English poems : LONDON

• William Blake was a poet and an artist but he was not really well known at the time that he was alive
• William Blake was ranked as the 38th greatest Briton by the BBC, even though he died essentially penniless
• Songs of Innocence and Experience


  William Blake's most famous collection of poems
• William Blake was also known as a painter and an engraver
• William Blake died in 1827 after only sketching a few drafts for Dante's Divine Comedy
• When the poem London was published


  1794
• Romantic poets


  Poets who despised the establishment, hated the people in power, hated the idea of organized religion, hated the imbalance in the world, and generally wanted to rebel through the power of poetry
• The French Revolution went on from 1789 to 1799
• The French Revolution was a 10-year revolution where the working class, dissatisfied with heavy taxes and poor living conditions, rose up and overthrew those in power and took control by force
• The poem London is about Blake's beloved city of London and how it has become corrupt, with huge inequality due to the greed of those in power
• The poem London


  Acts as a sort of rebellion in itself, hinting at the idea of rebellion when writing about the blood running down the palace walls