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Comprehensive Analysis of William Blake's "London"

Summary:

William Blake's poem "London" utilizes a structured ABAB rhyme scheme across four stanzas of iambic tetrameter, using poetic devices such as repetition, alliteration, and vivid imagery to highlight the city's hidden miseries. The poem reflects Romantic literature through its focus on intense emotions, social justice, and the oppressive nature of urban life, contrasting it with the beauty of nature. Blake's motivation was to critique the moral and physical decay he observed in London's society, exacerbated by capitalism and industrialization.

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What structure and poetic devices are 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 continuity in the "D" sound being echoed again in the fourth stanza, picking up the word "hear" from the second stanza. This highlights the idea of London as a place filled with the sounds of its hidden miseries, if only we, like the poet, are willing to pay enough attention and actually listen.

A poetic device is simply a literary device used within the course of a poem. Structure, rhyme and meter are themselves poetic devices, and as discussed above, they can help to strengthen the poet's meaning and tone. Other poetic devices in this poem might include anaphora : Blake repeats the phrase "In every" at the beginning of each line in the second stanza. He also chooses...

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to do this three times, which is an example of the use of the so-called rule of three, a rhetorical idea that if a phrase or word is repeated three times, it is most likely to be effective and lodge in the mind of the reader or listener.

The poet also makes considerable use of vivid imagery which alludes to Biblical plagues. In the final line, "plagues" are mentioned specifically; the image of blood running "down Palace walls" is also a vivid image which creates the idea that blood is on the hands of the wealth in particular.

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The poem consists of four quatrains written in iambic tetrameter: eight syllables (or four feet) in which the emphasis falls on the second syllable in each foot, as in "I WAN der THRO..." Every other line in each quatrain rhymes, making it an ABAB rhyme scheme. This creates the singsong effect of a nursery rhyme or the even rhythms of a tolling death bell. Alliteration also adds a sense of rhythm, with repeated "m" sounds in the first and second stanza (which also repeats the "w" sound), repeated "ch" sounds in the third, and repeated "bl" sounds in the fourth. Alliteration draws attention to and puts emphasis on certain words, such as "blasts" and "blights" in stanza 4.

Blake uses poetic devices to establish a bleak, somber tone. He employs anaphora, in which the first word or words in a line are repeated to create a sense of litany. This occurs in stanza two, in the repetition of "In every" at the beginning of the first three lines. He also uses imagery, which is description using any of the five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell. The imagery reveals suffering, such as the marks of "woe" or sadness on people's faces, the fearful cries of infants, and the blood running down palace walls.

Opposites are juxtaposed as well to create a sense of paradox, such as in the final line, in which the harlots

blight...with plagues the Marriage hearse

We don't usually put together marriages and hearses, as the first word conjures joy and new life, while the second conjures sadness and death. However, the juxtaposition is effective in showing how the suffering of the poor, who pass on venereal diseases to the middle classes, invades the life of the more comfortable.

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The poem "London" by William Blake consists of four stanzas, with each stanza consisting of four lines. The lines are written in iambic tetrameter and rhymed ABAB. This means that we can describe the poem as consisting of four iambic tetrameter open quatrains.

The poem is narrated in the first person. The narrator is walking about London and observing the miseries and misfortunes of its inhabitants and meditating on them. In literary terms, we have a first person narrator whose observations are limited to what a person might actually hear and see on such a walk, sharing his inner thoughts with the reader. 

One major device used in the poem is repetition. Words such as "chartered," "every," "mark," and "hear" are repeated to emphasize the universality of commerce, its evil effects, and the way the results of commercial and spiritual downfall can be observed by the ears and eyes of the narrator or anyone else walking in London.

Alliteration is also common, with repeated sounds suggesting a connection between "chartered," "church," and "chimney-sweepers" with commercialism and a corrupt church being blamed for the miseries of the young boys sweeping chimneys.

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In Blake's, "London," the speaker uses an adult narrator who is walking through the streets of London, a city that is not only the capitol of England, but the capitol of the British Empire.  The city, as the speaker experiences it, falls short of what it should be, in the speaker's (and Blake's, by extension) perception.

Humans suffer under charters, regulations, popular opinions and mores, which all lead to "mind-forged manacles." 

