186 Specification 7 | An Age of Revolutions

William Blake and the victims of industrialisation

7.4 Literature

William Blake’s lifeWilliam Blake was born in London in 1757 and died there in 1827. His origins were humble and he remained poor all his life. Trained as an engraver, he practised this craft until he died. He was deeply aware of the great political and social issues of his age. A political freethinker, he supported the French Revolution and remained a radical throughout his life. He witnessed the evil effects of industrial development on man’s soul, and it was probably this which

convinced him that the artist should have a new role: he should become the guardian of the spirit and imagination. The most important literary influence in his life was the Bible because it presented a complete vision of the world and its history. He had many acquaintances but very few intimate friends. One was his wife, Catherine Boucher, the illiterate daughter of a market gardener, who shared his interest in the spiritual and assisted him in the production of his works. The other was his younger brother Robert, who died at the age of twenty. Blake began to have visions of his dead brother and claimed that he showed him the unique printing method he employed for his original work.

Blake the artistWhen he was ten years old, his father sent him to a drawing school where, working from statues, he became acquainted with the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. The influence of Michelangelo is clear in Blake’s works, especially in the exaggerated muscular forms in his best-known illustrations. After completing his apprenticeship, he studied at the Royal Academy of Art. Painters were expected to conform to standards of realistic representation, to respect perspective and proportions and to produce works which fell into categories or genres. Blake broke with these conventions and created a new kind of art which emphasised the power of the imagination. He created his own method for making prints that combined picture and poetic text called ‘illuminated printing’. For him painting was not simply the illustration of poetry – it was its counterpart.

Blake the poetHis experiences as a craftsman, visionary and radical contributed to the development of his poetry, which is regarded as early Romantic (I8.2) because he rejected the neoclassical literary style and themes. He stressed the importance of imagination over reason and believed that ideal forms should be created not from observations of nature but from inner visions. The collections of short lyrical verses Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) are the most accessible of Blake’s works. The first is in the pastoral mode; the narrator is a shepherd who receives inspiration from a child in a cloud to pipe his songs celebrating the divine in all creation. The imagery of the poems is full of lambs, flowers and children playing on the village green; it deals with childhood as the symbol of innocence, a state of the soul connected with happiness, freedom and imagination. The language is simple and musical. While Songs of Innocence was produced before the outbreak

of the French Revolution, when Blake’s enthusiasm for liberal ideas was high, Songs of Experience appeared when the period of the Terror (1793–94) was at its height in France. Blake did not reject the songs of the innocent shepherd, but he created its contrary in the form of the bard who questions the themes of the previous collection. A more pessimistic view of life emerges in these ‘Songs’, which are intended to be read together with Songs of Innocence, so that the paired poems comment on each other, sometimes managing to convey an ironical view of the situation presented. ‘Experience’, identified with adulthood, coexists with and completes ‘Innocence’, thus providing another point of view on reality.

Blake the prophetBlake was also very active in publishing prophetic books, in which he created

a complex personal mythology and invented his own symbolic characters to reflect his social interests and denounce authority. The most famous was The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), a prose work, a mixture of aphorisms, anecdotes and proverbs, in which Hell and Satan represent liberty and energy, while Heaven is the place of lawgiving. Desire and energy gain supremacy over restraint and reason. All the proverbs directly attack the repression of human energies by conventions and emphasise the need to experience joy and freedom of thought and expression.

1 John Linnell, William Blake wearing a hat, ca 1825.

2 William Blake, frontispiece for Vision of the Daughters of Albion, ca 1795. Tate Britain, London.

1 AFTER READING ‘Blake the artist’, describe the pictures on pages 186–187 and use them to provide evidence of the most important features of Blake’s work.

6 ART LAB 8: WILLIAM BLAKE

6 TEXT BANK 39–42: WILLIAM BLAKE

Spiazzi, Tavella, Layton PERFORMER. CULTURE & LITERATURE © Zanichelli 2012

187

2 AFTER READING ‘Blake the poet’ and ‘Blake the prophet’, complete the following statements.1 Blake thought that the poet drew

inspiration from to create ideal forms.

2 The tone of Songs of Innocence is .

3 Its narrator is a inspired by a .

4 Its language is .5 Songs of Experience was written

when .6 Its narrator is a .7 Its view of life is .8 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

is a .9 Blake’s proverbs attack .

‘Complementary opposites’Blake’s Christianity was not liturgical or moralistic. He believed in the reality of a spiritual world but regarded Christianity, and the Church especially, as responsible for the fragmentation of consciousness and the dualism characterising man’s life. To this dualistic view he substituted a vision made up not of ‘contraries’, but of ‘complementary opposites’: good and evil, male and female, reason and imagination, cruelty and kindness. He stated: ‘Without Contraries there is no Progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human Existence.’ The possibility of progress, of achieving the knowledge of what we are, lies in the tension between opposite states of mind, not in their resolution by one gaining supremacy over the other.

