london

• chimney sweeper's cry... happless soldiers sigh


  sigh - hopelessness, tires, fed-up

  emotive language - ref. to child labour

  sibilance
• marks of weakness, marks of woe

  marks - disfigurement or an impression

  breaks iambic tetrameter used in most of the poem - if people rise up against people in power they can free themsleves from societal restraints

  marks - misery etched into their faces - oppression of city has physically impacted its residents
• i wander through each chartered street// near where the chartered thames does flow// blackening church


  wander - slightly lost/ unsure

  chartered vs. flow - irony -> free body of water has been subjected to laws (nature controlled by man) - this type of beaurocracy was something the romantics disliked

  blackening church - religious hypocrisy - shows how dirty city is (metaphor for politically)
• the mind-forged manacles i hear


  manacles - used to restrain prisoners - refers to the restraints WE put on what WE can do = self imposing -> represents Blake's perception of self-limitation and denigration of the human imagination ( poems : 'songs of innocence' and 'songs of experience')

  alliteration - helps draw attention to the metaphor - people aren't physically held back but their belief in their own weakness holds them back

  mind-forged = not real
• plagues the marriage hearse

  plagues (verb) - government 'plaguing' society & making them ill with fear & physically ill

  oxymoron - 'marriage' and 'hearse' -> juxtaposes marriage with misery - society has destroyed the good things in life
• context

  • blake rejected religion
  • set during industrial revolution
  • death rates were rising - malnutrition & disease -> london became polluted and overcrowded by large oppressive factories ( 1/2 the kids died in 4 years)
  • france just thrown off & executed king ( 'peoples revolution') -> britain -> old monarchy/ aristocracy
  • lots of his poems have a spiritual/ supernatural element
  • romantic poet
• structure

  • quatrains and ABAB rhyme - reinforces sense of complete control & oppression - lower classes trapped in london - suffering = relentless and never-ending
  • iambic tetrameter - mimics walking pace, shows order and control as the rhythm provides a sense of relentless oppression
  • 'HEAR' - 1st letter of 1st word of every line in 3rd stanza spell 'hear - auditory signs of suffering throughout e.g. 'cry', 'sigh', 'curse', 'i hear'