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William blake social criticism
William blake life and works
William blake social criticism
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In his poem, "The Chimney Sweeper", William Blake displays the despondent urban life of a young chimney sweeper during the coming of the industrial revolution in order to emphasize the theme of innocence through Marxism and to inform people of the harsh working conditions during the times of child labor promoting political reform. William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757, to James and Catherine Blake. From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions. He learned to read and write at home. Blake expressed a wish to become a painter, so his parents sent him to drawing school. Two years later, Blake began writing poetry. One of Blake's assignments as apprentice was to sketch the tombs at Westminster Abbey, exposing him to a variety of Gothic styles from which he would draw inspiration throughout his career. After his seven-year term ended, he studied briefly at the Royal Academy. He married an illiterate woman named Catherine Boucher. Blake taught her to read and to write, and also instructed her in draftsmanship. Later, she helped him print the illuminated poetry for which he is remembered today. Reviewers criticized his physical representation of spiritual happenings and supposed visions as a part of theological insolence, Blake's love for creativity and imagination updates his conception of a personal cosmology that supports both his lyric and visionary poetry. Blake's poetry reflected early proclamations of Marxist topics even though Marxism had not even been documented as a theory.
In order to present the theme of innocence throughout the poem, the rhyming pattern of this poem is maintained in quatrain form allowing it to create a mood of innocence with the rhythm of a child-like song. Because the poem is being t...
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Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2003. 161-178.
Erdman, David V. "Infinite London." Blake: Prophet Against Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Reprinted In Twentieth Century Interpretations of Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Ed. Morton D. Paley. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969.49-57.
"Factories and Mines: Report on Child Labor, 1843." . 8 November 2005.
Nurmi, Martin K. "Fact and Symbol in The Chimney Sweeper' of Blake's Songs of Innocence." Blake: A Collection of Critical Essays. Northrop Frye ,ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
"William Blake." DISCovering Authors. Online Edition. Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center. Thomson Gale. .22 November 2005.
Zimmer, Erika. "Child Victims of the Industrial Revolution."
< http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/feb2001/orph-f20.shtml>.20 February 2001.
The poem "London" by William Blake paints a frightening, dark picture of the eighteenth century London, a picture of war, poverty and pain. Written in the historical context of the English crusade against France in 1793, William Blake cries out with vivid analogies and images against the repressive and hypocritical English society. He accuses the government, the clergy and the crown of failing their mandate to serve people. Blake confronts the reader in an apocalyptic picture with the devastating consequences of diseasing the creative capabilities of a society.
William Blake, born in 1757 and died in 1827, created the poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell. Blake grew up in a poor environment. He studied to become an engraver and a professional artist. His engraving took part in the Romanticism era. Romanticism is a movement that developed during the 18th and early 19th century as a reaction against the Restoration and Enlightenment periods focusing on logic and reason.
William Blake first started to draw before he became a writer. His father James knew from the beginning that his son was extremely talented. From early childhood Blake spoke about of having visions, where he saw God. That’s when they realized that Blake had talented and his parents decided to home school him. He is and will always be one of Britain’s finest poems, writers, and painters. One of the most talented people of the 18th century. William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in London. He was not recognized much during his lifetime. Blake was the one of the seven children of James and Catherine. William growing up wasn’t a fan of school. He only went
William Blake was an English romantic poet who lived from 1757 to 1827 through both the American and the French revolutions. Although he lived during the Romantic Age, and was clearly part of the movement, Blake was a modern thinker who had a rebellious political spirit. He was the first to turn poetry and art into sociopolitical weapons to be raised rebelliously against the establishment. His poetry exemplified many of the same topics being discussed today. Although he was known as both a madman and a mystic, (Elliott) his poetry is both relevant and radical. He employed a brilliant approach as he took in the uncomfortable political and moral topics of his day and from them he created unique artistic representations. His poetry recounts in symbolic allegory the negative effects of the French and American revolutions and his visual art portrays the violence and sadistic nature of slavery. Blake was arguably one of the most stubbornly anti-oppression and anti-establishment writers in the English canon.
The Web. The Web. Blake, William. The. “Songs of Experience: London.”
Bloom, Harold. "Critical Analysis Of "The Tyger " Bloom's Major Poets: William Blake. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York, NY: Chelsea House, 2003. 17-19.