Imagination and the poetBlake considered imagination, and not sense perceptions, as the means through which man could know the world. Imagination, or ‘the Divine Vision’, means ‘to see more, beyond material reality, into the life of things’. God, the child and the poet share this power of vision, which is also the power of creating things. The poet therefore becomes a sort of prophet who can see more deeply into reality and who also tries to warn man of the evils of society.

Blake’s interest in social problemsBlake was very much concerned with the political and social problems of his time: he supported the abolition of slavery and shared other intellectuals’ enthusiasm for the egalitarian principles which came to the fore during the French Revolution. He believed in revolution as purifying violence, necessary for the redemption of man. Later, disillusioned, he focused his attention on the evil consequences of the Industrial Revolution (I7.2) – the injustices caused by a

materialistic attitude and the commercial exploitation of human beings. In his poems he sympathised with the victims of industrial society, such as children and prostitutes, as well as with the victims of oppression by institutions, such as orphans and soldiers.

StyleBlake’s poems present a very simple structure and a highly individual use of symbols. He employed a central group of symbols to form a context for all the minor symbols in the Songs; these are: the child, the father and Christ, representing the states of innocence, experience and a higher innocence. His verse is linear and rhythmical; it shows a close relationship between sound and meaning and is characterised by the frequent use of repetition.

3 REVISE your knowledge about Blake’s thought and works by writing notes under the following headings.1 What he meant by ‘complementary opposites’;2 His concept of imagination and the poet;3 His concern about society;4 The main features of his style.

3 William Blake, Songs of Innocence: The Lamb, 1789. The British Museum, London.

4 William Blake, frontispiece for The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, ca 1790–93.

5 William Blake, The Circle of the Lustful: Paolo and Francesca, ca 1824–27.

Spiazzi, Tavella, Layton PERFORMER. CULTURE & LITERATURE © Zanichelli 2012

188 Specification 7 | An Age of Revolutions

7.4 William Blake and the victims of industrialisation

1 LOOK at the pictures and point out the features of the industrial town. Which ones do you find in the poem?

LondonWilliam Blake Songs of Experience (1794)

One of his greatest, this poem conveys Blake’s view of the city – of the disease and suffering brought about by industrialisation.

I wander thro’1 each charter’d2 street Near where the charter’d Thames does flow, And mark3 in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe4.

5 In every cry of every Man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban5, The mind-forg’d manacles6 I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry10 Every black’ning Church appalls7, And the hapless Soldier’s sigh8

Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse9

15 Blasts10 the new born Infant’s tear, And blights with plagues11 the Marriage hearse12.

1 thro’. Lungo.2 charter’d. Monopolizzata.3 mark. Vedo, colgo.4 woe. Dolore.5 ban. Divieto.6 mind-forg’d manacles. Manette

forgiate dalla mente.7 appalls. Sgomenta, fa inorridire.

8 hapless Soldier’s sigh. Il sospiro del soldato infelice.

9 youthful Harlot’s curse. La maledizione della giovane prostituta.

10 Blasts. Maledice.11 blights with plagues. Infetta di

pestilenze (possibile accenno alla cecità causata dalla sifilide).

12 hearse. Carro funebre.

ANALYSIS

3 WORK OUT the rhyme scheme of the poem and say if it is regular or not.

4 PROVIDE examples of Blake’s considerable use of repetition in the poem. He repeats sounds, words and concepts. Say what effect they create, choosing from the following suggestions:

∏ They underline the condition of suffering and disease surrounding the poet.

∏ They create a sense of obsession and anxiety. ∏ They increase the musicality.

5 DISCUSS. What symbolic meaning does the word ‘chartered’ acquire if applied to the streets and the river Thames?

6 LINE 8 contains a very powerful metaphor.1 Analyse its terms.2 With whom or what does Blake identify the ‘manacles’ in

the poem? 3 What does this metaphor reveal about Blake’s attitude to

the society of his time?

7 DECIDE. In the third and fourth stanzas Blake points out some victims of the industrialised town. Who are they?

8 DEFINE the tone of the poem. Choose from the following:

COMPREHENSION

2 READ the poem and say in your own words:1 who ‘I’ is;2 what the setting in time and place is;3 through what senses the speaker perceives the scene;4 what the living conditions of the people he sees are.

YOUR TURN

9 DISCUSS. What were your reactions to the poem? Think about the metaphor you analysed. What kind of constraints have you experienced in life so far? What ‘manacles’ have you felt imprisoned by?

1 Gustave Doré and Blanchard Jerrold, Over London by Rail, from London: A Pilgrimage, published in 1872.

44.2

sad • indignant • sorrowful • sympathetic • emotional •angry • accusing • prophetic • nostalgic • bitter

Spiazzi, Tavella, Layton PERFORMER. CULTURE & LITERATURE © Zanichelli 2012

189

1 DISCUSS. Who were chimney sweepers, also called ‘chimney sweeps’? What sort of life did they lead? Who are the contemporary ‘chimney sweeps’?

