William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" - Poetry and Social Change (Due: Monday, March 16, 2009)

For this week's blog posting I'd like you to read a) two versions of "The Chimney Sweeper" published by William Blake in his Songs of Innocence and of Experience (pp. 725-727) and b) an excerpt from testimony given before Parliament in 1831 regarding child labor laws in England (pp. 728-729). You may access these via your online textbook.

After you've finished reading, consider the following perspective on the goals of the Romantic poets and respond to the questions that follow:

The editors of your textbook claim that the Romantic poets hoped to bring about social and political change through their poetry guided by the notion that "imagination, rather than mere reason, was the best response to the forces of change." Additionally, they assert, "The romance genre also allowed writers to explore new, more psychological and mysterious aspects of human experience" (p. 713).

1) Do you agree with the editors of your textbook that Blake's poetry had the power to enact social change by appealing to the imagination of the reader?

2) Why might the editors have included the Parliament transcript as a primary source document? How did it affect your reading of Blake's work?