Reading module 1
Poem
The Chimney Sweeper
A little black
thing among the snow,
Crying "'weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
Where are thy father and mother, say?
They are both gone
up to the church to pray.
Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among
the winter's snow,
They clothed me in
the clothes of death,
And
taught me to sing the notes of woe.
And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they
have done me no injury,
And are gone to
praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a
heaven of our misery.
From
Songs of Experience, 1794. William Blake.
(source: http://www.online-literature.com/blake/613 )
Analysis
William Blake (1757-1827) ‘was a transitional
figure in British literature. He was the one of the first
writers of the Romantic Period’ (William Blake Page, Leah Shannon, http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/britlit/97-98/blake/POEMS.HTM#BLAKE. Day of acces: May 4th).
During the Romantic period poets used to write about their life and this
is what Blake does. He talks in his poetry about his life so that every reader
can be aware of it. In The Chimney
Sweeper he is talking about himself, as an orphan child that he was.
This is a very emotional poem
which shows the brilliant way in which Blake expresses his feelings. He uses an
easy language and thanks of this use of daily words; it is much easier for the
reader to have access to the meaning of the poem.
This poem is divided in three stanzas, having four verses each one. In
The Chimney Sweeper he is talking
about a chimney sweeper child. Blake himself learned that job, so he is
explaining to the reader how he felt working as a sweeper and being an orphan
child.
In lines 1 and 2 Blake makes the reader think of a child in a state of
agony. There is a contrast between the colour black and white in the first
line. The child is a ‘little black thing’ and he is in a land covered of white
snow. Black may represent sin and white innocence. Blake is naming Nature in
these two lines, which Romantics used to talk about.
In line 2 Blake shows this child weeping. He cries because he feels
alone. This image of the child weeping makes the reader feel compassion for
him.
In line 3 the author asks where the
parents of the child are. They were in church, praying. They were responsible for
the state of the child. This is a hypocrite situation. This child is crying and
in a sad state because of his parents while they are in church, peacefully
praying.
In the second stanza the child
seems to feel happier. But this soon changes when he starts talking about his
parents. He says about them in line 7 ‘they clothed me in the clothes of
death’. It seems like the poor child has been grounded for no reason, just for
being happy maybe. The little sweeper feels sad about the way his parents act towards
him. But he tries to hide his sadness
looking apparently happy and satisfied.
In lines 9 and 10 Blake is saying that like the child looked happy, and
danced and singed, their parents did not feel compassion for him, they did not
realize how much pain he was suffering because of them. What is clear is that
the sweeper’s parents are no help towards their child at all.
In the last two lines he is criticizing God, his priest and King,
because the ‘make up heaven of our misery’ (line 12). He can not understand how
the church and the state let things like this happen. The child’s parents go to
the church to pray to God, but they ignore the feelings of their own child.
I think this is a very striking poem that makes the reader feel bad
about this child’s situation. He is just a child but he has already experienced
loneliness and sadness. It reflects Blake’s anger towards society at that time.
During that period these kinds of things happened frequently and neither the
Church nor the State tried to find solutions to these problems.