The Chimney Sweeper, by William Blake expresses the atrocious life of a common young British chimney sweeper in the 18th century. The explication of this poem will explain the conditions of the environment at the time, the themes and the uses of various poetic devices by the author in order to allow the readers to fully and completely understand the message behind the poem. The speaker of this poem is an orphan because he was sold by his father to the work at a very young age, within this poem we rarely hear about his personal perspective but rather his friend Tom. There are six, four lined stanzas that make up this poem, with a rhyme scheme of AA BB meaning the first two lines within the stanza rhymes and last two lines within the same stanza also rhymes. Before getting into the detailed explication, discussing the title is important, the poem is called The Chimney Sweeper but it’s not just about one chimney sweeper there are several within the poem with a focus on the speaker and his friend Tom Dacre. The poem will be below. shine in the sun.
In the first stanza, detailed information is revealed about the speaker and his personal upbringing. As readers we discovered that the speaker is motherless and very young, maybe five or six, and his father sold him. The father’s decision to sell his young son shows extreme desperation and poverty within their country and personal life. As the first stanza continues, more information is revealed and its sought that he was sold