Romanticism (LELE)

LELE: Romanticism

        Romanticism is a movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries. Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of romanticism. Any list of particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of and worship of nature; and fascination with the past, especially the myths and mysticism of the middle ages. William Blake was one of many writer and artist who is regarded as a seminal figure of the romantic age. His writing have influenced countless writers and artists through the ages, and he has been deemed both a major poet and an original thinker. He wrote a lot of poetry and collected them in 2 books: the songs of innocence and the songs of experience. In these 2 books he expresses 2 opposites form of human. SO how does Blake showcases 2 opposite point of view in his poems? To answer that question it would be interesting to compare the poem “the chimney sweeper “in songs of innocence and experience also a comparison of Blake ‘the little boy lost ‘ ‘ the little boy found ‘ will also be part of the presentation.

    The sweep in the songs of innocence doesn’t understand the life in which he finds himself. He is sold ‘while yet [his] tongue could scarcely cry weep weep weep’, ‘weep’ sound a lot like ‘sweep’. This is a poetic strategy in which Blake suggests that as there is little difference in the way the words sound to our ears, so there is little difference in what the words mean to the child. The narrator in this poem is a young child, who lives a terrible live which could result in his death at any seconds. Yet this boy manages the type of optimism only a child can comfort his friend Tom after is head was shaved. As the poem moves along we get a rather detailed description of Tom’s dream which includes: being locked in a black coffin and waiting for an angel to help them become free and clean. ‘Be a good boy and have God as a father ‘Blake attacks the church for perpetuating this myth of “false conciseness” as said Karl Marx, He also showcases the submission of religion which is teaching us to accept misery on earth to gain paradise. The center theme in this poem is the sad reality, objectified, restricted and death infected. Despite the sadness of this poem, a hint of hope still lingers since the children find happiness in nature (colorful dream ≠ black reality).

Moving on to “the chimney sweeper” in the songs of experience, this version of the poem will expose the pitiable condition of the exploited kids from a mature point of view where the speaker is no longer an innocent child but someone who has learnt about the harsh way of the world. The poem opens with the image of a little kid who is described as a ‘little black thing’ as he is covered from head to toe in soot because of his job as chimney sweeper. His soled appearance is in stark contrast to the white snow around him. White stands for purity whereas black stands for sin. When the child is asked where his parents are he says that they have gone to pray in the church. This is a direct attack upon such parents who sell of their kids so they can derive monetary benefits out of transaction. Blake described the shame that such parents go to God’s house to pray in spite of being such sinners while their kids moves from one house to another cleaning chimney. In the end of the poem, Blake puts the point of view of the child that has a lot of resentment bottled in his heart against his parents as he says that the pushed him into this world of misery and pain. “The chimney sweeper” present in both the song of innocence and the songs of experience are heart wrenching pieces of poetry written by Blake to shed light upon the oppression that the underage children went through just so that greedy so-called upper class members of the society and their money-hungry parents who sold them off could exploit their innocence and labor to suit their needs.

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