London. (William Blake)

LONDON: THE CONTEXT

• WILLIAM BLAKE. A romantic poet who opposed oppressive institutions (The government and extreme religious systems).

• Highlighted the wrongdoing of the misuse of power. Blake was a strong supporter of the French Revolution.

• ^^Eludes to a revolution in London = strengthening uprise against systemic oppression.^^

• Blake used his poetry to bring forth revolution in his own home, the streets of London.

• During the time of the British Empire

Main points..

“I wander through each chartered street”

“Near where the chartered Thames does flow”

• Repetition of the word chartered: Signifying the endless cycle of entrapment that brings monotonal feeling and lesser meaning to life.

• Control VS Freedom: Rivers are nature's landscape. Not to be shaped or under the control of man. But in this revolutionised society, the beauty of nature is stripped bare to make room for the melancholic streets mapped out as London's new rivers

“The mind-forged manacles”

• The pain of weakness being toyed with within the hands of higher powers: Oppressive institutions as the jailers and the mind a cell= effective brainwashing. No one is immune. The vulnerable depicted as outlaws.

“Every black’ning church appalls”

“And the hapless soldier's sigh”

“Runs in blood down palace walls”

• The decay of religious institutions: Hope is less than it was. Mankind making the dire decision to choose the artificial beauty materialistic objects rather than the genuine beauty of the natural world

• Actions committed by mankind are done in vain, without any triumph. The pursuit of glory becomes meaningless when all that follows suit, is oppression. The wealthy recieve protection from this despair. Meanwhile, the lower classes are precieved to live to serve.