Blake's Voices of the Oppressed

Traditionally considered to be one of the three first-generation Romantic poets along with Wordsworth and Coleridge, William Blake demonstrates the Romantic’s desire for social commentary in his poem “The Little Black Boy” in the collection Songs of Innocence. Written from the perspective of a young black child, the work embodies this persona through its simple rhyme scheme (7 ABAB stanzas) and end-stopped lines—qualities making it easily understandable and highly readable. Because Blake employs a basic form, the meaning of the lines themselves jumps from the page, forcing readers to contemplate the black child’s skewed perception of race and religion. Utilized again in the poem “The Chimney Sweeper,” this mode of social commentary through the voice of the oppressed is effective because Blake creates a knowledge discrepancy between the speaker and the reader: the little black boy has faith in the system he was taught whereas the reader understands the inherent inequality of believing “I am black as if bereav’d of light” (4). Like playwright’s use of dramatic irony, Blake highlights the dysfunctional attitude toward different races and classes by creating speakers who are innocently imbued in the very system destroying them.