The Chimney Sweepers

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the two variations of the Chimney Sweeper poems which are found in the two different sections of "Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience". It discusses the context of each of these versions and explains that even though on the forefront they seem quite similar, their context is very different.

From the Paper:

"The narrator in Songs of Experience however is not defined as an adult or child in the poem itself, but because of the first line: "A little black thing among the snow," (l 1) the reader gets the impression that the narrator is an adult or at least someone who is older than the chimney sweeper he meets especially because of the word "little".

In Songs of Innocence the narrator seems to know the chimney sweeper, Tom Dacre, because he tells: "so I said" (l 6) and the narrator calms Tom down when Tom is upset about his hair being shaved off: "Hush, Tom! never [sic] mind it, for when you head's bare / You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair." (ll 7-8). In Songs of Experience however the narrator does not seem to know the chimney sweeper because he calls him "a little black thing" (ll 1). By calling the chimney sweeper a "thing" the narrator dehumanises the child, distancing the child from himself. While in Songs of Innocence the chimney sweeper who is main subject has a name in Songs of Experience he is merely a "thing"."

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