London Questions and Answers
London
What does "chartered" mean in William Blake's poem "London"?
In his poem "London," William Blake refers to the streets of London, and to the river, as being "charter'd." This could have several meanings: first of all, a chartered street is one that has been...
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What aspects of Romantic literature are evident in William Blake's poem "London"?
William Blake’s “London” presents a first person speaker remarking upon the misery of London life in a strongly emotional manner. This is an instance of the “spontaneous overflow of powerful...
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Does the poem "London" criticize repressive systems? If so, how?
In this short poem, Blake makes sweeping condemnations of repressive systems or institutions in a compressed way. This appears most strikingly in stanza four: Every blackning Church appalls, And...
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Discuss why "London" is a Romantic poem.
Romanticism, a literary movement that flourished in England from 1785 to 1830, had five primary characteristics. Romantic writers celebrated nature, imagination, the common man and childhood, the...
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What are the structure and the poetic devices used in the poem "London"?
The rhythm, meter and rhyme scheme of this poem are almost deceptively straightforward. The poem comprises four stanzas, with the rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF DGDG. There is some element of...
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What is the tone of the poem "London"?
The tone of a poem is the emotion it communicates. The tone of Blake's poem is one of bleak and hopeless sadness at the distress he sees everywhere in London. Blake conveys this sadness at the...
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What is a "marriage hearse"?
The "marriage hearse" appears in the last line of Blake's poem. The image is deeply ambiguous. First, it conflates two opposites. Marriage is associated with beginnings, procreation, and a kind of...
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What does "Marks of weakness, marks of woe" mean?
William Blake is playing with words with the term mark. He is using the word both as a verb and as a noun. To mark is to notice, but it can also refer to a physical mark, like a birthmark or the...
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What does "Runs in blood down Palace walls" mean?
A more complete version of this quote is as follows: And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls. In general, the last line of the quote is saying that the "Palace," the...
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What does "mind-forg'd manacles" mean in "London"?
The speaker says that he hears the "mind-forg'd manacles" in the cry of every man, every infant, every voice. This is our first clue that something figurative is going on here, as we would be much...
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What is the context of the poem "London"?
William Blake published "London" in 1794 in his Songs of Experience. The French Revolution had taken place just five years earlier, and this caused lawmakers in England to pass new laws that would...
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Please explain these lines from "London."
How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse The meaning of these three lines seems to be this. If men consort with prostitutes...
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What are "mind forg'd manacles" William Blake considers this important topic in his poem "London"?
We're not William Blake, of course. We can't say for sure what he's referring to when he uses the phrase "mind-forg'd manacles." However, if we look at the context of the phrase and the general...
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Describe the London of William Blake.
William Blake's poem, "London," presents a stark and bleak image of England's capital city. Dark and oppressive, the city is both the stage and the mechanism of indoctrination, crushing the spirit...
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Why does the poet refer to the children in the poem "London"? What do they symbolize?
William Blake's "London" presents the eponymous city of London as a dark, hopeless, miserable, and poverty-stricken place. The speaker references children, or "Infants," twice in the poem. He does...
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How does Blake portray people in the poem "London"?
His view of humanity in this poem is, to say the least, bleak and desperate. Blake seeks to provide a portrait of Londoners, particularly members of the lower-class, struggling to survive in the...
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Which aspects of Romantic literature can be perceived in William Blake's poem "London"?
Romanticism is characterized by the glorification of nature, the celebration of the individual, and the emphasis on imagination and emotion. So, with "London" we don't see those themes overtly. But...
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Why did William Blake write "London"?
Blake's poem is part of his collection called Songs of Innocence and of Experience. While often thought of as children's poems, their larger purpose is to articulate Blake's vision of reality, in...
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What does "blackning" mean?
In the context of the whole poem, "blackning" appears to have just as much of a figurative meaning as it does a literal one, and both are connected to the chimney sweepers referenced in the...
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Write the critical appreciation of the poem "London" by William Blake.
William Blake's poem "London" shows how this city, the supposed center of culture, actually embodies the wasted potential of humanity. In the first stanza, the speaker notes that the streets and...
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Mind Forged Manacles
In his poem about London, William Blake cries out against privilege, rank, wealth, church and establishment on behalf of the poor, the destitute and the enslaved. I think you are definitely on the...
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What picture of life in London is presented in the poem?
Blake's "London" present a bleak portrait of life in the capital city. The speaker notes marks of "weakness" and unhappiness in "every" face he sees as he walks the city's streets. His London is...
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What is the theme of "London" by Blake? and how is it similar to the theme of "The world is too much with us" by...
Both William Blake and William Wordsworth were first-generation Romantic poets who wrote during the French Revolution. This war caused upheaval in other parts of Europe and in Britain from 1789 to...
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What truth of human nature is presented in "London"?
Blake's "London" was featured in his collection Songs of Experience, a collection that was a response to his earlier collection entitled Songs of Innocence. As Songs of Experience in general...
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What truth of human nature is presented in William Blake's poem "London"?
Blake, in "London," describes what he sees when he walks through the streets of London just before the turn of the nineteenth century. For context, this was while the French Revolution was...
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Is there imagery in "London" by William Blake?
