London - William Blake

What is the poem about?

The poem centres from the first-person perspective of an anonymous speaker - assumed to be Blake - walking through London and commenting on the filth & corruption he sees, including the child labour, monarchial abuse and prostitution he witnesses. It criticizes openly the authorities which have allowed the city to get into such a dangerous & unpleasant state.

What was the key idea of the poem?

Suffering (due to abuse of power) is never-ending and has a great impact on everyone. It will remain until people are willing to take action to remove it. The people’s suffering and oppression is now internalised, and they cannot escape because they will not act - Call for revolution.

What were William Blake’s beliefs?

He was an English poet and artist, wrote during the Romantic literary era. He lived in London most of his life and saw it as dirty & corrupted both literally & metaphorically, largely because of the political situation. He used simple, conversational language to make his message of instigating change accessible to all. He also stood against oppressing women & supported equality. He was anti-monarchy and believed revolution to be necessary - he was especially inspired by the French Revolution - a symbol of how the oppressed could seize power from the privileged. Identified as Christian yet rejected organised religion & saw the Church as hypocritical and believed it would impede his relationship with God.

What structural techniques are employed by Blake? What is the effect?

• Dramatic monologue - written with a first-person speaker that speaks passionately about what he sees and experiences, combined with simple language in an almost coversational tone - Blake makes his poetry feel accessible to all members of society because it contains messages & views everyone should consider & take on

• Cyclical structure - first/second stanzas focus on impact on people, third explores the source of suffering & fourth goes back to the impact again - Blake suggests suffering is never ending, and implies to the reader that they will keep suffering unless they break the cycle & rebel - like the French

• Iambic Tetrameter (8 syllables in each line) - fairly consistent use shows order & control, as the consistency of the rhythm reflects the sense of relentless oppression

• Employs an ABAB rhyme scheme along with consistent stanza lengths - he uses quatrains (4 lines) - this fixed structure underscores the sense of complete control and oppression, and just as the rhyme scheme is consistent so the suffering of the people is expected and never-ending, to the point of being overwhelming

• Through small inconsistencies in the tight almost suffocating structure of the poem, Blake may be representing the possible opportunities members of Geogian society have to break free - e.g. ‘marks of weakness, marks of woe’ breaks the iambic tetrameter

• Interesting feature is that the first letters of each line in the 3rd stanza spell out HEAR (How Every And Runs) - could be argued this is a subliminal message to his readers, and since Blake has used auditory imagery to display suffering throughout - “cry”, “sigh”, “curse”, “I hear” - perhaps Blake wants the reader to start listening and acknowledging the suffering around them as well as listening to his message - calls for a recognition of society’s ills

Key themes:

• Human power, misuse of power

• Unpleasant/powerful experiences

• Controlling of nature - greed of humanity

“each charter’d street.. charter’d Thames does flow”

• Verb ‘charter’d’ suggests the street and Thames are mapped out and legally defined, just as maps are an attempt to impose order on nature, in this poem order is being placed on society.

• ‘charter’d’ also means to impose legal restrictions & ownership ironic as the Thames is a natural body of water.

• Juxtaposition between ‘charter’d’ and ‘flow’, verb ‘flow’ implies freedom whereas ‘charter’d’ is describing a sense of owenership. Blake comments on the oppression of nature by humans - Nature should be free for all to access & enjoy, yet the greed of humanity is so great it tries to control it.

• Through this repetition, Blake presents oppression as stemming from privatization, and class oppression - land in the city transitioned from being common to private and owned/controlled by the wealthy

“And mark in every face I meet, marks of weakness, marks

of woe.”

• Breaks the iambic tetrameter - 7 syllables - in a line that points out the weakness of those who are suffering, the line itself is weak in its syllable count, it contains less syllables than the previous line. Blake is weakening the line to reflect the weakness of those who are suffering

• Repetition - highlights the inescapable repetitive suffering of those in the poem, the word ‘mark’ changes meaning (notice → signs →scars), the use of a word with changing meanings could reflect the poet’s frustration at the changing nature of London at the hands of those in power

• Alliteration - ‘weakness’, ‘woe’ - mimics a moan or groaning sound, underlines the suffering (auditory imagery again 😉 )

• the determiner/quantifier ‘every’ underlines the widespread, permanent impact of London’s problems

“In every cry of every man,/ In every infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban,”

• Semantic field of suffering and despair is powerfully evoked through the repeated use of auditory imagery - ‘cry’, ‘voice’ ‘cry of fear’, highlight the widespread, persistent nature of pain. Blake may be commenting that although the people’s suffering is definitely audible, those in poor choose to ignore it

• Repetition of ‘In every’ - most numerous example of repetition - universality of suffering, affecting even innocent infants, eliciting readers' sympathy, it is as if all are destined for misery.

“mind-forged manacles”

• Compound adjective - suggests that these chains are not made of steel or iron but are metaphorical chains created in the mind, highlighting how mental or ideological constraints (like fear, social norms, authority) come from the ideas and outlook imposed on us by external authority, causing people to be conditioned into accepting and creating their own oppression

• Noun ‘manacles’ traditionally refers to physical chains or restraints used to bind/imprison someone - in this Blake suggests the people are enslaved, not by physical chains, but by their own minds, socially conditioned

‘hapless soldier’s sigh/ Runs in blood down palace walls’

“Every black’ning church

appalls”