English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution

Model Essay
William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution

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William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution

If a British citizen had fallen asleep in 1750 and awakened in 1800, he or she would have found upon

arising a vastly different nation from the one in which the slumber began. Britain began the eighteenth century as

a mainly agricultural society with a small urban population. However, the Industrial Revolution, a period of

economic growth in which the agrarian economy shifted to a machine powered economy, created a fundamental

change in the way people lived and worked. Inventions such as the fly shuttle (1733), the water frame (1769), the

steam engine (1769), the spinning jenny (1770), and the power loom (1783), along with an innovative method of

refining iron by using coal, transformed the textile and mining industries. New jobs and inventions brought people

out of the English countryside and into the cities, such as London, in search of work in textile mills and factories.

The Industrial Revolution had many positive effects; for example, there were more jobs in industry than there were

on farms, and communications and transportation became faster as new roads and canals were built (King 46).

But industrialization also had negative consequences, and some of the artists, writers, and thinkers of the age

commented on the less desirable outcomes, including poverty, disease, and child labor in their work.

Table 1
Eighteenth Century London Population Growth
Year London Population
1700 600,000 (est.)
1750 650,000 (est.)
1801 1,096,784

Source: The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913,
www.oldbaileyonline.org
William Blake: A Romantic in the City

Among the prominent people who were most troubled by the Industrial Revolution were the Romantics, a

group of poets and authors who rebelled against the stuffy, artificial literary style of the previous era. The

Romantics emphasized emotion and imagination rather than reason and valued the outpourings of the individual

over the conventions of society. Unlike the previous generation, they often wrote about ordinary people rather

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 English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution
than famous heroes, and they took inspiration from folk songs. They also idealized nature and considered the

growth of industry and of cities harmful to the human spirit. William Blake (1757–1827), whom some categorize as

one of the earliest British Romantic poets, was among the first voices to sound an alarm about the dangers of

industrialization. In his poetry, Blake contrasts a Romantic ideal of nature with the negative effects of

industrialization.

Literary scholars agree that Blake was well aware of the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the city

where he spent his life, London. “Blake, above all, saw the evil effects of the Industrial Revolution,” says writer

Neil King in The Romantics (6). And Blake scholar Craig Brandist writes that the poet “recoiled in horror from the

brutalities of industrialization” (1). In London, Blake was sure to have seen those brutalities first hand. He often

walked past the Albion Mill, a steam-powered facility that was “the first great factory in London” (Ackroyd 130).

The mill was considered one of the city’s “sights” to see by well-to-do Londoners; but it was not popular with

traditional millers, who feared that the factory would put their old-fashioned windmills out of business. When

Albion Mill burned down in 1791, many people suspected arson. Some workers put up placards rejoicing at the

mill’s destruction. Albion Mill was a symbol of the Industrial Revolution, and the reaction to its downfall showed

that an important sector of the public opposed that historic change (“The Burning of the Albion Mills”).

© THE PRINT COLLECTOR/ALAMY

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 English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution
Fig. 1. The burning of Albion Mills, London, 1791

Industrial change was visible throughout Blake’s neighborhood in London, Lambeth. The area

experienced “vastly increased traffic” in the ten years he and his wife lived there; among the new enterprises that

came to Lambeth during their period of residence were “a stone manufactory and a wine factory, potteries and

dye-works, lime kilns and blacking factories…. By the time [the Blakes] left in 1800 it was already acquiring the

characteristics of a particularly repellent urban slum with wretchedly built and undrained houses” (128).

An important reason why Blake opposed industrial development was that he consistently championed the

individual against society. His economic situation, which was far from rich, ensured that he sympathized with

ordinary people. Little known during his lifetime, Blake dwelled among working people rather than among famous

artists or aristocrats and thus understood the hardships the new factories could bring. For that reason, “the fires of

the new industrial furnaces and the cries of the child laborers are always in his work” (Kazin 31).

Blake’s disgust with the direction of British society found its way into his poems. Two of his most famous

collections, Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1792), contain powerful lyrics that express

indignation against the industrial world.

“London,” a poem from Songs of Experience that is “one of his simplest and greatest poems” (Kazin 12),

presents a grim vision of the city in the voice of a speaker who “wander[s] thro’ each charter’d street” (1). The

word chartered is crucial. It means “bound,” as Kazin explains (13); and according to Blake biographer Peter

Ackroyd, chartered “was one of the radical code words of the period that was directed at the oppression of the

authorities” (157). A charter is a legal document that creates or defines a city. A chartered street is one that is tied

up by laws, restricted, and cramped. It limits human freedom. The physical crampedness of the street is mirrored

by the mental state of the city’s inhabitants, for in every face the speaker meets, he finds “[m]arks of weakness,

marks of woe.” The people of the city are bound by “mind-forged manacles,” mental handcuffs. In this poem Blake

is saying that everyone in London is handcuffed by the materialistic ideas of the Industrial Revolution.