I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every Man,In every Infants cry of...
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What is an analysis of the poetic devices used in "London" by William Blake?
The first two lines of "London" feature repetition, a literary device Blake uses several times in this poem. The word "charter’d," meaning "mapped," is repeated, showing that the city is mapped out...
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Please explain the significance of the second stanza in Blake's "London."
This is the stanza: In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear-- Blake is saying the world he is describing, one of...
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Is “London” a dramatic monologue?
In general, a dramatic monologue is a poem in which a speaker communicates with someone other than the reader. As the term dramatic implies, the address has some theatricality or spectacle. For...
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Why is "every" repeated throughout the poem "London"?
In this poem, the speaker walks through London at the end of the eighteenth century and describes to the reader what he sees and hears. In the second stanza of the poem, the speaker remarks that he...
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What is the significance of the soldier in the poem "London"?
In “London,” William Blake laments the ubiquitous despair of late–eighteenth-century London. Ravaged by the impersonal effects of the Industrial Revolution (mechanization, rapid economic growth at...
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How does the poem "London" show anger?
The speaker of the poem "London" shows his anger at the city of London, which represents English civilization, by focusing his attention on its negative features. The people he sees walking in the...
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How does William Blake present power in "London"?
William Blake props up the state and the church as symbols of power in his poem "London." The poem depicts misery in many forms in the city of London, from orphaned children crying out to...
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In the poem "London," what kind of language is the phrase, "mind-forged manacles" (e.g., literal, figurative, image,...
The lines you ask about in Blake's "London" follow: In every cry of every Man, In every Infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban [public pronouncement, announcement of marriage], The...
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What is the imagery in the poem "London"?
The imagery in "London" is largely visual or auditory. This means that it conveys sensory information that one can either imagine seeing or hearing, respectively. In the second stanza, the speaker...
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Why do you think William Blake never actually says the word "London" in the poem itself? Could this poem be about...
The poem is a bitter indictment of the structures that create injustice. By naming the poem after the city and identifying the river as the Thames, he leaves no doubt that he wants the reader to...
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How does Blake present suffering in "London"?
Blake presents suffering as pretty universal, at least in the city of London in this era. He implies that there is a clear sense of hopelessness that is experienced by every adult and even by every...
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How can William Blake's poem "London" be related to the 21st century?
The human suffering and despair that William Blake discusses in his poem “London” unfortunately still exist in the 21st century. Sights and sounds Blake describes parallel social problems we face...
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Why does William Blake use the word "every" so often in the second stanza of "London"?
In this poem, Blake criticizes religious and governmental authority. He mentions the "Harlot's curse" in the final stanza. This refers to the spread of syphilis as a venereal disease in London at...
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How do William Blake's poems critique the culture of his time?
Blake's poem "London" (1794) is perhaps his strongest condemnation of British urban society at the end of the 18thC. Because Blake was born and lived in London his entire life, he saw firsthand the...
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Please explain these phrases in "London," by Blake. chartered street mind forged manacles blacking church
In "London," Blake is railing against what he sees as the oppressiveness of modern life. The streets of the city are "charter'd," meaning that they have been mapped. Like all other aspects of...
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Is William Blake’s protest poem “London” a poem only applicable to its place and time, or does his poem have enduring...
In the poem "London," the speaker says that as he walks through the city of London, he sees "in every face ... Marks of weakness, marks of woe," and hears, in "every voice," the clinking of...
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What are the strong images in the poem "London" by William Blake?
There are three strong images in "London." All of them are nearly surrealistic, like scenes painted by Salvador Dali. How the Chimney-sweeper's cryEvery black'ning church appals Chimney-sweepers...
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In the poem "London" by William Blake, why do you think the speaker never actually says the word "London" in the poem...
While it is possible that the poem could be about other cities, at the time of writing (1794, contained in Blake's collection Songs of Experience), London was one of the largest cities in the...
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What does London represent in William Blake's "London"?
Blake's poem "London" is the antithesis of his earlier poems in "Songs of Innocence." In the earlier poems, innocent children frolic,nature is in bloom, and people are happy and loving. It is a...
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What is the structure of "London" by William Blake?
William Blake's poem "London" follows a simple structure that allows the violence and misery of the imagery to be digested more easily. It singsong meter and rhythm and the brevity of the lines...
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Compare and contrast the ways Blake and Shelley present the abuse of power in "London" and "Ozymandias."
While both "Ozymandias" and "London" contain critiques on power, these critiques are shaped from radically different angles. Blake's focus is derived first and foremost from the perspective of the...
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Please perform a stylistic analysis of William Blake's poem "London."
I'm going to identify three elements of style and literary devices that Blake uses in the poem, defining each, showing you evidence of each in the poem, and then analyzing its significance in the...
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What does "charter'd" mean in "London"?
A city, company, university, or other entity is "charter'd" (chartered) when it is owned, with certain groups having rights or privileges in it. A "charter" is a paper or contract outlining the...
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What type of poem is "London" by William Blake?
"London," by William Blake is a Romantic poem. This is not to say that it focuses on a loving or "romantic" relationships between people who feel affection or lust for one another, but, rather,...
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