London

• Poem picture

  
• "I wander thro' each charter'd street" - The speaker wanders through every street that has been given permission to be built on.
• "In every cry of every Man" - Every person can feel the change happening around them.
• William Blake's poem "London" describes a walk through the city during the time of King George III, where the narrator observes the suffering of the people caused by those in power like the church, landowners, the monarchy, and the government
• The poem comes from the collection "Songs of Experience," presenting a harsh view of a world corrupted by humans
• The poem has a repetitive structure, written entirely in quad trains with the rhyme scheme a b a b, reflecting the relentless suffering in the city
• Most of the poem is written in iambic tetrameter, with lines of eight syllables and alternating unstressed and stressed syllables, reflecting the inescapable life of the poor in London
• The repetition of certain words like "mark" in the poem highlights the inescapable repetitive suffering of those in the city
• One of the causes of suffering in the poem is the misuse of power through the chartering of streets and the Thames, widening the gap between the poor and those in power
• The image of the "marriage hearse" in the poem suggests that the London of old is destined to be destroyed due to the misuse of power by groups like the monarchy, government, organized religion, and landowners