ANALYSIS OF “THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER” by WILLIAM BLAKE:

The Romantic period was a literary form which began and assimilated by the writers of this
age in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Romanticism is term that derives from the
french Word “remount” meaning a romantic story told in verse rather than the ides of love. For the
romantics, poetry was believed to be the highest form of literature. They believed only poetry can
reflect human feelings and beauty of nature. In contrast to the period’s customary literary works,
Romanticism place a strong emphasis on the writer’s individuality, emotions, and frequently used
the autobiographical information in order to inform the work or examplify it as a model. Romantics
raised the “ordinary people” to the status of primal and praised them in their works. Moreover;
Romantics was fascinated by nature and were vigorous advocaters of the idea of isolation as critical
for the improvement of art and spirit. On the other hand, one of the vital events that influenced the
Romantic period is the Industrial Revolution. The Romantic movement which was oriented
esacaping from the modern realities which also affected by the Indutrial Revolution. The age of
enlightenment’s aristocratic norms as well as the scientific rationality of nature were both
challenged by Romanticism. In this period, William Blake was the foremost poet whose poetry
were a mirror to the period. Blake embraces poetry as a means of social protest. He is outraged by
the misery of the urban poor and criticizes the Church and the Monarchy of being complicit in the
situation which caused by the Industrial Revolution, unemployment, child labor, and the interest of
the upper class in his sequence Song of Innocence and Experiment. One of the examples from his
poetry sequence is the poem named The Chimney Sweeper which Blake reflects the situation of the
period.
In the sorrowful poetry “The Chimney Sweeper”, a young kid living in the 1700s London
who must make a living by doing the hazardous and damageful work of cleaning soot off people’s
chimneys. The poem portrays this existence as exteremly hard and poor, making no attempt to
romanticize it. The poem actually makes the case that this kind of exploitative behavior that
basically robs the kids of their youth by taking away their freedom and happiness. The poem
demonstrate the outset the difficulty of young poor children experienced in the eighteenth cenury
London. It does not take much imagination to complete this duty- children used to hate, fear, and
work hard at at sweeping chimneys. The speaker’s father sold him to labor, and the reader realize
his mother has died. Also, the other kid mentioned in the poem, Tom Dacre most likely grew up in
a same situation. Due to improve his usefulness as sweep he has now had his head forcefully
shaved which emphasize suffering that one of the themes Blake used in the poem. Thus, both kids
are thrown into a bad life. In fact, the entire world of the kids revolves around chimney sweeping.
The poet used death in his poem as a theme to show how the children lost their innocence, freedom,
and childhood becuse they has died since kids became sweepers. Also, Tom saw the other fellow
sweepers in the coffins. It also implies that these sweepers died young age due to hard work.
Furthermore; suffering reveals again the hardship of chimney sweeping and the children’s
emotionally and physically sufferings.
The poem written in five stanzas each one of them comprises four lines. Also the poem
divided into rhyming six quatrains with AABB, CCDD, EEFF, GGHH, IIJJ, KKLL ryhme scheme.
The majority of the poem are written in anapestic iambic tetrameter. There are two rhyming
couplets for each stanza and all of the endings are perfect ryhme. The poem dominated by
masculine endings. Most of the lines are enjambed lines except lines 2,5, and 21 are end-stopped
lines. In addition to that except lines 2,5, and 21 majority of the lines have pauses by using
punctuation. On the other hand, the poet uses caesura mostly in the poem by using commas except
lines 1,2,8,10,12,13,15.
 There is metaphor in first line of the last stanza where dark is the metaphor that explain the
hard life conditions of child chimney sweepers. The poet also uses assonance in the second line of
the first stanza with the words ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! Which is an example at the same time
for repetition fort he words and an example fort he consonance with the /i/ sound in the poem. It
can be seen that the poet uses alliteration with /ı/ sound in the second line of the second stanza.
Additionally, again, ther is alliteration in the third lin o the econd stanza with the sounds /ı/, /p/, and
/r/ in “Could scarcely cry” ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! Lastly, the use of symbolism can be
observed in the poem. Lamb is symbolizes innocence and childhood while green plain is a symbol
of freedom and the key that an Angel opens the locks of the coffins of the fellow sweepers Tom
saw, symbolizes hope in the fourth stanza.