The speaker uses rhyme, with every other line rhyming in each stanza.  He uses repetition:  "In every..."; "charter'd"; "mark" and "Marks"; "cry."  He uses alliteration:  "And the hapless Soldiers sigh...."

The poem also uses allusion, referring to the "Chimney-sweepers" who appear in other poems in Blake's collections Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (in which "London" is included).

Rhyme, repetition, consistency of theme, and the linear walk through the streets of the narrator, create unity in the poem, with the speaker's opening of the final stanza leading to the final thoughts:

But most thro' midnight streets I hear....

And in the final stanza we see what sex and marriage in London lead to, what women having to sell themselves to survive leads to, and what marriage that must be maintained because society says so leads to. 

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What aspects of Romantic literature are evident in William Blake's "London"?

The famous Romanticist William Wordsworth held that good poetry was "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," and "London" most certainly is that.  It epitomizes many of the tenets of romantic poetry, beginning with a preoccupation with nature and that which has been done to nature and to the nature of Man. In "London," the narrator describes "each chart'red street" and "the chart'red Thames," suggesting an unnatural level of control has been imposed even upon the river. This has created an unnatural habitat for human beings, and therefore it is no wonder that "marks of weakness,  marks of woe" can be seen in every face.  

The poem also makes a connection between this misery and the tyranny of government, as we can assume that the "mind forged manacles" are as a result of political impositions, which have also caused the metaphorical "blood" on the palace walls. This reflects the preoccupation in Romantic poetry with the human spirit triumphing against repression and, indeed, a spirit of revolution that is also found in much of Shelley's work. 

Blake is always concerned with the state of man from "Infant" to grave, and the "plague" imposed upon all by modern life away from the countryside. This is a Romantic concern that is very evident here, as Blake describes so colorfully the plague of London life. 

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What motivated William Blake to write "London"?

I believe that Blake wrote this poem to decry the state of people in the urban centers of his time.  He argues, in the poem, that people in the cities are really badly off in a number of ways.

In this poem, Blake is saying, for example, that people are oppressed.  He says that they are, essentially, living in chains.  The have manacles on that have been formed by their minds.

In addition, people are in bad physical condition because of their poverty.  You can see the marks of weakness on them wherever you look.

Finally, they are badly off morally.  Women have, for example, been forced to become prostitutes.

All in all, life in the cities has degraded the humanity of the people who live in it.

This is, I believe, what Blake had in mind when he wrote the poem.

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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 which nature is both good and evil, a source of pleasure and pain. Blake wrote "London" as a way of exploring this darker side of reality and expressing the depravity he saw in English society at the time.

The poem is a kind of dream vision of a real place. Blake's observations of the real place are transformed into a nightmare landscape where the moral decay and misery inherent in people and things becomes clear and visible. This becomes apparent in his description: the Thames is "charter'd" (or made subject to human demands); the "blackning Church" is a source of fear, not reassurance; the "youthful Harlots curse" (venereal disease) infects children and marriage alike. Sometimes, this "vision" conflates sound and image: the "sigh" of soldiers becomes blood running "down Palace walls."

Blake is also pretty clear about what he sees is the root cause of this rot: the "mind-forg'd manacles" the hears "in every voice." These "manacles" can be understood as capitalism, or the Industrial Revolution, or colonialism—what is important is the idea that men are trapped by these institutions into living in a depraved society. It is depraved in a specific way: man works to enslave nature, to bend it to his will, but in so doing, he only perverts it and brings misery on himself.

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What poetic devices are 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 in a way that is characteristic of urban life. This type of restriction is in contrast to the freedom of the countryside. In the next two lines, the word "mark" is repeated three times as a means of emphasizing the way in which the polluted city marks its inhabitants. In the following stanza, the word "cry" is repeated (and "cry" also appears in the third stanza), as is the word "every." The repetition of the word "cry" emphasizes the suffering of both adults and children in London. The repetition of the word "every" is a form of anaphora, which is the repetition of a word at the beginning of phrases that follow each other, and it serves to emphasize how this suffering characterizes everyone the poet sees in the city. Many phrases in this stanza also start with "in," another example of an anaphora. 

In the third stanza, the words "Church" and "Palace" are synecdoches--the substitution of part of something for its whole. For example, "Church" stands for religion, while "Palace" stands for the monarchy. Both of these institutions are oblivious to the cries of the people around them.

