William Blakes The Chimney-Sweeper, Holy Thursday...

Compare and Contrast William Blakes The Chimney-Sweeper, Holy Thursday (Innocence) and London I am going to compare and contrast three of William Blake poems, where he shows his feelings about the way people treat children: The Chimney-Sweeper, Holy Thursday (Innocence) and London. The Chimney-Sweeper is about a child who sweeps chimneys. William Blake sets this poem in the winter. The children worked in the cold. Blake says, â€Å"A little black thing among the snow,† â€Å"The little black thing,† Is the child who is dirty from cleaning the chimneys who stands out in the snow. He also looks like a black mask on the landscape. Like a dirty stain. â€Å"Crying weep, weep in the notes of woe!† Blake hears them crying a song. As children do†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"They think, they have done me no injury,† But they have. The adults have behaved as though nothing was wrong, and continued to go church, praising god, priest and king. Blake’s last line is his comment on roles of the church and government, who he considers have equally badly, by allowing defenceless children to do their kind of job and made the children’s life a misery. â€Å"Who have made up a heaven of our misery† (paradox) and yet these adults seem able to continue their lives and forget the dilemma of the children. In the poem â€Å"London† William Blake makes a political statement about London. â€Å"I wondered throu’ each charter’d street† he is leisurely walks through the streets of London. â€Å"Charter’d† is to be on the map. Blake is making an attack on the establishment, he is blaming the government for the fact that people living in London at this time have been worn down by the system, making them weak, burnt out and powerless. â€Å"Marks of weakness marks of woe† In verse two. â€Å"In every cry of every man, In every infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, Mind-forg’d manacles I hear† There is repetition, shows that they are suffering. Blake is explaining how every body is crying because of their life style, even though there still working because there are poorly paid and families were big. They are trapped in manacles. People’sShow MoreRelatedSongs of Good and Evil1545 Words   |  7 Pages Simple, limited, and unadventurous all describe William Blake’s life (Greenblatt, Abrams, Lynch, Stillinger). Blake was born November 28, 1757 in London, England and his artistic ability became evident in his early years. Blake had a very simple upbringing and had little education. His formal education was in art and at the age of fourteen he entered an apprenticeship with a well-known engraver who taught Blake his skills in engraving. In Blake’s free time, he began reading writing poetry. At theRead MoreBlake s Use Of Nature Through Songs Of Innocence1914 Words   |  8 PagesTai Beiserman Professor Nachumi ENGL 1100 26 April 2015 Blake’s use of nature through Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience William â€Å"Bill† Cronon, an environmental historian and vice Chair of The Wilderness Society, believes that because society differ its self from the nature, it makes the nature to be seen as wild, remote, and inaccessible. In his essay â€Å"The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature†, published in 1995 by the New York Times and in Uncommon Ground: TowardRead MoreAN ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM BLAKES SONGS2960 Words   |  12 PagesAN ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE AS A RESPONSE TO THE COLLAPSE OF VALUES TIMOTHY VINESâˆâ€" Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience are a much studied part of the English canon, and for good reason. Blake’s work depicts a quandary that continues to haunt humanity today: the struggle of high-order humanity against the ‘real’ rationality and morals of institutionalised society. This essay seeks to explore both Blake’s literary reaction to the Enlightenment and theRead MoreSongs Of Innocence And Of Experience By William Blake Analysis868 Words   |  4 PagesSongs of Innocence and of Experience is the foundation of the work of one of the greatest. English poets and artists. The two sets of poems reveal what William Blake calls â€Å"the two contrary states of the human soul.† In both series, he offers clues to deeper meanings and suggests ways out of the apparent trap of selfhood, so that each reading provides greater insight and understanding, not only to the poems but also to human life. Throughout this poem, the logic of this poem favors experience ratherRead MoreWilliam Blake And The French Revolution2017 Words   |  9 Pagesand that, although William Blake was universally considered to be a madman in his time, his work as a poet and painter is widely recognised as a revolutionary visionary (Altizer, Pg. 33). It is clear that, had the French Revolution not happened, Blake probably would have been a mer e poet and water colourist, with a turn to eccentricity. The French Revolution influenced many people all over the globe, including the radicals in London, to push and demand for immediate change. William Blake, a radicalRead More The Condition of Youth in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience2679 Words   |  11 PagesThe Condition of Youth in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are collections of poems that utilize the imagery, instruction, and lives of children to make a larger social commentary. The use of child-centered themes in the two books allowed Blake to make a crucial commentary on his political and moral surroundings with deceptively simplistic and readable poetry. Utilizing these themes Blake criticized the church, attacking theRead MoreThe Human Abstract Essay1196 Words   |  5 Pagesmanifestations in Blakes manuscripts, reading it against A Divine Image, a poem w hich was never finally published by Blake, or comparing it to its Innocence counterpart, The Divine Image. Most critics seem to agree that The Human Abstract represents a philosophical turning point in The Songs of Innocence and of Expe rience, and in Blakes work as a whole. In 1924, Joseph H. Wicksteed observes that this difficult poem, originally called The human Image, represents Blakes attempt to summarizeRead M oreThe Notion of Duality of the Human Soul in William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience4371 Words   |  18 PagesOf The Human Soul In   William Blake’s Songs Of Innocence And Experience Tembong Denis Fonge             Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience generally subscribe to the main stream appreciation that they present the reader with two states of the human condition - the pastoral, pure and natural world of lambs and blossoms on the one hand, and the world of experience characterized by exploitation, cruelty, conflict and hypocritical humility on the other hand. However, Blake’s songs communicate experiencesRead MoreRossetti Manuscripts and Innocence and the Songs of Experience1873 Words   |  8 PagesManuscripts and Innocence and the Songs of Experience Innocence and the Songs of Experience, and the poems from the Rossetti manuscripts, are the poems of a man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them. (Grant, Pg 507) These two famous books of poetry written by William Blake, not only show mens emotions and feelings, but explain within themselves, the childs innocence, and mans experience. A little over two centuries ago, William Blake introduced