William Blake

My senior year in high school I took AP English. Interestingly, in the AP exam I’m pretty sure I was asked to compare and contrast “The Chimney Sweeper” from both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Having not read William Blake before and not being familiar with the two poems, I’m not sure that I did very well. I’m going to try again at this by focusing in on these two poems specifically.

The poem “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence is the first of the two poems which Burke wrote. Overall, the poem seems to give more hope and although, still not a happy poem, seems to give a happier tone than the other poem. The first two stanzas are emotional and tell the reader how the young child was sold into being a chimney sweeper and tells of his life because of it. He describes, “my father sold me while yet my tongue could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep weep.” (ln2-3), meaning that he was sold very young before he had even learned to talk. In addition, Blake uses a play on words when the child crys “weep weep weep weep” referring to the child’s profession “Sweep! Sweep! Sweep!” Tom Dacre is a younger child in the poem whose dream the speaker describes in detail gives a hopeful tone to the poem. In line 6, Tom Dacre is described as a lamb, a symbol for both innocence and purity. Blake wants the reader to see that the children are innocent and have been forced into black soot, a color resembling sin and death. In Blake’s poems, he uses dark and light and white and black contrasting images frequently to convey his themes. He does this first in line 8 when the reader remarks that “the soot cannot spoil your white hair.” Here Blake makes the point that the soot and grief cannot spoil his purity and innocence. In the 3rd stanza, Tom’s dream begins. Throughout the dream, the poem seems to flow better and have more even rhythm. The tone seems to lighten and bring a happy moment for the young chimney sweep. At the beginning of the dream, the sweepers are “lock’d up in coffins of black” symbolizing a dark life leading only to death. At death, the Angel “open’d the coffins & set them all free” and the children are able to play in a normal way. Brighter images are seen in the next two stanzas. Words and phrases are used such as “green plain,” “leaping through the sun,” “rise upon clouds,” and “sport in the wind.” All these images give a carefree view of the children playing in a meadow. It is also a very nice image of the children being set free describing them as being “naked and white.” As chimney sweeps, the children are black and covered with soot. In the dream, they are seen in their pure state. In the last stanza, Tom wakes up in the “dark.” He is back to reality, back to agony and darkness. The last line of the poem is very disturbing to the reader. The speaker states that “if all do their duty they need not fear harm.” Here its almost as if the speaker accepts his fate as being okay and all they have to do is their job and things will work out.

In Burke’s second poem “The Chimney Sweeper” in Songs of Experience, the mood seems to be much more pessimistic and darker. The black and white contrasting image is seen again in the first line of the poem, “A little black thing among the snow.” An image of sin and pain is seen against the white pure snow. In the first two lines, Blake concentrates on giving an image of the anguished child. He also, like the poem from Song of Innocence, conveys the child’s crying “weep, weep” instead of “sweep, sweep.” It is sweeping that has given the child so much grief. At the end of the first stanza, the speaker is asked about their parents, which is the reason for the child’s grief. The second stanza gives two contrasting moods. In the first two lines of the stanza, the child seems happy speaking of being “happy upon the heath” and smiling “among the winters snow.” Again, snow is mentioned to represent cleanliness and purity. Contrasting these images are the last two lines of the stanza. The child speaks of their parents and gives dark images saying that they “clothed me in the clothes of death.” Because the child was happy, the parents made him a chimney sweep so that they could “sing the notes of woe.” In the third stanza, it is apparent that Blake is criticizing and blaming the parents, the church, and the state for the woe of these children. The last two lines of the poem describe that the parents “are gone to praise God & his Priest & King who make up a heaven of our misery.” The state and church have let these things happen and the sweeper’s parents are no help to the child. They would rather find love at the church than give love to their child.

In the second poem, the speaker seems to be more pessimistic and is never freed from misery. In the first poem, featured in Song of Innocence, the speaker is more naïve and gives himself hope to accept his life as a chimney sweep. In both poems though, Blake successfully conveys they fact that the chimney sweeps lived a dark life and that something needed to be changed.

Edmund Burke

For this blog, I am going to focus on Edmund Burke whom we read about in “Perspectives: The Rights of Man and the Revolution Controversy.” Edmund Burke is known for his opposition of the French Revolution and strong support for a monarchy. He saw the revolution as a rebellion against tradition and what he thought of as proper authority. Burke believed that the best way to repair a nation and constitution was to look to their forefathers and rebuild on their old foundations. He uses England as an example pointing out that England has followed the old common laws of Europe and has become one of the most powerful nations.

In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke stresses the importance of inheritance to the reader. He states on pg. 49, “It has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity.” He also mentions the crown as being an “inheritable crown,” and compares it to any other inheritance a father might pass down to a child. Burke uses familiar ideas such as a father’s inheritance for his child and applies them to his ideas about the revolution to get people to be able to relate to him. Burke stresses that tradition should be followed and a king has the right to pass down the crown to his son as any other father has the right to pass down something which has belonged to his family. Burke is very good at convincing the reader of his ideas with this method of familiarity. Burke also believes that the foundations and policies set by the founders are the country’s inheritance. Also on pg. 49 he says that “the institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order.” Just as the people before them have handed down their policies and government, it is the duty of the people to hand them down to the next generation.

Edmund Burke also speaks of the “Rights of Men” in Reflections on pg 50 and 51. I believe that here his ideas are not so far from some of our own even though many of us disagreed with many of his opinions. Burke believes that men “have a right to the fruits of their industry; and to the means of making their industry fruitful.” He states that, “Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself.” Burke emphasizes the right of man to his own property and to what he has earned. He is also against redistributing the wealth so that everyone is more equal. People have earned their wealth so it is their right to keep it. I agree with what he is saying here to an extent and that people who have earned their wealth and property have a right to keep that. Burke notes that, “In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things.” I do not agree with Burke’s stance on the power and authority of the government however. He speaks of his stance stating, “and as to the share of power, authority, and direction which each individual ought to have in the management of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society.” It is evident that Burke is against government and the right of the individual having a say in what goes on in the state and how it is governed. According to Burke, it is not among the original rights of man.

I enjoyed reading Edmund Burke even though I did not agree with what he said. He made very convincing and interesting arguments in his writing and it was good to get the other side of someone against the revolution. His thoughts that the revolution was not a good thing could not have even been that far fetched since eventually Napoleon took over France and France returned to just one ruling all. I’m glad that we read Burke’s argument as well as Mary Wollstonecraft’s and Paine’s to read arguments both for and against the revolution. This helped us to better see the whole picture of the revolution as a class and have a rather successful discussion about it!

Soo... my name is Kelly Pipkin and I'm a junior at Mercer University. On campus I'm involved with Alpha Delta Pi and many things in the science department since I am a pre-med bio major. It will be my 3rd summer class, but my first online class so I'm not sure what exactly to expect. I'm taking this class to fulfill a gen ed requirement and because I think an online class is something that I will really like. I like being able to do things in my own time, especially during the summer when my schedule is so up in the air. I do have some anxieties about taking this class because it is an english class. I've only taken one english class at Mercer, FYS 102. I'm so use to taking mostly bios and chemistrys so I will have to get use to the different style of thinking that it takes to be successful in this class. Well, here goes