Published in 1789
and 1794, William Blake wrote two poems both titled "The Chimney
Sweeper". The first poem, published in 1789 reveals innocence of the young
chimney sweep and in the second poem, published in 1794, he reflects on the
experience aspect of the chimney sweep. Blake uses multiple poetic techniques
including tone shifts, imagery, and rhyme schemes, using them differently in
each poem.
Looking
first at the 1789 version, Blake uses imagery to portray the visions of a
dream. In lines 11-16 Blake writes, "Thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe,
Ned, and Jack, were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black; And by came an
Angel who had a bright key, And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain, leaping laughing they run, And wash in a river and
shine in the Sun." Then, looking at lines 5-7 of the 1794 version, Blake
writes, "Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil'd among the winter's
snow; They clothed me in the clothes of death." In the first version,
Blake uses imagery to depict first a morbid scene, of small children in black
coffins. However, this morbidity goes away as he describes the Angel setting
them free by using words such as "green plain" and
"leaping" and "shine" as these words are vastly different
than what the boys experienced in real life. With this use of imagery, the
author portrays the hope and innocence the young sweeps possessed, as the vivid
dream brought them hope that they didn't need to fear harm because if they did
end up in black coffins, they believed an angel would come set them free. This
also portrays their innocence as they trusted in the idea of "the
angel". This is different in the second version of the poem however,
because the imagery used doesn't create a joyful image in the reader's mind. Looking
back at the line "clothed me in the clothes of death," this kind of
represents the young sweep's loss of innocence and gain of experience, as he no
longer trusts the adults because they believe the children are happy.
Another
technique Blake uses in both poems is the rhyme scheme. In the 1789 version,
Blake uses an AA BB rhyme pattern consistently throughout the entire poem. Then
looking at the 1794 version, Blake uses the same AA BB rhyme pattern in the
first stanza, but uses an AB AB pattern throughout the rest of the poem. In the
1789 version, which is also the version that represents the innocence of the
young sweeps, it shows the sweeps consistently trusting adults and authority,
and the consistent rhyming pattern also reflects this. Looking at the 1794
version, when the rhyming switches to AB AB, this kind of represents the gain
of experience of the young sweep, as they have learned that the adults don't
understand their misery and learned through experience, that they shouldn't
always trust them.
Reflection:
After writing the comparison and contrast
essay and reading the benchmark essays, I definitely believe I could improve my
response to receive a higher score. Although I understood what the prompt was
asking and I used evidence from the poem, my analysis was kind of vague and I
could've added another paragraph with more textual evidence. After reviewing
the benchmark essays, I would say the most important thing that should be
included in my essay is explicitly stating the differences between the poems,
by saying the second one is telling the truth about chimney sweeps. Also after
reading the benchmark essays, I think it would be a good idea to address
metaphors, because they're used in both poems. I also didn't have time to
address the tone shifts and I didn't have a three sentence thesis statement.
Despite what I was lacking, I was able to discuss imagery and rhyming patterns
used by Blake as well as use lines from the poem to support what I wrote.
Overall though, since there were parts of analysis I was missing, I would give
myself a 4-5.
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