The Chimney-Sweeper (Experience): Poet & Context

“The Chimney-Sweeper” (Experience): Poet and Historical Context

William Blake was both a poet and a painter, known for his expressive and symbolic approach in both mediums. Consequently, in his poems such as “The Chimney-Sweeper” (Experience), Blake uses metaphor and symbolism to tackle diverse themes such as love, repression, and the human psyche.
His collection ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ is a critical exploration of two contrasting perspectives on life. ‘Songs of Innocence’ tends to portray the naive and happy aspects of life, while ‘Songs of Experience’ deals with the harsh realities and troubles of the adult world.
The profession of chimney sweeping during Blake’s time forms critical context for this poem. Young boys, often orphans, were employed as chimney sweepers due to their small size. Their work was dangerous and they were subjected to horrendous working conditions.
Throughout the poem, Blake makes a pointed critique of institutions of his time; particularly the Church and how it failed to protect children. This establishes his disdain and criticism of society’s widespread indifference towards child labor and exploitation.
Blake was a strong critic of the Industrial Revolution, and its accompanying materialism and moral decay. Exploitation of child labor, such as chimney sweepers, represented for him the abuse of innocence at the hands of experience.
He was profoundly influenced by his radical political views and religious beliefs. He held a vision of Christianity that saw Jesus as a revolutionary figure who championed social justice. This context is essential to understanding Blake’s criticism of contemporary social structure and moral conditions in his poems.
Blake’s poetry often employed ‘contraries’, a key concept in his philosophical and artistic approach. Contraries, like innocence and experience, good and evil, repression and freedom, are not oppositions but rather complements each other in his view - a balance that is often reflected in his poems including “The Chimney-Sweeper” (Experience).
His use of child speakers and simple diction is essentially a ‘voice of protest’. A characteristic feature of Blake’s poetic technique, the child’s voice heightens the critique of societal injustice by using an innocent perspective to reveal harsh realities.