In the last stanza, the phrase "Marriage hearse" is a kind of oxymoron, or a joining of contrasts. The idea behind this phrase is that the infant is born to a mother who is a prostitute and curses her newborn child. The child's birth is both a marriage, or the result of a sexual union, and a death sentence, as the woman has a plague. Therefore, even birth brings with it the taint of death in "London." 

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Does "London" by William Blake contain imagery?

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 fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear 

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls, 
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls 
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear 
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse 
There is a great deal of imagery in "London," but it is of a very unusual kind. The images are best described as "surrealistic." They call to mind the paintings of Salvador Dali, especially the blood running down Palace walls. Blake makes the London of his day seem like a hell on earth. Another painter they call to mind is Hieronymus Bosch. Blake was a painter himself, and he produced fantastic works drawn from an imagination akin to that of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. Yet another artist who comes to mind is William Hogarth, a contemporary of Blake, best known for his etchings and engravings depicting life among the lower classes in London in the 18th century.
Some of the images in the poem are the following:
"Marks of weakness, marks of woe." Perhaps only Blake could perceive these marks in every single face he saw in a crowded metropolis like London. We can still see such marks in some people's faces in any big American city, but not in every face.
"The mind-forged manacles I hear." He could see the manacles in people's voices. He sees what he hears. That is, his auditory sense is somehow connected to his visual sense. It was the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the writers who helped inspire the French Revolution, who wrote the famous words, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." How does everyone come to wear chains? It must be because they are captives of their own minds. 
"How the Chimney-sweepers cry / Every blackning Church appalls." Here again what he hears becomes something he sees. What he sees is all the churches, which are getting increasingly blacker from the soot produced by coal smoke of homes and factories, looking frightened, appalled, backing away in horror from the spectacle of the little children who earn their livings by climbing in and out of dirty chimneys, getting blacker and blacker themselves, and dying at an early age of lung disease. The blackening churches seem like living beings. Their windows are like wide-open eyes staring in horror at the scene Blake is painting with words. These churches are ineffectual in changing the miserable lives of the Londoners, who are addicted to beer and gin as anesthetics and soporifics. 
"How the youthful Harlots curse / Blasts the newborn Infants tear / And blights with plagues the marriage Hearse." And again the real curses he hears make him see the infant's tears already contaminated with syphilis germs and the bride and groom going off to make more infants who will likewise be infected because the groom has been consorting with diseased young prostitutes and will pass his disease on to his wife and her babies.
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What is your critical appreciation of "London" by William Blake?

In William Blake's "London," the speaker describes the city of London, England, as a sad and oppressive place. He says that every person's face has "Marks of weakness" and of "woe" (line 4). Even the repetition of the word "charter'd" to describe, first, the streets of the city and, next, the Thames river which flows through it makes it seem as though the speaker has no say in the direction he walks and that the river's course, too, is dictated to it. Everyone around him wears figurative "mind-forg'd manacles," a metaphor for the mental oppression and powerlessness they feel (8). Every man cries, every infant fears, and so it seems as though there is something fundamentally oppressive about life in the city during this time. The use of anaphora, the repetition of the first word or words in poetic lines, also points to the tedium of this oppression and misery, how widespread and pervasive it is. The speaker says,

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.

The "ban[s]" to which the speaker refers are the laws of the city, and so it is within these laws that the speaker detects the restraint humans place on themselves by living in places like this. The churches are "black[ened]" by the cries of the young chimney sweeps—often children, because they could fit inside the cramped spaces—perhaps because those parishes do not properly care for the poverty-stricken families in their congregation.

Finally, the prostitutes, who are also young, "curse" their terrible lives, and so this is what their "new-born" babies hear in their innocent state. In the final line, the speaker references a "blight[ed] ... Marriage hearse." This, too, must be a metaphor, and so we have to try to figure out what is denoted by "Marriage" and what that has to do with death, as a hearse is a vehicle that conveys a dead body to its final resting place. Marriage is typically associated with love, and that is one thing that seems to be absolutely lacking in this place, so we might interpret the figurative hearse as carrying love, which has been killed by all of the misery and poverty and oppression in London at this time.

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How does William Blake depict London?

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 of individuality. 