The theme of authority is possibly the most important theme and the most popular theme concerning William Blake’s poetry. Blake explores authority in a variety of different ways particularly through religion, education and God. Blake was profoundly concerned with the concept of social justice. He was also profoundly a religious man. His dissenting background led him to view the power structures and legalism that surrounded religious establishments with distrust. He saw these as unwarranted controls over the freedom of the individual and contrary to the nature of a God of liberty. Figures such as the school master in the ‘schoolboy’, the parents in the ‘chimney sweeper’ poems, the guardians of the poor in the ‘Holy Thursday’, Ona’s father in ‘A Little girl lost’ and the priestly representatives of organised religion in many of the poems, are for Blake the embodiment of evil restriction.
In several poems found in Songs of Experience and Innocence Blake presents the church, as well as religion, as corrupt and damaging to the innocence and purity of youth’s souls. The poe...
Throughout the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century, many children were forced to work against their own will, to support the growing need for labor in the demanding economy. William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper,” meticulously portrays the mindsets of two individuals obligated to carry out these societal expectations of working at a very young age. However, contrary to societies opinion on harmful child labor, Blake uses irony and sarcasm to convey his critical allegation of the wrongdoings of the church and society on their lack of effort to intervene and put an end to the detrimental job of adolescent chimney sweeping. By creating this ironic atmosphere, Blake establishes a poem that is full of despair and suffering but is sugar-coated and disguised with happiness and content provided by the church and society of London.
Gleckner, Robert F. The Piper and the Bard: A Study of William Blake. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1959.
William Blake, one of the infamous English romantic poets, is most known for his romantic views on conventional scenes and objects, which were presented in his works The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience. The first collection was published in 1789, and addresses subjects such as suffering and death from the innocent and optimistic perspective of a child. The later collection addresses these same issues, but is told from the perspective of an experienced bard. The poems contained in The Songs of Innocence often have a counter part in the second collection that reflects a darker or more corrupted take on the same subject. For example, the purity presented in the creation of “The Lamb” is dramatically contrasted with its shameful counterpart “The Tyger”.
In 1789, English poet William Blake first produced his famous poetry collection Songs of Innocence which “combines two distinct yet intimately related sequences of poems” (“Author’s Work” 1222). Throughout the years, Blake added more poems to his prominent Songs of Innocence until 1794, when he renamed it Songs of Innocence and Experience. The additional poems, called Songs of Experience, often have a direct counterpart in Blake’s original Songs of Innocence, producing pairs such as “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” In Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake uses musical devices, structure, and symbolism to develop the theme that experience brings both an awareness of potential evil and a tendency that allows it to become dominant over childhood
Although written prior to what became know as Marxism, William Blake’s poem London exhibits many of the qualities favored by Marxism. The poem, in its sixteen lines, centers on both the political background and the social background of London. Keeping with Marxist beliefs, it exemplifies the differences between the upper class citizens and the poverty stricken lower class. He also attacks the Church and the Palace for contributing to the plights of those on the lowest spectrum of society. Blake starts his poem with
Sociological criticism emphasizes the political, economic, and cultural aspects of literature, and one of its main focuses is evaluating writing from a Marxist perspective, which examines the writing in mostly political and economic fashion, including ideas such as communism and social inequality. The idea of class oppression is clearly represented in many of William Blake’s writings. Blake’s opposition to the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists is obvious in many of his poems. Blake’s ideology of an equalitarian society could be described in the sayings of Karl Marx. Marxist criticism explains the reasons behind Blake’s anger towards social inequality. Poems like “The Chimney Sweeper” and “London” illustrate Blake’s despairing sadness towards the phenomena produced by the unjust inequality in 18th century England. In “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake expresses his anger at the late 18th and 19th century's use of child labor in urban England. In “London,” Blake illustrates the depressing class oppression that could be easily seen through the streets of London.
“The Chimney Sweeper” is a great title for Blake’s poem. The title is a symbol representing the harsh life of a chimney sweeper and his life as a child. He states, “When my mother died I was very young, and my father sold me while yet my tongue”, (ln 1-2). This is saying that his mother died when he was young and his father gave him up. Blake’s unhappiness resembles being mortal in a sense that his unhappiness is like being dead. Blake has two meanings when he says, “So your chimney’s I sweep, and in soot I sleep”, (ln 4). This line denotes that he is an adult now with the responsibility of being a chimney sweeper. Blake is really saying that his childhood was terrible like the work of a chimney sweeper.