Industrialized Society in Romantic Poetry: William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper

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

1783-1830 was the period of the literary movement of Romanticism which was originated in Europe (wiki). The Romantic Movement was partly aroused as a reaction from the Industrial Revolution. Romanticism appeared as a movement which aimed to reject many subjects such as spirits, souls, and instincts from the previous Enlightenment movement and discuss subjects associated with liberalism, radicalism, and nationalism (Nichols, A., 2005). This movement emphasizes on the sources of aesthetic experience, emotions, beauty and sublimity of nature. One of the most obvious principles in this literary movement is the freedom of the poets to express themselves and their feelings. It was considered that in order for poets to express their true feelings, they have to be creative, imaginative and isolated. And the second obvious principle in this literary movement was the principle of genius, which means creation from nothingness, and that was the key of this movement (Waterhouse, 1926; Smith, 1924).

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.”

     Blake also uses startling irony in this poem. This irony shocks the reader into realization of how terrible life is for these small boys. Some of the verbal irony Blake uses lies in the first stanza. The poetic voice claims that “[his] father sold [him] while yet [his] tongue/ Could scarcely cry ‘ ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!’'; (554). These words have a double meaning. They can mean that the speaker was not yet over mourning for his mother, or they can mean that he was so young that he was not yet able to sound out the s sound properly. In this case, he would stand on the corner and, instead of repeating the word sweep in an attempt at getting someone to hire him, he would repeat the word “‘weep!’'; (554). Another, more startling irony is that these young children hoped and lived for death because only in the after life could they become children. Blake emphasizes this with the

The main difference however to be seen in this poem is that the child from the moment it is born has the knowledge that its life shall be filled with suffering and poverty. These notions of poverty and suffering are represented through the physical pain the mother endures within childbirth and the father’s mental anguish of the child being born. By having the child state: “into the dangerous world I leapt” [Blake, 208]. Blake in this poem presents poverty and suffering through the physicality of the world as well as its inhabitants. By providing a world where upon birth a child is greeted with both physical and mental trauma from both parents provides the final conclusion that an unnecessary amount of pain and poverty are what’s considered normal in this life. The child which still stands as a representation of this community is described as: “a fiend being hid in a cloud” [Blake, 208]. This description provides the notion of the ‘working man’ as being a burden or alienated by the ‘elite’ in society. From this, Blake represents the mistreatment and financial situations of these people which are disregarded as they are of a lower social standing. By being alienated from the rest of the world these people are not only forgotten but their sacrifice towards this proto-capitalist society is also disregarded therefore reinforcing the argument

Romanticism is an era where creativity and new ideas immersed; mostly from people of the arts. “Many point to the publication of William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads in 1792 as the

“Then down a green plain a leaping and laughing, they run, And wash in the river and shine in the sun. Then naked and white all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;” When Blake wrote these lines he was of course referring to the act of Baptism. Which is defined in the Bible as being a water ritual, used as a spiritual symbol. Through this process the sweeps would be washed clean of all of their sins and also be cleansed of all of the bad things in their lives including their jobs. “And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.” This line of the poem indicates that if Tom was a good child and did as he was told on Earth that he would not be forsaken by God as his parents had forsaken him in his former life, but instead he would have everything he could ever possibly desire and be completely content in his afterlife. “And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags and our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm; So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.” Through these words Blake reveals hope rather than despair because the focus is on immortality instead of life as a sweep. “The little Sweep's dream has the spiritual touch peculiar to Blake's hand.... (Gilchrist).” As stated before Blake is trying to convey

William Blake proved himself as one of the most influential artists to spring from the Romantic Era without a doubt. What made Blake so popular may have been his ability to portray his time period in works of art that were beautifully crafted. Blake’s poetry was not appreciated during his lifetime because people were living the lives his works vicariously told, but once his time period ended, a historical book was left behind. The theme of a struggle is most prominently showcased in Blake’s poetry. Whether it be Blake depicting women and their power struggle throughout the 18th or 19th century, or depicting the lives of the children put into the labor force at a very early age. These children were put in a tunnel (almost literally when

