The William Blake Take on London

Now to tackle the mysterious Blake. Do I choose one of his sombre, thought-provoking poems or a sweet note on love? After reading and liking about ten, I have chosen 'London'. Many of his poems are shorter than this and therefore have a different sort of weight to them as he can pack detailed concepts into a small space (try 'The Angel that Presided O'er my Birth'). Here, Blake uses a longer form to cover the varying scenes of his home city in 1792 (he would later move away to the seaside, not surprisingly).

I think I have chosen this poem also because I have a love hate relationship with the city. It is a nice place to visit for a day but I would never wish to spend more than that length of time there, not even one night. This is probably due to the crowding, the smells, the seemingly disgruntled and unhappy people, particularly the workers. The same sort of depressing atmosphere must have haunted the place in the 118th Century as well, if for slightly different but not irrelevant reasons.

Below is the product of the five minute annotation session I had earlier when I found I had a copy within a poetry collection I own. I shall now explain the most important of these observations as you probably can't even read them/my poor handwriting. At least you can read the poem:

Blake presents us with the images of grown men (including soldiers), young women, children and babies. They are each surrounded by unseen people as well, alluded to through buildings mainly. For instance, we are introduced to the chimney sweeps. Blake probably means both the infantile sweeps and the adult ones as he has used the same verb, 'cry', applied to both in the second stanza as in this third stanza. The children especially would have been what 'appall[ed]' the 'church', which represents religious leaders.

I could not decide for myself whether Blake meant to cast this institution in a good light or not; the 'black'ning' denotes that the churches are not employing the sweeps as a form of protest but is Blake being sarcastic? Is this colour supposed to give negative connotations of evil or degeneration? I have found out that he disliked the religious establishment so it must be the latter. Maybe the church was turning an immoral blind eye to the suffering and therefore disliked to hear the cries of the sweeps, 'black'ning' implying that it must be cleaned as every other building is.

In 1789 the French Revolution occurred. This probably prompted the lines on the 'palace walls', which represent the monarchy and those in charge of the country. The escalation from a soft, harmless 'sigh' to 'blood' is emphasised by the phonetic movement from fricative /s/ to plosive /b/ and /d/. This metaphorically states that the pain endured by the ordinary people is of no consequence to the upper classes and those causing the battles at the top. 'Hapless' is sarcastic and probably there to provoke the word 'helpless' in its place as he is not in poor luck just under poor leadership.

The end of the poem gives prominence to prostitution and how it causes many bad things. 1. 'new-born' children have no father or secure place in the world. 2. Marriages break down, hyperbolically linked to death in the semi-oxymoron of 'marriage hearse'. 3. Venereal disease is brought about - the literal 'plague' which metaphorically is the more overt meaning. 'Blights' brings connotations of infertility and degeneration too - blood lines are impure and thus London is a breeding ground for filth and poverty.

There is so much more to say, I know. A lot is on the picture above but hardly all of it.

I'll continue to endeavour to find one of my poems!