Abstract
This poem, written in 1789 by William Blake, was published in "Songs of Inno-cence". Like its fellow poems, it deals with childhood as an epitome for innocence and purity; here, the poet chooses to look into the life of the poor young boys who used to sweep chimneys in London in those times. The narrator, a chimney sweeper among his fellows, tells us about their precarious life, through his own story and the visionary dream of his friend, Tom Dacre. Throughout the poem, which is divided into six stanzas, rhymed in quatrains, it seems that these innocent chimney sweepers always waver between hope and despair, between their wretched life and the promised land they could only dream about. So as to grasp Blake's aim better, we will first analyse the description full of pathos, of the chimney sweepers' life and survival. Then, we will study the construction of a promised paradise through Tom's dream, in order to get the deconstruction of the utopia by means of irony and the message of the poet, in the last moment.
Blake first sets the scene and establishes his characters firmly in a dark and heavy atmosphere.
