William Blake

On the surface, William Blake is a poet of contrasts. His works play with, among others, the theme of innocence/experience. However, he departs from the common philosophers of his era in not lapsing immediately into value judgments. Blake does not imply that one alternative is better than the other is, nor that these are the only choices; there is no dichotomy, no forced dilemma. Instead, Blake presents the two options equally; neither is preferable, but both options seem necessary by their inclusion in his works. Indeed, neither option is really that pure of an option. For example, innocence is tainted, and experience is not represented as the ultimate opposite of innocence.

Compare, for instance, the two versions of “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence and Experience. The chimney sweeper from Innocence exemplifies the qualified innocence discussed in the introduction (78). The originally clean child has been soiled not only physically by the soot but also by tragedy. The little boy has not had the happy childhood portrayed in other of Blake’s Innocence poems, such as “The Ecchoing Green.” The speaker’s mother died while he was young, and his father sold him into the chimney sweep business while he was still young. He was innocent before all this, sold while he “could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep” (line 3, 81). Innocence is spoiled by experience. If little Tom Dacre’s head had not been shaved, the soot would have spoiled his white hair (lines 8-9, 81). Also, Tom’s hair is described as curling like a lambs back (line 6, 81). The reference to a lamb shows just how innocent Tom was, as lambs are known as gentle, docile creatures. The original innocence of the children is reinforced by the description of their appearance after being set free from their “coffins of black” by the angel. The boys are “naked & white” after washing in a river (line 17, 81). This washing does not change their natural state; rather, it brings them back to their original state. After the washing, they frolic like children in Blake’s other Innocence poems, leaping in the sun (81).

The speaker is expected to take on added responsibilities that the innocent children do not share. Not only must the sweeps rise early and work, they are also much more mature. The speaker consoles little Tom Dacre, taking on a more parental role than a child normally would. The child is not as kind in his observations, concluding wryly that “if all do their duty they need not fear harm” (line 24, 81). Yet it is supposedly not a child’s duty to work in such wretched conditions as being a chimney sweep requires. It is ironic because the child will have fear whether or not he does his duty. If he works as a sweep, he risks death by falling down a chimney or catching some fatal illness as a result of being continually dirty and breathing dust. If he refuses to work, having been sold, he faces abuse by his master or possibly malnutrition. Being a poor sweep, he probably already faces malnutrition and abuse. No matter what choice he makes, he faces a bad situation.

Compare this outwardly dirty but more inwardly pure sweep to “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Experience. Instead of being described as a white being darkened by black, he is “a little black thing among the snow” (89). He is set apart from the pure snow, which could symbolize the innocent children. This sweep, like the speaker of “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence, has been abandoned by his parents. His parents have deserted him, gone to the church to pray. It is assumed that the parents go, not to petition God for a better life, but to celebrate that their son has such a fine occupation! They go to church to “praise God & his Priest & King/Who make up a heaven of our misery” (lines 10-11, 89). The child has fooled his parents because he feels he must, “And because I am happy & dance & sing, /They think they have done me no injury” (lines 9-10, 89). Yet his circumstances are no less desperate than those of the sweep in Songs of Innocence. He is dressed in “clothes of death” (line 7, 89) and suffers in the snow. All his suffering, instead of making him more imaginative like the boy in Innocence, makes him more of a realist. The boy in Innocence can at least dream of an Angel; the boy from Experience sees nothing but misery. He has no bleak hope that death will rid him of this suffering. His worldview is pessimism. It is ultimately very depressing, and not at all a good alternative to the very guarded hope of presented in “The Chimney Sweeper” in Innocence.

Blake presents guarded joy versus no joy; a boy spoiled physically and a boy who is physically dirty and whose spirit is broken. The best alternative is not pure joy, for that would be naïve. Indeed, it is hard to make a value judgment about which poor chimney sweep is better off. It all depends on perspective. I agree with Dr. Glance in his assertion that Blake’s aim in writing was to challenge readers’ previously held ideas and perspectives. Blake does not make it an easy “either/or” proposition. Instead, he wants the reader to see beyond the proverbial black and white to gray; and not just to gray, but to shades of gray. As Blake says in “Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, “If the doors of perception were cleansed/ every thing would appear to man as it is: In-/finite” (102). Indeed, his very titles evidence the continuum of possibilities. He does not write of the divorce of heaven and hell, but rather of their marriage and he writes of both innocence and experience.