William Blake's Two "Chimney Sweeper" Poems read in late 18th century English pronunciation

For this one - for variety's sake - I went with a centralized PRICE diphthong (as recorded by Benjamin Smart and also Ben Franklin) combined with a rounded onset to the MOUTH diphthong, and an occasionally somewhat lower FATHER/BATH vowel unlike my previous Blake readings which have been largely based on the type of speech recorded in Walker's pronunciation dictionary.
Note that warm/harm and wind/behind could still be realized as phonetically perfect rhymes in this period. An unrounded vowel in words like "quart" and "warm" was still possible (and is attested mid-century by the likes of Mather Flint) though clearly no longer typical by any means. The PRICE diphthong in wind was a feature more of solemn utterance, especially in poetic reading, and most especially to make traditional rhymes work. It is indeed explicitly attested as such by Walker. Though the more modern KIT vowel was more normal in speech.
It's worth noting that Blake himself didn't talk like this. His own speech, given his social circumstances and background, would almost certainly have been non-rhotic and will have had much in common witht he speech of the London poor (these poems were published basically during the last generation in which rhoticity held on at the upper end of the social scale). I experimented with trying to work out how that might have sounded, but evidence for that type of speech in this period is so unsatisfactory compared to the middle and upper class speech of people who were in a position to write about pronunciation. It's particularly a shame with a text like this. But hey, I figure I can at least voice this poem in a credible reconstruction of the speech of the sort of person Blake might have hoped to reach with work like this.
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[@user-td4do3op2d]

I would love to hear “And did those feet in ancient times” in William Blake’s English

[@LukeRanieri]

Magnificent!

[@a.z.foreman74]

Thank you!

[@boxfox2945]

💀👍 - ☕🍂

[@user-td4do3op2d]

This is brilliant. It's a shame you couldn't find enough basis for reconstructing Blake's own speech. I'm sure if you tried, it would be more accurate than anyone else's attempt, so it would still be a worthwhile pursuit. Out of interest, what do you think of Simon Roper's historical English reconstructions, such as the viral London accent video? kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZ27p2aKqZmraJI