In contrast, nature suggests freedom and breathing room. The poems in Songs of Innocence are filled

with images of nature as a source of joy. For example, in “Nurse’s Song,” a nurse—a woman who takes care of

young children—says: When the voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My

heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still. (1–4)

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 English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution
The image of children laughing and playing on a green hill, while a kindly adult watches over them, clearly

represents ideals of happiness, innocence, and goodness that Blake did not find in the city.

Although Blake was a Londoner for most of his life, when he got the chance to move to a small town for

three years in order to illustrate a fellow poet’s work, he took the opportunity gladly, especially because shortly

before he moved out, London “was the scene of…ferocious riots” over a shortage of bread, with resulting high

prices (Ackroyd 216). In a letter he wrote to the clergyman and author John Trusler approximately a year before

leaving London, Blake offered this observation on nature: “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the

Eyes of others only a Green thing which stands in the way….But to the eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is

Imagination itself” (Kazin 172, 179). Blake is saying that people who do not see the beauty of nature lack

imagination. Seeing the world only as a collection of material objects, they fail to sense the beauty and goodness

that are everyone’s birthright.

Chimney Sweepers: A Most Dangerous Job

Blake’s concern for people who are unable to experience nature is also evident in his poem “The

Chimney-Sweeper.” In fact, Blake wrote two poems by this same name—one in Songs of Innocence and the other

in Songs of Experience. Perhaps the chimney sweepers were much on the poet’s mind because they were

prevalent in his London. In Blake’s era, homes and other buildings were heated by fireplaces with chimneys, and

the chimneys became filthy from smoke and soot. Chimney sweepers climbed up chimneys to clean them. This

dirty, dangerous job was an example of the child labor practices that were common in England’s cities at the time.

Very small boys, often between four and seven years of age, were the preferred chimney sweepers because they

were agile enough to climb to the top. The boys’ impoverished parents sold them as apprentices for periods of

seven years, so they had no other choice of livelihood. Ackroyd paints a stark picture of the chimney sweepers’

working conditions: The average size of these vents was something like seven inches square, and the small child

was prodded or pushed…or scorched with fire to make them climb with more enthusiasm. Of course many died of

suffocation, while others grew deformed; many others suffered from what were known as ‘sooty warts,’ or

cancer…. Chimney sweepers worked from before dawn till noon. At that hour, “they were turned upon the streets

—all of them in rags…all of them unwashed, poor, hungry” (124).

Blake bemoans the plight of the chimney sweepers in his poetry. Twice he wrote poems about them, and

in each of the poems titled “The Chimney-Sweeper” he presents their desperate circumstances.

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 English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution
When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry

“'Weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!'” So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep. (1–4)

The chimney sweeper from the Songs of Innocence collection reveals that his mother has died and his

father has sold him into hard labor. The word ’weep has a double meaning that highlights the chimney sweeper’s

misery. Weeping is crying; however, “’weep” in those lines begins with an apostrophe and shows readers that the

letter s has been omitted from the word. The word is really “sweep.” Chimney sweepers called out “Sweep!” as

they walked from street to street to announce their presence to possible customers. This child is so young that he

can barely pronounce the call of his trade. In this poem, Blake paints a word-picture of an innocent child whose

life has been ruined physically and mentally by inhumane labor. Thus, here is the Romantic poet as more than an

artist. Here, the poet is also a social activist, a canary in society's coal mine, calling attention to society's ills and

dangers in the hopes of saving its members.

In the Songs of Experience poem, too, the chimney sweeper suffers miserable treatment. An adult

character, on a winter’s day, describes the soot-covered boy as “[a] little black thing among the snow.” Asked

where his parents are, the chimney sweeper replies that they are at church, and that in the past, “They clothed me

in the clothes of death, and taught to me to sing the notes of woe” (7–8). In other words, they doomed him to a

tearful life and an early death.

The sad song of the chimney sweeper also resonates in Blake’s poem “London.” In lines that read “How

the Chimney-sweeper’s cry/ Every black’ning Church appalls” (9–10), the poem tells readers that the chimney

sweepers even swept the chimneys of churches. Blake thought it shameful that churches should tolerate such

suffering on their property.

Did Blake believe that there was any help for the chimney sweepers? It is difficult to say. In the Songs of

Innocence poem, an angel visits the speaker in a dream and promises him and his fellow chimney sweepers a

place in heaven. Although this promise makes the boys happy and the poem seems to end on a happy note,

readers can easily infer that the boys’ lives on earth will remain miserable and end early. Their hopeful innocence

reminds readers that the sweepers are mere children, so the speaker’s dream becomes an ironic reminder of the

chimney sweepers’ sad lot.

