The Poet 189
What does it mean, from Blake’s perspective, to be mentally im-
prisoned? It means fi rst that you see the world from your private per-
spective. You look out for your own advantage. You pursue your
own success. You hog and you hoard. You’ve entered the State of
Self hood: individualistic, reductive, and isolating. You think that
affi rming Self hood will get you what you want in the world— the Self
is a radical pragmatist. But affi rming the State of Self hood simply
cuts you off from the possibility of better life. The ascendancy of
Self hood separates you from other humans. Self hood destroys
the drive for community and solidarity. It makes you lonely, frus-
trated, and angry— onto your face come “marks of weakness, mark s
of woe” (26).
Through the eyes of the poet- prophet, we see how the spirit of
Self hood dominates in three consequential regions of experience.
The prophet tells us, fi rst, “How the Chimney- sweepers cry / Every
blackning Church appalls” (27). The chimney sweepers of Blake’s
London were children who had been sold into something close to
slavery. Frequently they came from rural families too poor to feed
them. For a price, their parents turned the children over to owners
of chimney- sweeping companies. The alternative might well have
been seeing their children starve. It was necessary that children
clean the London chimneys: you had to be small and lithe to
scramble up and down the fl ues. Still, there were accidents; chil-
dren fell from roofs and down fl ues and ended up radically disabled.
But the need for the sweeps was strong. Chimney fi res could beget
larger blazes that destroyed blocks and blocks of London’s wooden
dwellings.
The chimney sweeps cry out, in Blake’s dream vision, and their
cry turns material and darkens the walls of the church. Why the
church? Presumably because Christians— clergymen in particular—
ought to be standing up for the children and making sure they’re
not misused. Jesus said that it is better to put a millstone around