The unacknowledged legislators during the Industrial Revolution

Percy Bysshe Shelley said, "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world" during the Industrial Revolution in the midst of the Romantic Movement. While you would not think Romanticism is very political it was clear that the Romantic Poets felt it was necessary for them to speak out against the Industrial Revolution. Poetry was used to inspire awareness of the social problems that new technologies brought with them. For example, William Blake's poems about chimney sweeps in his Songs of Innocence (1789) and his Songs of Experience (1794). Both provide descriptions of the hardships children endured as well as providing a cynical review of the industrial revolution. In the "Chimney Sweeper" from Songs of Innocence, the character named Tom Dacre has a nightmare. 

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight -- / That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, / Were all of them locked up in coffins of black/ And by came an angel who had a bright key/ And he opened the coffins and set them all free; / Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run/ And wash in a river and shine in the sun./ Then naked and white, all their bags left behind, / They rise upon clouds and spot in the wind;

Throughout the course of Tom Dacre’s dream Blake’s rhetoric condemned what industrialization did to the workers.  The soot that encases the sweeps is their coffin. Their air is polluted and the reality of death is upon them. When they are liberated from the difficult work they will in the end transcend. Blake also emphasizes the purity and beauty of nature when the sweeps are released into a meadow, “down a green plain” “laughing” and they’ve left their “bags” and their burden “behind.” 

Blake's political agenda is what makes this poem so satisfying. Many united around his words and convictions. They were even later used to advocate for child labor laws. Sociologists look at political movements because the way people organize to bring about social change is of large scale concern for them. Historians argue that patterns repeat themselves. For example, poetry advocating for civil rights of LGBTQ members might help raise awareness today of their struggles and lead to protests down the road-- or one could argue this has already occurred-- but sociologists have a different theory. 

Our world is very different than the one Blake lived in, and it's very different from even a generation ago. We're less community focussed. We take care of ourselves. Everything feels immediate. So can we expect poets to still act as an unacknowledged legislator if we ourselves fail to unite and pressure our governments to represent community interests? I think more and more Poetry and literature, and criticism, and writing will become our legislators because we read for the sake of reading, for our own self indulgent sakes. And so even in the face of our more self-absorbed day to day lives we will still be exposed to political agendas and new ideas. We will still have discourse, I just fear that our writers will not amplify our voices and we will become to complacent to amplify theirs. 

If you have any optimistic examples please comment and let me know. I suppose I was just in a cynical mood when I realized that I had to apply the prompt to today, not just history.