Lower Class example essay topic

In the Romantic period, many authors make references to different social concerns. This enabled the authors to hint towards different concerns in their writing, but not come directly out and state their concerns. Three great examples of authors like this include: William Blake, Robert Burns, and Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Each of these authors had unique concerns that they were able to get across in their own way. Blake wrote two poems with entitled "Chimney Sweeper". One version was found in his 'Songs of Innocence' and the other was found in 'Songs of Experience.

' Although the first was told with a child almost in mind, and the second was told in a darker, colder point-of-view, they both contain the same concern. This concern is having very young children working as chimney sweepers. Blake talks about how you boys are almost forced into this career "When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue, Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! So your chimney's I sweep and in soot I sleep " This was a horrible was to live, yet hundreds and hundreds of little children do this work on a daily basis.

Another author that alluded to social concerns in his writing is Robert Burns. His poem, "To a Mouse" makes references to different classes and the effects of social order on them. The poem tells a simple story of a mouse who builds a house to with-hold winter, only to have it knocked down by a man with his plow. Now although its house is gone, the mouse doesn't seem horribly bothered by it. In the more complex story, the mouse represents the lower class, and the former with the plow represents the upper class. To the lower class material possessions do not surround their life as they do in the lives of the upper class.

"The Best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gong aft a-gley, An' lea' us naught but grief an' pain, For promised Joy". Burns starts out life in the lower class, but due to the high success of his poems he ends up more in the middle class. This poem is a way for him to show how he feels life was better when he was in the lower class, because he didn't have to worry about the things he worries about in the upper middle class. Barbauld tried to get across some of the responsibilities of women in the nineteenth century through her poem, 'Washing-Day. ' She talks about how women had certain responsibilities to uphold because they are women. It wasn't right for a woman to have a job.

Some might be able to get away with being a teacher-but even that was looked down upon. Women were expected to get married, have children, and then take care of the house. Barbauld was trying to get across some of the anguish that was felt by some of the women. This poem deals primarily with a hated day, 'Washing-day. ' "Cast at the lowering sky, if sky should lower From the last evil, oh preserve us, heavens! For should the skies pour down, adieu to all " These lines make reference that if it should rain on 'Washing day,' the women must start all over again with the washing.

This is a never-ending cycle that women have to through all the time. The reason that Barbauld tries to convey this in her poem is that she is trying to get across reality. She wants people years from when she wrote the poem to read it and have a glimpse into some of the emotion expressed by some of the women of the time. In conclusion, Blake, Burns and Barbauld, all did a great job of portraying their unique cause in their own kind of way. Each of their causes were very revenant during the Romantic period.