London

• William Blake was a poet in Victorian/Georgian England, he wrote a selection of poems in his

  anthologies songs of innocence and experience, most of those poems had a counterpart.
• The Experience poems were often more bitter or cynical whereas the innocence poems

  were often naïve and simple.
• Blake criticises the injustice and cruelty of the monarchy and government
• Blake’s poems

  often railed against these and how London, arguably the greatest city in the world at that time, was so dirty and corrupt
• Looking at power and conflict this is a poem which is more about the lack of power and abuse of power. The poem is set in

  the capital of the most powerful country in the world and yet words like ‘manacles’ suggest slavery while the soldiers sigh ‘runs

  in blood down palace walls’ a clear contrast between those with power and those without.
• During this time France had thrown off and executed their king. The People’s revolution was

  meant to show that all men are equal and have power. In Britain, a country with an old

  monarchy and aristocracy, this was scary. Blake is perhaps supporting revolution, asking people

  to throw off the ‘manacles’ of their belief that they should be told what to do.
•  Written in four stanzas with an regular alternate scheme. This may reflect the regular walking pace of the

  narrator as he walks around London. The last line in each stanza tends to deliver a powerful statement which sums up the rest

  of the stanza. Stanza 1 focusses on misery, Stanza 2 on peoples refusal to stand tall, Stanza 3 about the way people are

  sacrificed for the rich and powerful, Stanza 4 how all this poverty is corrupting everything good about family and life.
• -The poem is an ironic look at misery in the greatest city in

  the world.
• Blake’s views are revolutionary for the time, challenging the

  idea that man is worth more than slavery
• -Blake challenges the establishment in their ‘palaces 'and

  ‘churches’ which are marked by the blood and blackening of

  good people.
• key quote 1- "...each chartered street

  Near where the chartered Thames does flow,"
• key quote 1- repetition of "chartered" conveys how everything in the city is fixed and regulated, and the tone being harsh illustrated how the speaker resents being confined
• key quote 1- "charted Thames" juxtaposition, the thames is a river which connotes freedom and nature, but here even nature is controlled, the poems structure being quatrain and ABAB rhyme scheme reinforces the idea of control and how rigid and restricted London is
• key quote 1- "each" emphasises how it is all of London being affected by this control
• key quote 2- "And mark in every face I meet

  ...Marks of weakness, marks of woe"
• key quote 2- the verb "mark" shows how Blake is noticing the suffering on peoples faces, and how their anguish is visible, the word"every" conveys how there is no exception and perhaps puts into perspective the magnitude of their anguish
• key quote 2- the repetition of "marks" emphasises how scarred people are by the pain of corruption in their government. The word "marks" connoted a mark, which is hard to remove which is this context conveys how hard it is for people to remove their trauma and how the government and monarchy has ruined London permenently
• key quote 2- "weakness" and "woe" use alliteration which creates a quivering sound, almost as if they are about to cry, connecting people with poverty and sadness.
• key quote 2 - "every face" appears upset, conveying the magnitude of peoples misery.
• key quote 3- "mind forged manacles"
• key quote 3- "manacles" is a metaphor and indicates that people have no autonomy or control over their lives and now their minds are imprisoned, alternatively, Blake could also be saying that the weakest is only in peoples minds and is calling for a revolution
• key quote 3- the alliteration of "m" conveys the greed of those in power and the hunger and poverty of the people with less power, the alliteration makes the poem and its key ideas more memorable which is reinforced by the structure (4 quatrains)
• key quote 3- "forged" relates to things being fake which could be Blake saying that social hierarchies are fake and we should abandon them