The word romantic is mostly associated with feelings of love and intimacy. However, the Romantic Movement in literature incorporated so much more. Beginning in the late 18th Century, this period emphasized emotion, inspiration, subjectivity. visual beauty, love of nature, individualism, and spiritualism are just a few of the many topics covered in works written by Romantic authors. To be precise, many scholars say that the Romantic period began with the publication of "Lyrical Ballads" by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge in 1798. The volume contained some of the best-known works from these two poets including Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey." Further, it starts as a reaction against the intellectualism of the Enlightenment, against the rigidity of social structures protecting privilege, and against the materialism of an age which, in the first stirring of the Industrial Revolution, already shows signs of making workers the slaves of machinery and of creating squalid urban environments. As a result, a mood which pervades much of western life during the past two centuries is hard to define except in terms of opposites.

In 1817 a report from the parliamentary committee on the employment of child sweeps - also known as ‘climbing boys’- declared that there were children as young as four years old working arduous hours in chimneys barely seven inches wide. Due to familial poverty, children were sold by their parents or recruited from workhouses. Parents would often lie about the age of their child in an effort to sell them to master-sweeps. To increase speed the master sweep would employ physical punishment; pins and lighted straw were ‘forced into their feet’ by the boy climbing behind them. As a result of being shut up in an enclosed space for six hours or more and being required to carry bags of soot weighing up to 30lbs many of the boys suffered ‘deformity of the spine, legs and arms’ (Aspinall, 1959, pp. 742-45) or contracted testicular cancer.

In English literature, Wordsworth and his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, were pioneers in the development of the Romantic Movement, or romanticism, a movement that championed imagination and emotions as more powerful than reason and systematic thinking. “What I feel about a person or thing,” a romantic poet might have said, “is more important than what scientific investigation, observation, and experience would say about that person or thing.” Intuition–that voice within that makes judgments and decisions without the aid of reason—was a guiding force to the romantic poet.

The Romantic Period in English literature began in the late 1700s. Romanticism focuses on the emotional side of human nature, individualism, and the beauty of the natural world. Romantic literature explores the intense beauty of nature and Romantic poets invest natural events with a divine presence. In nature, the Romantics find inspiration for their poetry, wisdom and happiness. They were living and writing at the time of the Industrial Revolution so the Romantics wanted to remind everyone the importance of nature. Romantic movement was against industrialization and mechanization. The Romantic period included the work of two generations of writers. The chief writers of the first generation were Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake. Shelley belonged to the second generation. He was influenced by the work of the writers of the first generation. The Romantics did not actually identify themselves as such. It was later Victorian critics who first used the term to describe the previous

Romantic poets are traditionally associated with images of nature and being immersed in the natural world. Around the time that Romanticism arose in Britain, the country was altered by the changes the Industrial Revolution inflicted on both the physical landscape and the structure of society. The Industrial Revolution forced people to give up their rural lifestyle and move into cities with increasing populations. Working conditions within factories were unsafe, dirty and demanded continuous labour for minimal wages. Exploiting children of their labour was a cost effective method for factories to meet supply and demand needs. Following the Industrial Revolution the French Revolution took place. Immediate causes of the French Revolution were “economic crisis, famine, war and a decline of Catholicism”. These extreme changes in society are challenged through protest in the form of nostalgia within the work of William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley and Anna Barbauld. In connecting historical context to the work of these poets, their individual uses of nostalgia critique cultural changes. Within their work nostalgia is “a rebellion against the modern idea of time and the time of history and progress” (Boym 2). Nostalgia is regarded as a “historical emotion came of age during the time of Romanticism” (Boym 4), the types of nostalgia in which these poets use in their work are “radical nostalgia” and “restorative nostalgia”. Radical nostalgia "points to political connections" (Boym 4)

The central figure in the English Romantic revolution in poetry was the William Wordsworth, The important things, that romanticism emphasis upon the terrors and power is the inner imaginative life, the mode of writing that explore of the self such: biography, autobiography ,lyrical poetry and fiction, nonfiction work that focus on anxieties of romantic self.

Romanticism is a literary and artistic movement which takes its inspiration from nature and creates a new perception of the world. Seeking for the essence of the nature made Romantic poets more related to the essence of the human being and its natural existence in the universe. These new conceptualized ideas created innovation for literature and especially for poetry. (Norton)