The Chimney Sweeper1

William BlakeSongs of Innocence (1789)

Blake was deeply interested in the life of the marginalised, and right at the bottom of the social heap of 18th-century London were child chimney sweeps. Children were used for this job because they were small enough to be forced up chimneys to clean them and remove blockages, and moreover, they had few, if any, legal rights.

When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue2

Could scarcely3 cry ‘’weep4! ’weep! ’weep! ’weep!’ So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot5 I sleep.

5 There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curl’d6 like a lamb’s back, was shav’d: so I said, ‘Hush7, Tom! never mind it, for8 when your head’s bare9, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white10 hair.’

And so he was quiet, and that very11 night10 As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins12 of black.

And by came13 an Angel who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins and set them all free14; 15 Then down a green plain leaping15, laughing, they run, And wash in a river, and shine in the Sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds and sport16 in the wind; And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,20 He’d have God for his father, and never want17 joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags and our brushes18 to work. Tho’19 the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm; So if all do their duty they need not fear harm20.

1 Chimney Sweeper. Spazzacamino.2 tongue. Lingua.3 scarcely. A malapena.4 ’weep. Lett.: Piangere. Il bambino pronuncia

il grido dello spazzacamino, ‘sweep’, come ‘weep’.

5 soot. Fuliggine.6 curl’d. Si arricciava.7 Hush. Zitto.8 never mind it, for. Non farci caso, poiché.9 bare. Nuda.

10 white. Chiari.11 very. Stessa.12 coffins. Bare.13 by came. Gli si avvicinò.14 set … free. Liberò.15 plain leaping. Pianura saltando.16 sport. Giocarono.17 never want. Non gli sarebbe mai mancata.18 brushes. Spazzole.19 Tho’. Though, sebbene.20 harm. Il male.

44.3

COMPREHENSION

2 WRITE a heading to each section of the poem.

Part 1 (lines 1–4):

Part 2 (lines 5–8):

Part 3 (lines 9–20):

Part 4 (lines 21–24):

ANALYSIS

3 WORK OUT the rhyme scheme of the poem.

4 FIND examples of alliteration and repetition. What effect do these sound devices have?

5 UNDERLINE the words connected with light and those linked to darkness. What concept is highlighted?

6 CIRCLE the symbolic images in the second and fourth stanza. What is their meaning?

7 EXPLAIN in what sense lines 19, 20 and 24 sound ironical.

8 POINT OUT the realistic details of the life of the chimney sweepers that are given in the poem.

YOUR TURN

9 DISCUSS. Why do you think Blake devoted a poem to chimney sweepers?

2 Unknown artist, Two chimney sweepers, the young and the old, both looking tired after a day’s work, ca 1866.

Spiazzi, Tavella, Layton PERFORMER. CULTURE & LITERATURE © Zanichelli 2012

190 Specification 7 | An Age of Revolutions

7.4 William Blake and the victims of industrialisation

The Chimney SweeperWilliam BlakeSongs of Experience (1794)

This text belongs to a sequence of poems, written five years after Songs of Innocence, which deals with things unknown or only hinted at in the previous collection. Here the poet introduces the world of ‘experience’ and the sickly consciousness of it. When they are read together, the two songs represent the world as it is envisioned by what Blake calls ‘two contrary states of the human soul’.

A little black thing among the snow, Crying ‘’weep! ’weep!’ in notes of woe1! ‘Where are thy father and mother, say?’ ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.

5 ‘Because I was happy upon the heath2, And smiled among the winter’s snow, They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

‘And because I am happy and dance and sing,10 They think they have done me no injury3, And are gone to praise4 God and his Priest5 and King6

Who make up a heaven7 of our misery.’

1 woe. Dolore.2 heath. Brughiera.3 injury. Ferita.4 praise. Lodare.5 his Priest. Il suo ministro, cioè la

Chiesa.6 King. Il re, per estensione, il Governo.7 heaven. Paradiso.

COMPREHENSION

1 READ the poem and answer the questions.1 Who are the two speakers?2 Why is the child crying?3 Where are his parents?4 What have they done to him?5 Do they realise the harm they have caused?

ANALYSIS

2 FIND an example of onomatopoeia, that is, the use of words that sound like the thing they are describing.

3 HIGHLIGHT the use of contrast and opposition.

4 UNDERLINE the words connected with unhappiness and suffering.

5 CIRCLE the words linked to happiness and joy. Does the poem contain any contradictions?

6 POINT OUT the lines that refer to the actions of the boy’s parents. Why do their actions seem hypocritical?

7 DECIDE. What do the capitalised words in line 11 refer to? Does Blake seem to approve of the institutions or to criticise them?

8 DISCUSS. What is the effect of the various institutions (the family, the Church, the Government) on the boy’s life?

YOUR TURN

9 EXPLAIN how the two versions of ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ are related to the collections they belong to. Consider their style, language and themes.

44.4

1 William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper (plate 38 from Songs of Innocence and Experience), ca 1802–08. The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England.

Spiazzi, Tavella, Layton PERFORMER. CULTURE & LITERATURE © Zanichelli 2012