The Chimney Sweeper", William Blake

[abohalah2020]

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 smil'd 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===

William Blake tell us the story of a child who works as a chimney sweeper. The child is very sad because of this terrible and dangerous work and because his parents do not take care of him. They are obsessed with religion, church and God.

In order to analyse the poem I will use references and definitons from Terminología, a website which can be found in our ‘aula virtual’ from Universty of Valencia.
The poem is composed by three four-line stanzas. A stanza is a unit whithin a larger poem which have a self-contained rhyme scheme. Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words.
The first stanza is a couplet, that is to say, a pair of lines of verse that form a unit. The rhyme scheme in this first part of the poem is AABB, the first and the second lines rhyme as do the third and the fourth. Here we can find assonance which is the repetition of vowel sounds whithin a short passage of verse: snow / woe, say / pray.
In the second and third stanza we can find a different rhyme scheme. In the second it is CACA where the first and the third lines rhyme as do the second and the fourth. Now we have two different types of rhyme: heath / death produce consonance which is the repetition of consonant sounds in a short sequence of words, and snow / woe again produce assonance.
The last stanza has a similar pattern as the second. The rhyme scheme is EFEF and also we find consonance: sing / King, and assonance: injury / misery.
Overall, the poem The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Experience would be included into the category of tail rhymes, in which the rhyme appears in the final syllable of the verses. This kind of rhyme is the most common.
Also we observe that the rhythm pattern is not the same throughout the poem, and that the rhythm used by William Blake produce the effect of a children's song, probably a technique used by the author to accentuate the innocence of the poem.1

Blake uses many examples of symbols throughout this poem:

A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "'weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!

phors are found many times in the poem. The main character is represented as a defenseless and anguished child in a state of agony or even in a state of corruption. He is alone in an enormous world represented by the cold snow (phor), full of dangers and injustices. That is why the author calls him “little thing” (another phor). He is “black” because of the soot which dirties his clothes and makes him look more helpless and abandoned. The color black seems to be very important because it is used to represent sin against innocence, the color of the white snow.
He cries but he does not find answers or love from the persons who are supposed to be the most important in his life: his parents.

"Where are thy father and mother, say?"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

The child asks for his parents because he cannot find them, they are absent in their own world. As we can read in the page dedicated to William Blake’s poetry an art called Nimbi, Blake had his own point of view of religion, and he thought that nobody can teach you the truth.2
For this reason he poses the fact that his parents have “gone up to the church to pray” as a kind of foolishness because the church is a waste of time where you do not learn anything. It would have been better if they had stayed with his son to console him and take him out of this hell; the hell of being a too young chimney sweeper.

This poem is ironic in its way of denouncing the church, and also because parents and church are supposed to be the guardian of the children, but in this case they collaborate with their exploitation.

"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.

In the second stanza, the child is pictured in a very more happier and playful mood. Here he expresses the change. First he was happy, he had a normal children’s life (“I was happy upon the heath, and smiled among the winter snow”). In spite of being in this cold snow, which at first was a terrible and dangerous world, in this part he is happy ignoring the cruel society he is going to meet shortly when his parents “clothed him in the clothes of death” forcing him to conceal his unhappiness. They are showed to be punishing their child for being so happy by “clothing in clothes of death and teaching him to sing notes of woe”. It is very obvious the sweeper’s feels hate towards his parents for putting him in such sadness, but instead he chooses to hide it by making himself look happy and satisfied.

"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."

The child's parents go to the church to pray, while the child starves and freezes. The King, who is supposed to look after, is no less complacent. Even the church is not worried about them. Again we find irony.
Here (in the last stanza) we find the ’s climatic point, because in my opinion the main purpose of the author is to criticize the society dominated by church and God.
The poem is written in the 1st person, that is to say, the person who is speaking is the same that is living the situation but in the last line of the poem: “Who make up a heaven of our misery”, the possessive pronoun “our” is very important because from this moment we know that the author is including us in the poem, that is to say, we can not escape from the power of religion.

William Blake uses repetition with the sentence “notes of woe” twice, because “woe” is evident in the whole poem as I have said previously, and it is a word which supports the mood and tone of the poem.

In the poem we see some phors, for example: “black thing among the snow” in the first line, the color black opposed to white is used to represent sin against innocence. But maybe the most important phor is situated in the third line of the second stanza: “They clothed me in the clothes of death” symbolizing the black clothes dirtied by the soot of chimneys, here it is very obvious the sweeper’s feels hate towards his parents for putting him in such sadness.

We see a case of anaphora when the word “and” stars to be repeated: “And smiled…”, “And taught…”, “And because…”, “And are gone…”. This gives rhythm to the poem.

William Blake was born in London in 1757 and died in the same city in 1827. He belonged to the literary movement which started in the 18th century called Romanticism.

According to the ‘Wikipedia encyclopedia’, during all his live he was dedicated to many different fields related with arts. He was a poet, a painter and printmaker. His poetic production was very extense and also very varied. At the age of 28 he published his first collection of poems called Poetical Sketches. Later on in 1788 Blake invented a new revolutionary method called ‘relief etching’. This was a new printing technique he would use to produce most of his works, among them Songs of Innocence and Experience. A lot of friends influenced over William Blake’s life and therefore over his poetic production. The part of his life I will focus on is that which contains the production of Songs of Innocence and Experience between 1789 and 1794.3

Blake wrote two types of poetry which are called Songs of Innocence and Experience. The Songs of Innocence celebrate childhood, joy and spontaneity. His Songs of Experience deal with corruption and social injustice.

The first adaptation of The Chimney Sweeper is from Songs of Innocence and the tone is very tragic and pessimistic.
Belonging to the Blake’s Illuminated books, the second adaptation of The Chimney Sweeper is from Songs of Experience. It reflects the terrible situation that people, especially children lived at the end of the French Revolution; the situation was very disappointing. That is why this poem is very important for the author, it helped him to transmit us his sadness and melancholy.

As we can see in the ‘Wikipedia encyclopedia’, many romantic poets had great hopes for the American and French revolution, but this hopes disappeared due to the Reign of terror in the French revolution.William Blake was very concerned about children situation, many of the children who lived the period after the French Revolution were forced to work being exploted by their parents. This is the case of the main character of the poem I am focused on. This produced the lost of children innocence but not through their own discoveries but by the cruelty of society.4

The references to religious ideas and symbols are consistent throughout the poem. In addition to offering the slightest bit of hope to the subject of the poem, the religious symbolism is also reflective of the time period in which the poems were written.
Blake emphasizes a whole system (God, Priest and King) which represses the child. He launches an attack on the hypocrisies of the parents and god: “Who make up a heaven of our misery”.

Talking about today The Chimney Sweeper has many things in common with our everyday life. What I mean is that, fortunately not very often in our country, but around the world there are many children which are being exploted and forced to work and combat since very little. As we can see there are a lot of similarities between the situation that William Blake is relating in this poem and today.
The culprits of these facts today also seem to be the same of The Chimney Sweeper. On the one hand parents who do not take care of their children and on the other hand a highest power which force them to live these situations not appropiate for their ages
وإن شاء الله اكون وفقت للوصول للمطلوب وسلامتكم

[englishh student]

جزاك الله كل خير...
ويعطيك الف عافيه

[سهر]

الله يعطيك العافيه اخوي ماقصرت
الله يجعله في ميزان حسناتك يارب

[عشتار العراقية]

كل الشكر والتقدير لحظراتكم
وفقكم الله لعمل الخير وجعله في ميزان حسناتكم
شكرآ جزيلآ .