One of Blake's most quoted phrases relates directly to this idea of indoctrination -- "The mind-forg'd manacles" -- and it is in this phrase that we find the key to the poem. 

The city is a place where individuals despair or give away their individuality. For reasons of economics, politics and religion, the figures that populate this London cry out or sigh in ways that signify the loss of individuality and the victory of systemic indoctrination. 

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls, 
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
All the figures in the poem are categorical, described merely with categorical monikers (mainly by profession). There are no true characters, but only, it would seem, cogs in a machine. 
In a long essay on William Blake, Alfred Kazin observes that Blake is set against systems of conformity. 
Blake is against everything that submits, mortifies, constricts and denies.
Kazin goes on to write that Blake's "London" is a statement on "the modern inhuman city" of his day, which "isolated man in the net which men have created." 
"In the modern city man has lost his real being, as he has already lost his gift of vision in the "fathomless and boundless" deep of his material nature" (Kazin). 
London then is a place where material concerns reign, organized and ruled by systems of conformity and internalized norms to such an extent that the life of an individual is compromised. Not even a baby can comfortably be itself but instead feels the pressures and the weight of the "mind-forg'd manacles" that shape the life of the city into a uniformity of marriage, religion and work.
In an era of apprenticeships and highly organized professional life, Blake's experiences as an individualist and as a former apprentice engraver may have colored his views of the city that best represented the forces of commerce and conformity that he spoke out against. 
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How are people portrayed in Blake's 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 Industrial Age.

The narrator is walking through the streets and regarding the faces of other passersby:

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.

"Chartered" could indicate private property, or a space (e.g., city, street, school) that has been established. For the purpose of the poem, Blake seems to use the word to remind us that we are in a civilized space, but that civilization has not made us any more humane or content. Perhaps our discontent is rooted in our growing too distant from nature. Notice, too, how the Thames, a natural formation, has also been "charter'd." 

Every face has "marks of weakness" and "woe." The use of the word mark, as both a verb and a noun, indicate that the strangers are stained or sullied. One thinks of marks of soot or oil that one would see on the body of a factory worker.

Though he does not describe any of these strangers, but instead gives us a catalog of types, Blake accounts for the singularity of everyone's anguish:

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear:

With the use of the adverb "every" he gives distinction where there is otherwise none. The distinction, for humans, lies in the pained sounds they produce. "Ban" has several meanings. It could indicate social and legal prohibitions, public condemnation, or be a play on "banns," which were marriage proclamations. What all of these "bans" have in common is that they are institutional restrictions placed on people -- hence, "mind-forg'd manacles." The narrator hears the clanging of the shackles with which each person has locked down his or her mind in the interest of being a member of society.

The last two stanzas more specifically address people who are representative of political concerns. "The Chimney-sweeper" is a figure about whom Blake had written several poems. Here the chimney sweeper cries, which echoes the "cry of every Man" and "every Infant's cry of fear," but also alludes to the chimney-sweeper advertising his services:

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackning Church appalls,

The misery of a boy sweeping out chimneys to live is an outrage or shock to the Church, or should be. Blake's use of the present participle "blackning" suggests a Church that is implicit in this. Churches, too, require the services of chimney-sweeps to clear out soot, which could blacken the space. "Blackning" also suggests guilt or shame for the Church's lack of action on this matter.

The next two lines take issue with the state:

And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

The soldier is a victim ("hapless") of political maneuvering. He takes his last breath ("sigh") and the reverberations of his death are felt in the palace, for they are guilty -- stained with his blood. There is some alliteration in these lines as well, with the repetition of the "s" sound both at the beginning and end of various words. The effect here is like that of a hush.

The last stanza looks at a prostitute and the effect her desperate actions have had on her child. This is the figure on whom Blake focuses: "But most thro' midnight streets I hear." "Most" indicates that the sound she produces from her "curse" are all too familiar to the narrator. "Curse" has a double-meaning here. It is both profanity and probably venereal disease:

How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

The blast on "the new-born Infant's tear" indicates that the child is blind. Untreated gonorrhea can have this effect on newborns. Moreover, her ability to spread this disease, and possibly others, to her married customers results in the deaths, both spiritual and possibly literal, of those men's marriages. Untreated syphilis can result in death; and realizing that one's husband has been with a prostitute can destroy the marriage bond. Thus, the marriage coach becomes a "hearse."