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 English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution
The Countryside: A Haven of Innocence and Peace

In contrast to these poems of urban industrial ugliness, many of the poems in Songs of Innocence

celebrate rural delight. “The Chimney-Sweeper” is an exception, but it may have been placed in Songs of

Innocence because the speaker’s mind is still innocent despite his experiences. Poems in which pastoral

elements such as lambs and sheep, shepherds playing musical pipes, flowers, and frolicking children appear are

more typical of Songs of Innocence. Through images of harmless, happy creatures in that volume, Blake portrays

an ideal nature that contrasts sharply with the much darker world of Songs of Experience. The nature poems also

include human beings and show them rejoicing, running, laughing, and singing in an environment that is free from

care. These poems clearly link human happiness to contact with nature. The children in poems in Songs of

Innocence such as “The Lamb” and “The Echoing Green” are happy because they are in nature—because they

are not chimney sweepers or other kinds of underage laborers.

"Jerusalem"

The contrast between Blake’s view of the industrial city as a place of torment and his view of the country

as an abode of peace can be seen in one of his most famous later works, the Christian hymn known as

“Jerusalem” (Blake did not title it himself), whose opening lines ask, “And did those feet in ancient time / Walk

upon England’s mountains green?” The question refers to the British folk belief that in ancient times, Jesus visited

England. In the poem, the speaker wonders whether the purity symbolized by Jesus can be restored to the

blighted landscape of England. The idea of a divine visit is described in terms of the beauty of green mountains

and “pleasant pastures.” In this poem, nature is not only good but holy.

This poem contains both powerful anti-industrial phrases and, in contrast, enchanting idealizations of

nature. The first stanza contains pastoral imagery, but the second stanza turns gloomy with a description of “our

clouded hills” (6). Perhaps the clouds are industrial smoke, for Blake calls them “clouded” rather than “cloudy.”

“Cloudy” would have to do with the weather, but “clouded” suggests being darkened by dirt or grime. The poem

continues, “And was Jerusalem builded here, / Among these dark Satanic Mills?” (7–8) In modern language, the

speaker is asking, “Can this place, with its ugly industry, once have been beautiful?”

The phrase “dark Satanic Mills” refers to the factories of Blake’s time, with their poor working conditions

and choking chimneys. London Times correspondent Hannah Strange, in an article about this hymn, observes,

“The reference to ‘dark Satanic Mills’ is usually thought to allude to the early industrial revolution and the damage

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 English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution
it wreaked on nature and the poorest sections of society.” Commenting on the same poetic phrase, Ackroyd notes

that “[t]he first factories in England were also known as ‘mills’” and that “the mills and furnaces of London, [were]

all around” Blake as he walked through London (132).

The hymn ends with a stanza in which Blake directly expresses his opposition to the “dark Satanic” forces

and vows to defeat them: I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand Till we have

built Jerusalem In England’s green & pleasant Land. (13–16)

In that stanza, the speaker takes a defiant, hopeful stand. His attitude expresses Blake’s position on the

Industrial Revolution versus nature. Blake intensely disliked the direction in which industrialization was taking

society. Nevertheless, he thought that the forces of imagination could fight that influence and help foster what is

best in people: the part that is nourished in the setting of nature. Blake’s lyric poems often cry out with images of

misery, but he hopes for a future in which human beings live joyously, rediscovering their true selves.

Blake’s vision of a struggle between industrialization and nature presents a realistic conflict in his society.

His protest against the Industrial Revolution results in poems that are sometimes angry and sometimes filled with

pastoral beauty. The contrast between industrialization and nature provides him with material for some of the

most memorable poems in British literature, such as “London,” the two poems titled “The Chimney-Sweeper,” and

the “Jerusalem” hymn.

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 English | Model Essay | William Blake, Nature, and the Industrial Revolution
Works Cited

Ackroyd, Peter. Blake. New York: Knopf, 1996. Print.

Blake, William. “Jerusalem.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors. Ed. M.H. Abrams.

New York: London, 1962. 1325–1326. Print.

---. “Nurse’s Song.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York:

London, 1962. 1292. Print.

---. “London.” Songs of Experience. The English Romantics: Major Poetry and Critical Theory. Ed. John L.

Mahoney. Lexington: Heath, 1978. 40. Print.

---. “The Chimney-Sweeper.” Songs of Experience. The English Romantics: Major Poetry and Critical Theory. Ed.

John L. Mahoney. Lexington: Heath, 1978. 40. Print.

---. “The Chimney-Sweeper.” Songs of Innocence. The English Romantics: Major Poetry and Critical Theory. Ed.

John L. Mahoney. Lexington: Heath, 1978. 30. Print.

Brandist, Craig. “Deconstructing the Rationality of Terror: William Blake and Daniil Kharms.” Comparative

Literature 49.1 (1997): 59-75. JSTOR. Web. 6 May 2009.

“The Burning of the Albion Mills.” Past Tense. South London Radical History Group. Oct 2006. Web. 13 May

2009. <http://www.alphabetthreat.co.uk/pasttense/albionmills.html>.

Kazin, Alfred. Introduction. The Portable Blake. Ed. Kazin. New York: Viking Penguin, 1946. Print.

King, Neil. The Romantics. New York: Facts on File, 2003. Print.

Strange, Hannah. “Blake’s Jerusalem Banned by Leading British Church.” Times Online. 10 Apr 2008. Web. 7

May 2009.

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