William Blake Research Paper

William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” songs of innocence and songs of experience both give insight into the mind of young chimney sweepers. When it comes to tone, Blake’s poems are similar in terms of word choice and subtle tone shifts. Comparatively, the poems differ in perspective and attitude.
In “Songs of Innocence”, and “Songs of Experience” Blake sets a dismal and gloomy tone. This is accomplished by using words such as “Dark”, “Black”, and “Coffins”; these words provoke a dark and ominous feeling when reading. Also, both poems have a depressed to exuberant tone shift, for example, from line one; the words “crying” and “weep” set a dark tone. Then in line nine the words “happy” and “heaven” shift the tone to a much lighter one.
Conversely,

the tone of the speakers are different. In, “songs of innocence” the narrator is from the perspective of a young orphaned child that is just been purchased to work as a chimney sweep. I know this because the child says “...my father sold me while yet my tongue could scarcely cry”, this creates a sort of scared and fearful tone in the child's voice. Meanwhile, in “songs of experience” the speaker is of a child that has sweeping experience which creates a more calm and slacken tone in the speaker's voice.
To conclude, both of william Blake’s “songs of innocence” and “songs of experience” both share certain similarities along with subtle differences in terms of tone.
But also differ in narrator tone.