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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 prostitutes suffering from disease which will be transmitted to their babies, the customers that visit them, and the children of their customers. It is a nightmarish vision, and one in which the powerful within the church or the state do nothing to help those in need. In fact, both seem to thrive on the collective misery.

Interestingly, Blake never shows people associated with these institutions, such as clergy or royalty. The reader is only shown architecture associated with them: churches and palace walls. By doing so, he is highlighting the apathy he feels these institutions have for the plight of society's disadvantaged. The cries of orphans and prostitutes is juxtaposed with the silence of the church and the palace observing it all.

Blake also makes these institutions seem a bit malevolent. The church is described as "blackning," and the palace walls are depicted as stained with the blood of soldiers. Blake is implying that these powerful institutions are run off the misery of the common people, despite the fact that they are supposed to see to their best interests.

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What does London symbolize 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 time parallel to the time before the Fall.  But, in "London" which Blake chooses to attack specifically the corruption in England's government and church, there is no allusion to a natural world except the Thames River, which, unnaturally, has been "charter'd"; that is, owned and bound by British law.

Thus, London represents the evils of English society as the capital of England and the center of its culture.  The strength of Blake's poem lies in its ironic contrasts.  The chimney sweep's cry is an affront to the Christianity that the Church of England promulgates and the soldier who fights to preserve the monarchy sheds his blood for only the palace walls:

How the chimney sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls.

Blake also decries the institutions of English rule, centered in London.  He writes that

In every voice, in every ban
The mind-forged manacles I hear.

With ironic use of "ban" for marriage that binds together people who do not love one another, Blake reviles the one sacrament that should offer hope: marriage.  But the unhappy husband goes to the harlot, who in turn gives him syphlis that he passes on to his wife, causing "the new-born infant's tear" as it is blinded.

By walking specifically through the streets of London, the capital city of England, Blake uses imagery and irony to point to the egregious conditions of his English government and church.

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In my opinion, London in this poem is really just a stand in or a representation for all cities in the world and for all of civilization.  The poem is not really one whose ideas are specific to London or to England -- they are universal.

The poem is talking about the ways in which people have become degraded by living in cities -- by living in "civilization."  They have had so many aspects of their humanity taken away or watered down by this.  This is clearly something that is not unique to London.

So I would say that London represents all of modern human civilization and especially the urban version of that civilization.

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The first stanza already expresses a negative tone, for the speaker notes that as he wanders through the mapped streets of London, he perceives on every face that he meets, 'Marks of weakness, marks of woe'. The suggestion here is that the inhabitants of London look frail, sickly, depressed and/or sad. This further suggests that the city takes a heavy toll on those who dwell in it and the burdens that they have to bear as residents, negatively impact on both their physical and emotional well-being.

To emphasise this painful and depressing existence the speaker uses exaggeration in stanza two by saying:

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 
It is physically impossible for the speaker to have heard the cries of every manevery baby or to have heard every voice. The repetition of 'every' indicates the general somber mood. The speaker suggests that that is all he hears, when he hears these cries. There are no cries of joy, pleasure or happiness. All he hears are tortured voices. His reference to 'ban' suggests the limited and restricted lives the residents of London endure, their freedoms are severely curtailed not only by the laws in particular, but also by choice. They are chained, as it were, by creating barriers in their minds - their lives have become a mundane, mind-numbing, routine and they are unable to escape the mental prison they have created for themselves.
In stanza three the speaker is more specific in his bitter criticism of life in London. The city has become symbolic of abuse. His particular reference to "the Chimney-sweepers cry' is a direct reference to the exploitation of youngsters who were forced into child labour. They lived and worked in the most appalling conditions and life was a constant fight for survival. The speaker directs his bitter critique at the Church specifically for having abandoned the Chimney-sweepers (who are symbols of child labourers who suffered much abuse) and for not fulfilling its task to take care of and nurture these youngsters. The speaker is disgusted by the Church's apathy in this regard.
Furthermore, he is also severely critical of the fact that weary and ill fated  soldiers who have given their lives for King and country have received no real reward. Their 'sigh' is one of desperation and disillusionment.
In the final stanza, the speaker concludes his severe judgment of the city by stating that what he hears mostly through the night until the early hours of the morning are the curses of young girls who have turned to prostitution and have lost their innocence and morality. They curse, which means that they generally use foul language or that they damn their unfortunate circumstances.
The 'new-born Infants' in a literal sense, refers to the illegitimate births arising from the young girls' immoral activities and also figuratively symbolises the loss of innocence and purity for being born into the city, since it is so vile and corrupt. 'tear' informs of the anguish suffered by the innocent and its grief at being so corrupted. This debauchery does even more harm, for it spreads disease and infects not only the ones involved, but also others. It tarnishes the sanctity of marriage, not only through the spread of sexually transmitted diseases but also because it creates conflict within the marriage since there obviously has to be adultery. The marriage metaphorically dies and therefore  becomes a hearse - a vehicle used to transport the deceased. It could also mean that the spouses become diseased literally and die of infection.
On the whole then, the speaker deems London as vile and corrupt, a city which infects everyone within its demarcated borders with the most pernicious diseases: immorality, abuse, exploitation and apathy.
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What strong images are depicted in William Blake's poem "London"?

