London: Context & Techniques

• Form:

  • The poem is written in the form of a simple, four stanza dramatic monologue.

  Social criticism

  • Blake wanted his poetry to feel accessible to all members of society
  • He felt everyone should consider and discuss his messages and views
  • The poem is written in the first person. The first-person speaker is passionate about what he sees and experiences, but the language is almost conversational in tone
  • The poem is also written in the first person to demonstrate that this is the speaker’s own experience of London
• Structure

  • Order and control imposed upon the city
  •  Never-ending cycle of misery and suffering.
  • Cyclical structure - stanza 1 & 2 focus on the impact on people. Stanza 3 explores the source of suffering, and stanza 4 goes back to the impact again suggesting that suffering is never-ending
  • Control and power- the regularity of the rhythm implies a sense of relentless oppression and the fixed structure emphasises the sense of complete control. The rhythm could also represents the relentlessness and repetitiveness of the situation.
• Structure: The first letters of each line in the third stanza spell out HEAR, which is interesting considering Blake has focused on auditory sounds of suffering in the poem. Maybe Blake wants the reader to start listening to the suffering all around them, as well as his message
• Language

  • Blake uses juxtaposing phrases such as “marriage hearse” which contrasts the joy of weddings with the end-of-life sadness of a hearse- social criticism of how for women marriage could be like death as they would lose all of their rights and property.
  • Blake also juxtaposes “charter’d” and “flow”. “Flow” implies freedom, whereas “charter’d” is describing something as owned or controlled by someone.
• Language:

  • Blake is commenting on the oppression of nature by humans
  • Blake could also be commenting on oppression as a result of privatisation, through the repetition of “charter’d”. Land in the city suddenly became owned and controlled by the wealthy

  Suffering at the hands of power

  • Blake uses negative language and imagery throughout. For example, the soldier’s sigh metaphorically “runs in blood down palace walls”
  • This reminds the reader of the French Revolution, when ordinary people rose up against an oppressive state and overthrew the monarchy.
• Language:

  • Blake uses anaphora in the phrase “in every”, with “every” also repeated seven times in total throughout the poem
  • Blake is emphasising the extreme extent of the suffering, showing that it impacts everyone with no discrimination
  • Blake uses physical features and places as symbols for the different forms of power that cause the suffering
  • According to Blake, the causes of the suffering and misery in London are the institutions of power, such as the church, the monarchy and the government
• Language:

  • The “black’ning church” has negative connotations as something that is morally tarnished
  • Although Blake respected the Bible, he had contempt for organised religion which he saw as betraying the Christian faith
  • The poet also presents the suffering of various people within society, such as children and babies. When the harlot’s curse violently “blasts” the newborn baby’s cry, this conflicts with the innocence and fragility of the infant
• Language:

  • Blake uses the metaphor of “mind-forg’d manacles” to suggest the suffering of the citizens of London has become internalised
  • Maybe their oppression has resulted in them forging their own restrictions. People are enslaved by the authorities, but also by their own fear, preventing them from rising up
  • Use of the verb “mark” to show that the speaker has noticed suffering everywhere and recorded it
• Social injustice

  • Blake worked to bring about change both in the social order and in the minds of people
  • Blake lived in London for most of his life and thought the city was dirty and corrupt
  • Institutions of power, such as the government, the church and the monarchy, to be to blame for this
  • Blake wrote using mostly straightforward language so that his message was accessible to all
• Social injustice:

  • Blake’s poem centres on London, arguably the capital of the world at that time
  • This is ironic as such a powerful and influential place at the time
  • There was a huge gap between rich and poor at the time
  • Blake was a Christian, but he rejected organised religion and the established church
  • He viewed it as corrupt and hypocritical
  • They put money into new buildings while the poor starved
• Social injustice:

  • Blake was also concerned with the oppression of the poor, child poverty and child labour
  • He felt strongly that the church was responsible of the community wellbeing and was not upholding their moral duty
  • London at the time was full of poverty and disease, and full of lower-class citizens, prostitutes and former soldiers
  • He stood against the oppression of women and supported equality
  • He highlights how these people feel trapped in their situations through the abuse of power by authority
• Power and nature

  • Romantics were interested in the power of nature, humanity and emotion
  • They were generally opposed to the industrialisation
  • He uses the irony of the Thames, a natural body of water, which has been made official and subject to laws (“charter’d”)
  • He considered nature to be powerful and that it should not be tamed
  • Romantic poets disliked attempts to impose power on people or things against their will, such as humanity’s pride in attempting to impose order on to nature
• What to Compare it to

  • London and My Last Duchess
  • London and Ozymandias
• London and My Last Duchess

  Comparison in a nutshell:

  This comparison provides the opportunity to insightfully compare power, control and the corruption of power at a state and an individual level. Blake is concerned with how human power can be used to dominate and oppress others, whereas Browning in My Last Duchess presents power through the individual character of the Duke
• London and Ozymandias

  Comparison in a nutshell:

  This is an effective comparative choice to explore the nature of political power and its effects on humanity. Both Blake’s London and Shelley’s Ozymandias use settings and physical objects or locations to represent power and comment on humanity’s pride in attempting to control nature