This paper compares and contrasts the theme of loss of innocence in Willam Blake' poem The Chimney Sweeper and Yusef Komunyakaa' Blueberries.
William Blake is a unique figure in English literature,
variously lionized and condemned for the visionary û and obscure û mythological system he created. Reacting against the rationalism that dominated the Enlightenment thinking of his native England in the 18th century, he placed imagination
as the central value of his philosophy, and criticised religion, morality, art, and politics from this perspective (Grolier 2). While he was widely ridiculed and even considered insane in his day for his strange ideas, no one today denies his poetic ability, and two centuries later many people, including the late Jim Morrison, lead singer for the Doors, have continued to derive inspiration from his work (Authors 5).
The narrator of ôThe Chimney Sweeperö lost his innocence ôwhen I was very youngö when his father sold him to become a chimney sweep (Bindman 48). He then describes ôlittle Tom Dacreö, a young friend presumably sharing the same unjust fate who has a dream that all chimney sweeps are awakened from their coffins (a metaphor for the oppression of their occupation) and set free by an angel so they wash off the soot of their trade and then ôrise upon the clouds and sport in the windö.
The poem has a kind of happy ending. The harsh reality of waking from his dream to discover heÆs still a chimney sweep is mitigated by the angelÆs admonition that if Tom would be ôa good boy, heÆd have God for his father, and never want joyö. In spite of the drudgery of the work and the cold morning, ôTom was happy and warm; So if all do their duty they need not fear harmö.
So in Blake innocence is really not lost at all if manÆs faith in GodÆs wisdom as revealed by the angel is fully understood.
Yusef Komunyakaa could not be father from Blake in history and origin, yet he...