London

• What is London about?

  • A speaker (seen to be Blake) is wandering down the streets of London, encountering the plight of poverty & suffering of its citizens
  • He indicts (criticises) the abuse of power of the authorities & how their power is not used to benefit society as child labour, prostitution, and corruption permeated (spread through) London
• What is the contextual significance of William Blake’s political views?

  • He was anti-establishment (government, church etc)
  • Was celebratory regarding the rise of democracy within the French Revolution- he wanted the same liberation for the UK
• What is the contextual significance of Blake’s poetry?

  • He was a Romantic poet (capital R), these poets believed that nature was awe-inspiring (amazing) but also believed terror
  • This spiritual connection was known as the sublime
  • Blake contorts the Romantic sublime ideas of nature through pairing it with the image of corruption- this awe-inspring connection to nature & the world is being shattered by the oppressive authoritarian control
• What quote[s] reflect oppression?

  “Thames” and “chartered”
• How do the quotes “Thames” and “chartered” reflect oppression?

  • “Thames” -> naturally free flowing, to have become “chartered”, connoting restriction
  • Scathing of sheer control the authorities have, it even seeping down into nature- the oppression is so powerful that even nature is not exempt from its detrimental impact
  • This links back to tropes of Romantic society, centralising their poetry around nature
  • Blake inverts this & makes it current with the bleak setting he is in, reinforcing how the awe-inspiring sublimity of nature is being tainted through political corruptness
• What quote reflects the corruption of youth?

  “in every infant’s cry of fear”
• How does the quote “in every infant’s cry of fear” reflect corruption of youth?

  • The cyclical suffering replicated through the anaphora
  • It is oxymoronic the idea of an “infant”, connoting innocence, and “fear”, connoting terror
  • These juxtaposing images shows how the innocence of youth has been corrupted & stolen as they have already been tainted by this exploitative setting
  • Reinforces the bleak pessimistic tone Blake creates- nobody can leave unscathed from this corruption as they do this to every “infant” once it is born
• What quote reflects the abuse of power by establishment?

  “the chimney sweepers cry”
• How does the quote “the chimney sweepers cry” reflect abuse of power by establishment?

  • As Blake wrote this during the time of the industrial revolution, a time that was marked the ‘progressive era’ with the introductory of factories, he speaks of how even “the chimney sweepers cry”: a job that flourished during the industrial revolution
  • Yet, despite job oppurtunities seeming rife during this ‘progressive era’ of London, the disadvantaged members of society still suffered while establishment, the government, profited of these disadvantages
• What is the structural significance of the poem?

  • Blake uses a mixture of enjambment & end- stops to replicate the illusion of freedom London’s citizens are given
• How does enjambment contribute to the poem?

  The enjambment representing this illusion as the line continues, emulating how they believe their lives are free & boundless
• How do the end stops contribute to the poem?

  The enjambment juxtaposes the end stops where the lines are paused & stopped, replicating how the lives of those who live in London are stopped & broken by the authorities that control them
• What are the two pieces of form used in the poem?

  • Quatrains & regular ABAB rhyme
  • Iambic tetrameter
• Why does the poem use quatrains & regular ABAB rhyme?

  • Blake uses uniformed quatrains (stanzas with four lines) paired with a regular ABAB rhyme to emulate the mass oppression & restriction the lower classes were subject to- they were oppressed by establishment chaining them to these “mind-forged manacles”
  • As the stanza length & rhyme is not broken, Blake uses this to mimic how this control seems unbreakable and sempiternal (ever-lasting)
• Why does the poem use iambic tetrameter?

  • Means that each line has syllables
  • The consistent iambic tetrameter heightens the motif of oppression that permeates the poem; there is no freedom to escape this control
• How does Blake use iambic tetrameter?

  • Blake provides a glimmer of hope when he breaks the iambic tetrameter on “marks of weakness, mark of woe”
  • He could be implying that there is hope to break free from this oppression if London was to be united against the establishments that controlled them