There are three strong images in "London." All of them are nearly surrealistic, like scenes painted by Salvador Dali.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning church appals

Chimney-sweepers were small children. They had to be small in order to be lowered down through chimneys in order to sweep off the accumulated soot. It was a terrible profession for children because breathing all that soot led to early deaths from lung disease. The churches in the image appear to be blackened by the soot of the chimneys because the clergy does nothing to help the children who are enslaved by brutal employers and doomed to die.

And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

Blake is referring to the plight of veterans who have been maimed in battles. They are destitute because they receive no pensions from an ungrateful government. Surrealistically, the sighs are turned into blood which runs down the walls of the royal palace where the aristocrats inside are indifferent to the despair of the veterans.

But the most striking image of all is the last one:

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

Very young girls were forced into prostitution because of poverty. It is bad enough to see them soliciting in the streets, but it is worse to hear girls who are still children learning to curse like hardened prostitutes. These girls are nearly certain to contract a venereal disease and to pass it on to their customers. If a man with syphilis gets married to a healthy young woman, he will pass the disease along to her, and then when she has a baby, her baby will inherit the disease from its mother. That is what Blake means by "Blasts the new born Infant's tear, and blights with plagues the marriage hearse." The infant is born with its body already infected, and the Marriage hearses often transport new brides to honeymoon havens where they are destined to become infected by their husbands (men who were infected by the "youthful harlots").

In each of the three images, a sound is translated into a visual image. A chimney-sweeper's cry becomes a soot-blackened church wall. A soldier's sign becomes blood running down the stone walls of a palace. A child-prostitute's curse becomes a disease-riddled infant and a germ-infested wedding carriage.

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What formal features are heavily used in William Blake's "London"?

Formal elements in poetry might include the poem's theme, type of diction, rhythm, meter, rhyme scheme, and so on, as well as any figures of speech the poet uses. In this poem by Blake, we can note: a regular rhyme scheme, abab; regular stanzas of four lines each; and the use of archaic diction, such as the word abbreviation "thro'" and the use of an apostrophe of omission in the word "charter'd," which helps to lend authority to the poet's message.

Additionally, we can see anaphora, the repetition of the same words or phrases at the beginning of successive sentences. In the second stanza, three successive lines begin "In every . . ." This is also an example of enumeratio, emphasizing the sheer number of places in which the speaker sees and hears the miseries of London.

Finally, there is metaphor in this poem—the speaker does not mean that there is literally "blood" running down the walls of the palace. This is a metaphorical depiction of how the wider city is affected by the people's misery.

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"London" by William Blake uses regular rhyme and meter. It consists of four open quatrains rhymed ABAB. Each quatrain consists of four lines of iambic tetrameter, meaning that it is composed of four feet and each foot contains an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable. 

"London" uses several other literary devices. The second stanza is a classic example of anaphora, the repetition of the same initial words at the beginning of successive phrases, with the words "In every" being repeated at the beginning of the first, second, and third lines. 

There are many other forms of repetition used in the poem, all contributing to a sense of the ubiquity of malign forces. Another example is the use of the word "charter'd" in the first and second lines of the poem, suggesting that not just the streets but even the river Thames are in thrall to commercial interests.

