James Johnson

Mr. Brown
Lang & Lit HL
31st October, 2019

Timelessness is a relative idea. The most timeless of literary works are relevant with
contexts new and old, universal if you will. English poet William Blake’s songs of innocence
and experience are no different. They outline and critique the very nature of humans and
societal issues prevalent since the dawn of mankind; slavery, religion, racism, pollution,
exploitation, etc. Some typical examples of these works are The Chimney Sweeper and
London, which both display core examples unforgiving human nature and key societal issues
still apparent in the 21st century. The Chimney Sweeper and London are prime examples of
the suffering and exploitation of individuals and the exponential pollution and harsh
relationship sustained between us and our natural world.

One of the things that makes London so timeless is it’s discussion of human suffering
and our constant destruction and profiteering of nature. It remains as strong and relevant
today as it had been from the very start of its writing back in 1792. Blake accounts on the
suffering of the people of London and the neglect of the city’s natural resources like the river
Thames. The poem starts out with an immediate correlation of the Thames using the word
“charter’d,” a word that currently as defined by the Oxford Dictionary is “​A written grant by
the sovereign or legislative power of a country, by which a body such as a city, company, or
university is founded or its rights and privileges defined.” This opens the idea of his first
point. He is identifying and somewhat personifying the Thames as nature itself, nature is not
something normally associated with humans and is often looked at as an entirely different
entity than that of humans and the cities and towns created by them. This makes it weird to
seem like something that should be “claimed” or “charter’d” by humans. Blake seems to
discuss this idea using the intent of opening our eyes to this relationship we have to nature,
we are simply exploiting it and profiting from it. While it does not seem so significant it has
become one of the largest problems faced by our species to date, entire forests are ripped
down and burned for profit, why? Greed. This concept outlines one of the darkest human
flaws that have been present since our first ancestors. Humans have a need to control, obsess
and dominate. This toxic relationship pulls nature into the mix and signifies it for the readers.
The next stanza focuses on a different yet widely similar idea. This is the suffering and
exploitation of individuals. While being an entirely different issue it is founded upon the
same core properties of humans. The poem describes the things Blake acknowledges as he
walks down the streets of London. The cries of chimney sweepers, the “blackening” of the
church, the hapless soldier’s sigh. These lines are very significant for many reasons. “The
blackening of the church,” however is a direct critique of the churches neglect and
unacknowledgement of the chimney sweepers and their deep suffering, something that he had
been pushing for many years. The rest of the lines in the stanza elaborate on the merciless
soldiers dying in war and women and children being infected with sexually transmitted
diseases. These ideas while harsh are still concrete issues in our modern society with sex
workers, child laborers, war, and prostitution. These ideas all reinforce the timelessness of
this piece as they rely on timely constructs of humanity.

The Chimney Sweeper is one of the darkest works in the entirety of the songs of
innocence and start to end persuades the reader through emotion, more importantly it speaks
out on the ongoing issue of child slavery common among British scociety. The poem uses
one of the most effective ways to criticise the actions of child slavery. Blake looks at the
situation from a different perspective using and developing personal motives for the reader to
react to and sympathize with. This can give us a great idea about the goal of the poem as its
main function was to allow people to recognize and humanize these children who they torture
on a daily basis, this was no accident and can be commonly seen throughout his works. The
idea that these children were in fact humans too were not ignored or unacknowledged by
society but were simply irrelevant to the normal thought process, overlooked, if you will. In
an era run by the church, Blake was not happy with the unethical treatment of these children
as he often took to the church to criticize being seen in many of his poems. In the second
stanza of the poem we are introduced to a sweeper named Tom Dacre who has a dream he
and his friends are dead and set free to heaven to live happily. Their life view to them is
imminently waiting for death, they see death as a reward and heaven as their primary goal
and somewhat value it more than their own current lives. This is something Blake had heavily
criticized the church for as they ignored these children and left them to sat painfully with the
image that they would be relieved with death, as if they were “doing their time.” Religion has
existed for thousands of years and even Blake himself indulged in the church. The nature of
religion in this setting is a neglectful one in which exploitation is justified with unjust
reasoning. This is something conveyed in our current society with some places in the world
suppressing certain genders, races, beliefs and more for their mere existence. They did not
choose to be that way, the same as these children did not choose to be in their situation. Like
London, The Chimney Sweeper displays timelessness through societal issues and human
philosophies that sustain in today's age.

The Chimney Sweeper and London are prime examples of the suffering and
exploitation of individuals and the exponential pollution and harsh relationship sustained
between us and our natural world. The relative idea of these literary pieces remains today and
ages like fine wine, adding more meaning and depth as time goes by and new problems
emerge. The poems will always have meaning relative in today's world and as far as visible in
the future it will continue to do so. However does this make a piece “timeless?” It can be
believed so. Some of the greatest works have been claimed “timeless” for the same reasons I
have deducted from these two. Every statement made in theses works remains relevant to
some extent in today's world from its own creation thousands of years ago and even goes as
far to have ideas that pre-date its existence.

Bibliography:

Blake, William. “London by William Blake.” ​Poetry Foundation​, Poetry Foundation,

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43673/london-56d222777e969.

Blake, William. “The Chimney Sweeper: When My Mother Died I Was Very Young by
William Blake.” ​Poetry Foundation​, Poetry Foundation,
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43654/the-chimney-sweeper-when-my-mother-died-
i-was-very-young.

Oxford. “Charter: Definition of Charter by Lexico.” ​Lexico Dictionaries | English,​

Lexico Dictionaries, www.lexico.com/en/definition/charter.