William Blake Research Paper

In the 18th century, the treatment of children was despicably terrible and absolutely different from what it is today. Children were forced to sweep chimneys; they were not forced as slavers, they were forced as a convenience to the adults simply because they were small enough to where they could easily fit in the chimney and sweep it out. Due to this, the children life expectancy dropped tremendously because of the black soot they took into their lungs on a daily basis. William Blake, a poet, wrote two distinct poems about the problems of the jobs the children were doing; one poem was written in 1789 and the other in 1794. These poems have very interesting titles such as the first poem from 1789 is titled “Songs of Innocence” and the second

William Blake used a difference of titles for a very specific reason; not just because they were written at different times, but, because he wanted to show the differences of the characters that partake in these poems. For instance, the title “Songs of Innocence” relates to the character by that he is just an innocent young boy who was scared of the life that was ahead of him because he felt helpless and did not know what to do. While the other title, “Songs of Experience,” relates to the character by showing that, he is mature about the way his life is, he already understands the consequences of this life, and he understands the way the adults are thinking as well. Even though the topic of these two poems is exactly the same, you get a since of contrast from titles because you instantly think of maturity when you see “innocence” and “experience” in the

One poetic technique that Blake uses is a simile when he compares Tom Dacre’s hair to a lambs back. In this simile, he is saying the child is innocent because the lamb is a symbol of innocence. He uses a metaphor in line twelve of the first poem when he said, “all of them were locked up in coffins of black.” The meaning of this is that since they were forced to sweep out chimneys, it was like them literally being locked in coffins of black with the chimney being the coffin and the black being the soot. An alliteration happens in the first two lines of the first poem with “young” and “tongue.” He is using these words to describe the characters youth by obviously saying that the character is young and by saying that he could barely talk. In the third line, he uses repetition with “’weep” to make it stand so he could show just how young the boy was because the he could not say “sweep” correctly. There is a multiple meaning in the last line of the second poem when Blake says, “Who make up a heaven of our misery.” In this line he is saying that the adults made up a “heaven” in their minds because they think they are doing no wrong with the children when, really they have put the children through misery so they have actually created a “hell.” He uses these different techniques to make important points stand out and make sure the reader understands what the children went