Poetry has been used to convey feelings and emotions since 1200 BCE. It’s an art which encourages us to see things differently and transports us beyond the page, into mindscapes that teach us about ourselves. I’m Alice Walker, and you’re listening to the Open Learning Podcast, where in our first episode of The Literature Round Table today, we will be discussing the inspiring world of Poetry. We will be examining the exquisite mind of William Blake (1757-1827), an English poet and painter who is considered a seminal figure in the history of poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Although Blake was considered insane or ‘mad’ during his lifetime he was appreciated for his eye-opening work after his death, that keeps a record of his thoughts and critiques of the time. In many of Blake’s poems he expresses his anger towards the church and child labour, which is the prominent theme in his 1789 poem “The Chimney Sweeper”. In the poem, Blake highlights the hardships of the Chimney Sweep children using symbolism, imagery and juxtaposition, and critiques how the church was complicit in child labour during the Industrial Revolution.
Blake uses symbolism to represent the Church throughout the poem and to highlight the church being complicit with child labour during the Industrial Revolution, where children were sold and forced to work for little to no money as chimney sweepers. In stanzas three to five, the young chimney sweep is dreaming of a better life and Blake uses the symbols of an “Angel” (13) and “God” (20) saving the child. At the beginning of the dream, there’s imagery of an Angel coming down from above, opening their coffins, and setting them free to be happy and live with God as their father. Here, Blake uses symbolism effectively to display that the children are dreaming of the church saving them and are in desperate need of someone to set them free from their pain and labour. Another effective example of symbolism used by Blake in “The Chimney Sweeper” is the symbol of the “lamb” (6) in stanza one. He uses this symbol because not only does it represent the innocence of helpless Tom, it also links to the church as a Christian religious sacrificial item. This relates to the boys as powerless, as well as Blake once again using a Christian symbol to express his opinion that the church was sacrificing the boys by failing to help them. Through symbolism Blake holds the church accountable for their actions, indicating they need to help the boys, and brings light to the helplessness of the young chimney sweepers.
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Imagery is another aesthetic feature William Blake uses effectively to represent the cruelty of child labour and the compliance of the church. Blake uses imagery throughout the poem and explicitly in the dream to emphasize and create an image of the better world that the dream represents in the reader’s mind. In stanza three the line “locked up in coffins of black… an angel who had a bright key… opened the coffins and set them all free” (12-14) creates a clear image in the reader’s mind of a bright white angel coming down from above and setting the children free from their coffins and life of entrapment. This imagery is a powerful element of the poem’s representation of child labour at the time because it creates an image of brightness and happiness that is suddenly contrasted with the sixth stanza lines “and so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark… the morning was cold” (21-23). Blake uses changing imagery from the bright freedom to the dark, cold morning to create a dark, helpless mood and powerfully display the cold harsh reality of the young children’s lives. Imagery plays a crucial role in Blake’s poem, helping to represent the harsh life of child slaves and the reality of their bleak and hopeless lives.
Additionally, Blake uses juxtaposition to reveal the true sadness and melancholy of the lives of the Chimney Sweepers who can only dream of being saved by the church and given better lives. Lines eleven to twenty of the poem are in the form of a dream, and the rest of the poem is explicitly narrating the harsh reality of the young boys’ lives. Blake juxtaposes the two sections to portray this difference. In the thirteenth line of the poem, Tom dreams of “an Angel who had a bright key” (13) and later after he wakes from the dream, states “we rose in the dark” (20). Here he juxtaposes the dream where he uses the descriptor “bright” with the reality where he contrasts the bright with “dark”. Blake uses this effectively to highlight the harsh difference between dreams and reality and furthermore, to reveal the dark and desperate lives of young children sold as child slaves after already devastating childhoods. The juxtaposition displayed in the poem explicitly portrays the difference between the dream and reality of the children’s lives and creates a helpless mood concerning the children.
The poem “The Chimney Sweeper” written by William Blake and published in 1789 spectacles the prominent theme of child labour during the Industrial Revolution and the compliance of the church during the time, who turned a blind eye to the child labour despite claims of opposing it. In the poem Blake highlights the hardships of the children due to this, using symbolism, imagery and juxtaposition and explicitly criticizes the church. I’m Alice Walker, and this has been an episode of The Literature Round Table on the Open Learning Podcast, I hope you enjoyed listening todays and I look forward to speaking to you next week.
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