Commentary ' the chimney sweeper ' by William Blake

Résumé du document

This poem, written in 1789 by William Blake, was published in "Songs of Inno-cence". Like its fellow poems, it deals with childhood as an epitome for innocence and purity; here, the poet chooses to look into the life of the poor young boys who used to sweep chimneys in London in those times. The narrator, a chimney sweeper among his fellows, tells us about their precarious life, through his own story and the visionary dream of his friend, Tom Dacre. Throughout the poem, which is divided into six stanzas, rhymed in quatrains, it seems that these innocent chimney sweepers always waver between hope and despair, between their wretched life and the promised land they could only dream about. So as to grasp Blake's aim better, we will first analyse the description full of pathos, of the chimney sweepers' life and survival. Then, we will study the construction of a promised paradise through Tom's dream, in order to get the deconstruction of the utopia by means of irony and the message of the poet, in the last moment.

Blake first sets the scene and establishes his characters firmly in a dark and heavy atmosphere.

Extraits

[...] Throughout the poem, which is divided into six stanzas, rhymed in quatrains, it seems that these innocent chimney sweepers always waver between hope and despair, between their wretched life and the promised land they could only dream about. So as to grasp Blake's aim better, we will first analyse the description full of pathos of the chimney sweepers' life and survival; then, we will study the construction of a promised paradise through Tom's dream, in order to get the deconstruction of the utopia by means of irony and the message of the poet, in a last moment. [...]

[...] Songs of innocence, the Chimney Sweeper William Blake This poem, written in 1789 by William Blake, was published in “Songs of Innocence”. Like its fellow poems, it deals with childhood as an epitome for innocence and purity; here, the poet chooses to look into the life of the poor young boys who used to sweep chimneys in London in those times. The narrator, a chimney sweeper among his fellows, tells us their precarious life, through his own story and the visionary dream of his friend, Tom Dacre. [...]

[...] Commentary the chimney sweeper by William Blake When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep. There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said, "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair." And so he was quiet; and that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, - That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black. [...]

[...] We could say that their bags left behind”, they leave material existence and achieve angelic essence, “naked & white”. However, the divine salvation is not a free gift, and God, the Christian God, does not save men out of sheer kindness; in actual fact, the children must believe and pray as to be saved; they have to enter Christian Faith, which is told Tom by the Angel, who embodies here the Holy Spirit. Being a “good Tom, and consequently all the children would find the paternal figure they miss so much: God. [...]

[...] Innocence, fortunately, is not reduced to tears as to survive; in fact, chimney sweepers constitute a community, a kind of makeshift family. We are presented a few in Tom's dream: Joe, Ned & and Tom evokes “thousands of sweepers”, who are fellows if not friend. This familial aspect of the community is reinforced by the particular relationship between the narrator and little Tom Dacre. Actually, we could say that the narrator embodies the paternal figure, while Tom is afraid and cries, and his sounds like a loving rebuke. [...]