Industrialised Society in Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

Criticism of Industrialised society

Blake is heavily critical of the industrialised society he lived in, as he witnessed first hand the impact that the Industrial Revolution had on the poor. He felt that it only enhanced everything that was already wrong with the world, hence why his poems are a key part of the romantic movement, romanticising the natural world away from industrialised society.

Introduction (SOI)

And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,

And I stained the water clear

• tainting nature to create art

  • Society corrupts, nature cleanses. For something pure and beneficial like these “happy songs” it is okay, but for something extreme like industrialisation it destroys as seen in earth’s answer.

Holy Thursday (SOI)

Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow

• link to London

  • Water should flow free, rivers often symbol of freedom and nature, but it is chartered. Linked to setting of the church suggests the church plays a role in this restriction of children.

The Chimney-Sweeper (SOI)

Locked up in coffins of black

• metaphor for chimneys

  • Locked away, stuck, imprisoned

  • Repeated imagery of day and night, dark and light, white and black

Earth’s Answer (SOE)

That free love with bondage bound.

• earth, nature, is trapped and chained by iron - industrialisation

  • Alliteration /b/ sound, heavy ad violent further demonstrating the corruption and damage to nature, thus imploring humanity to set itself free from its own chains and regain its natural energies, calling for a revolution of both body and spirit.

Holy Thursday (SOE)

It is eternal winter there

• eternal winter in land of poverty which is also a “rich and fruitful land”.

  • Eternal winter, eternal starvation, eternal cold, eternal suffering.

  • A division - a society in conflict through economic means

  • Industrialisation brought fantastic improvements, but made life worse for many.

The Tyger (SOE)

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

• loud and bright assonance vowel sounds, volume of speaker rises naturally

  • Conjures imagery of noisy industrial workshop, criticism of industrialised society for creating such a predator

• The Tyger? Or industrialised society?

London (SOE)

Through every chartered street,

Near where the chartered Thames does flow.

• charter - a legal document granting or denying power or access

  • Thames acts as a symbol reversed, rivers normally represent freedom, but here the freedom is owned by someone and needs expressed permission to be accessed.

• Speaker suggests that what they hate is the way human life is devalued and restricted as people need to own property and gain power.