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Identify, contextualize, explain & critically comment on the following lines: Because I was happy upon the heath, And smiled among the winter's snow, They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
These lines were taken from "The Chimney Sweeper" included in William Blake's "Songs of Experience". Actually there are two poems by the name of 'Chimney Sweeper', one in the "Songs of Innocence" and the other in "Songs of Experience". The first one has a child called Tom who is so young as to be oblivious of his reality. Tom was only subconsciously aware of what atrocities he has been subjected to by his foster parents due to extreme poverty. He only dreamt of freedom. He hoped that someday his and the lives of thousands of chimney sweepers like him would improve. However, In the second poem he is depicted as a matured child who understands what social injustice & exploitative nature of his working conditions has done to him. The poems were set in the Romantic age which echoes the ideas of humanity, emotions & nature. It critiqued the notions of inequality on grounds of class connecting them with more subtle notions of indivi...
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