They were generally sold between the age of four and seven
Sometimes individually bartered by their parents, who would accept
between twenty and thirty shillings for their seven year ‘apprenticeship’.
There was a great need for their services in London
The average size of the vents was something like seven inches square
Small children were encouraged with poles, pricked by pins or scorched
with fire to make them climb with even more enthusiasm.
Many died of suffocation, while others grew deformed; many suffered from
what was known as ‘sooty warts’, or cancer of the scrotum.
‘He is now twelve years of age, a cripple on crutches, hardly
three feet seven inches in stature ... His hair felt like hog’s
bristle, and his head like a warm cinder ...’
The chimney sweeps finished their work at noon, at which
time they were turned upon the streets
The Art and Poetry of William Blake
William Blake was a composite artist, an engraver who created images with
poetry on copper plates and then painted them by hand with watercolors. He
intended the poems to be seen with the images, which often subtly change the
meaning of the words. However, most modern textbooks reproduce only the
words without the images!
‘The Chimney Sweeper’—Experience
A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil'd among the winters snow:
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
And because I am happy & dance & sing,
They think they have done me no injury:
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery.
The first stanza is a testimony that describes the situation of a little
chimney sweeper in the snow who is crying and calling for his parents
while they are praying at the church.
In the second and third stanzas, the child explains his situation.
He describes that he had been happy and “smiled among the winter
snow,” but also he was taught to suffer when he says “and taught me to
sing the notes of woe.”
Adults are mentioned in the poem when he questioned “Where are thy
father and mother?” and when he says “God & his Priest & King.”
Finally he blames “they” and adds “who make up a heaven of our
misery.”
The poem is pictured by an engraving made by Blake himself.
It shows the child walking along a street, it is a rainy day and he is alone.
Furthermore, the boy is barefoot and dirty.
With his right hand he is holding a brusher and is carrying a dirty, big bag on
his back.
The rain is particularly dark. The final point is that the child is looking at the
storm with what it seems a sad expression in his face.
In this version of “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Experience, note
how the chimney sweeper has been objectified, turned into “a little black
thing among the snow.”
Note also the inversion of the stereotypical way of using black and white.
Here the “little black thing” is innocent and good, while the snow, which is
white, is cold and cruel.
The speaker’s voice here is that of the chimney sweeper who has fallen
from innocence into experience and sees his own misery; the kind of
comfort still available to the chimney sweeper in Songs of Innocence is not
possible for this speaker.
“The Chimney Sweeper”—Innocence
In this version of “The Chimney
Sweeper” from Innocence, the boy
himself (the small chimney
sweeper) is comforted by his belief
system. “Tho the morning was
cold, Tom was happy and warm.”
But we, the readers, can only read
from experience. We can only
read the final line ironically; the
view from innocence is no longer
available to us once we have fallen
from it.