The Chimney Sweeper

I agree with the authors when they said that Blake’s poetry had the power to enact social change through a reader’s imagination. As you can see, Blake was an extremely talented guy. He saw there was a problem in society. He did the best he could by addressing the problem. The problem in during his time in society was that they had little fragile innocent children sweeping chimneys. This job was extremely dangerous for the children because it put their lives in danger. All the smog and fumes were extremely toxic. Every time a child would go do work he would be losing less and less minutes of his life. Not only were the children in danger because he was working in toxic fumes, but also because he was paid little money. In addition, the children were worked to capacity. Blake’s poetry appealed to my imagination because I just imagined myself in that situation. This is a horrendous life experience that I would not wish on anyone let alone a child. After reading this, I begin to feel overly empathetic for the children that had to do this work. In addition, I am using my imagination to think of solutions to fix this problem. Eventually, I want my imagination of solutions to the problems to become reality. All in all, due to Romantic poets such as Blake, the world is now a better place. They bought about social change by appealing to the imagination of the readers. Because of Blake there are now Child Labor Laws enforced.

The reason the editors have included that Parliament transcript as a primary source document to emphasize how significant an issue chimney sweeping was. As a result, the government passed the Factory Act of 1883. This law was essential because it limited working hours for specific age groups. This is the first example of child labor laws. After reading Parliament transcripts, I have a more in depth understanding of what Blake was trying to portray in his writing. These transcripts show the harsh conditions and punishments that children had to undergo.