the poem is unclear. Some think the speaker alternates between being awake and dreaming as the poem develops. Others interpret the whole poem as a dream. While another explanation is that the speaker is dying and vividly hallucinating.

One symbolic word in the poem is night. Night usually is referencing to dark, but in this literature, it is referring to depression and emptiness. To begin with, the main character is acquainted with the night, therefor he is familiar with depression and being lonely. This is not the first time he has been engulfed with these type of emotions and feelings. Also, he is the only one who is walking the streets, meaning he is lonely. Line seven states, “I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet…” indicating that he is the only one making a sound. While everyone else is in their homes, he is wandering the streets feeling useless. Normally, light is seen as being bright. Frost portrays this light as happiness and joy. The main character is unfamiliar with those feelings and outwalks the bright light, as shown in line three, “I have outwalked the furthest city light.” Although night and light differ from each other, they both explain the character’s perception of his

Loss of Innocence At the first glance at the poem, The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake, it seems to be about the mistreatment of children, owever, after more in depth reading it proves to show much more than that. Blake’s poem is about loss of innocence, death, exploitation, and oppression for unwanted children (Heath, S, 2011). By cleverly describing the deplorable livings conditions, the horrible treatment, the dreams of a better life with a father who loves them and the fear of an inevitable death, Blake masterfully allows the reader to see through the sad eyes of a chimney sweep child.

Language, Usage, and Style in “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time” In “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time,” William Blake expertly combines language, usage, and style to create this short poem that would later become the preface to his epic Milton: a Poem. Blake puts emphasis on the narrator’s diction, syntax, and tone to delineate the narrator’s thoughts and feelings that complement his purpose in this poem. The diction in this poem is largely neutral, if not informal.

In William Blake's Poem “The Chimney Sweeper”, Blake uses allusions, symbols, and metaphor to convey his theme of Innocence, Death, and Youth. With this Blake also goes in depth about the speakers childhood. Finally Blake ends with a dream and how innocence is a major part of the poem. Blake’s foundation of this poem relies on biblical allusions which provide the poem with a theme of innocence and, without them, Blake may have just had an ordinary poem with no deeper meaning in it.

The opening question of the poem- “and did those feet in ancient time walk upon England mountain green” references the well known folk tale of Jesus’s visit to Jerusalem. Legend has it, that as a young man, Jesus travelled to the shores of England. Blake does not discuss the veracity of this tale, nor, is it clear if he believes that it is true. Instead, he uses this well known tale to describe the spiritual potential that lies dormant in the mountain greens of

This shows the speaker is on his path alone and the images of winter also point to aloneness and thought. With the description of a “frozen lake” and being the darkest night of the year, it brings to mind seclusion (7-8). All of this is important to the meaning of both poems because they are pointing to this deep contemplating of life in both, something most people do alone. Even though, both speakers have different motivations for their actions, they clearly have similar moods when they perform

William Blake, born in London, England on November 28, 1775, was known for his poetry. Even though he lacked formal education, he became one of the best english poets. In the poem “Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake, there are many uses of biblical allusions. For example, in stanza 4 it states, “And by came an angel who had a bright key.” What this biblical allusion means is that an angel would take them away from their miserable lives which were worse than death, and bring them up to heaven. It is a biblical allusion because it talks about angels and death, and the key being the key to heaven. Another biblical allusion is in stanza 2, “There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, that curl’d like a lamb's back was shav’d.” This biblical

In “Holy Thursday,” William Blake uplifts the children by continuously complimenting the children by such statements as “their innocent faces clean,” and “with radiance all their own”. He goes on to give them exaltation by saying that the children raise up a song, “like a mighty wind” and how it sounds “like harmonious thunderings”. This agrees with Jean Jacques Rousseau’s statement that we are innocent and free when we are children. Also, the Romantic idea that children are holy is also seen in this poem. In “Holy Thursday,” it goes on from an adult’s point of view where William Blake questions whether the children are really singing songs of joy or of misery. The children he is referring to could not help themselves, yet the Church ignored this fact. The Church brought the children in for their own selfish reasons on a Christian holiday, and the children could not refuse. The Romantics would claim this as an example of society corrupting humans, and that the members of the Church were enchained by their own selfish ambition. In doing this, William Blake is agreeing that society, the church included, is corrupt and is polluting the children of that day, which correlates with Jean Jacques Rousseau’s statement that man is in chains.