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Which Romantic literature aspects are evident 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 the poem is a scathing critique of the city, tradition, and institutions. This suggests a preference for nature, individuality, and freedom. 

Blake condemns the culture of the city. Since London is the capital, he is condemning English culture in general. Blake believed that people were brainwashed ("mind-forg'd manacles) into accepting this (then) modern, urban way of life. Blake sees the city, government, and the church as oppressive institutions. The Soldier is sent off to fight and possibly die. Blake even critiques marriage when he refers to the "Marriage hearse." People accept that marriage is a necessary path in life and this potentially leads to loveless unions. As a result, some are driven to prostitutes. He is saying that a tradition (marriage in this case) can imprison people and suppress their emotions. 

Blake's critique of tradition and institutions is part of the Romantic themes that we see in other of his works. His critique of tradition and the city suggests alternatives such as individuality, breaking with tradition, and the notion that nature provides an alternative to the urban decay he sees in city life. 

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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 text. 

Rhyme
A correspondence of sounds between words, especially when used at the end of a line in Western Poetry

"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."

Blake uses the following rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH. Doing so emphasizes the quatrain stanzas, marking a separation between each one. It also creates a sense of anticipation and closure for the reader, who knows the sound of the word coming and is able to conclude each quatrain with the completion of the pattern.

Rhythm
A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound

"but MOST thro' MIDnight STREETS i HEAR
HOW the YOUTHful HARlots CURSE
BLASTS the NEW-born INfants TEAR
and BLIGHTS with PLAGUE the MARriage HEARSE"

As is particularly evident in the final quatrain, Blake shifts his rhythm around, sometimes employing iambs, a foot with two syllables in an unstressed-stressed pattern, and other times using a trochee, which is a foot whose two syllables are in a stressed-unstressed pattern. By maintaining a degree of similarity, or feet with two syllables, while simultaneously alternating irregularly between trochees and iambs, Blake reinforces the tone of his poem. 

Repetition
The act of saying again something that was already said

"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 uses repetition to emphasize the overwhelming nature of his topic, repeating specific words to reinforce its universality or importance. 

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What is the structure of William Blake's "London"?

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 make Blake's picture of London harsh and impactful while allowing the reader to glide through it as the narrator glides through the city streets.

The poem is made up of sixteen lines, separated into four stanzas, each comprised of four lines, otherwise known as a quatrain. This form is common in ballads. Every line in Blake's poem is set in iambic tetrameter, otherwise known as four metric feet, each made up of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable ("I wander thro each charter'd street"). Iambic tetrameter is what gives the poem its "singsong" quality, as it perfectly matches the time signature of most popular songs, especially children's songs.

The rhyme scheme follows a simple abab pattern in each quatrain. This is also, like the quatrain format, common to ballads, which also accounts for the easy, singsong quality. Only one sound is repeated between quatrains in the rhyme scheme, which is the -ear sound, repeated in the second and final quatrains. This makes sense, as Blake is placing particular emphasis on what he hears as he walks the streets of London.

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What are the structure, imagery, language, linguistic devices, and emotional effects in Blake's poem "London"?

This poem is one of the "Songs of Experience" written by William Blake that contrasts with his "Songs of Innocence." While Songs of Innocence took an optimistic and positive view of life and society, Songs of Experience looked at the darker side. The poem provides commentary on the "weakness" and "woe" in the city of London during Blake's lifetime. Infants, men, chimney sweeps, soldiers, and mothers are all slaves to misery: their "mind-forg'd manacles" can be heard in the crying of all these wretched people living in London. 

The poem is structured like many of Blake's poems. It has four stanzas, and each stanza consists of four lines of iambic tetrameter. That means there are eight syllables in each line in an alternating unstressed/stressed pattern. The rhyme scheme is consistent throughout with the first line of each stanza rhyming with the third and the second rhyming with the fourth. The steady rhythm, meter, and rhyme reinforce the ongoing cycle of woe that engulfs street after street in the city.

Imagery means wording that appeals to the five senses. References to the infant's cry, the chimney sweeper's cry, and the soldier's sigh bring certain sounds to life as we read the poem. When the narrator mentions "marks of weakness, marks of woe" on the faces of the people he meets, and when he speaks of "midnight streets," we get a picture in our minds of how these things look. He is wandering through each street and walking near the River Thames--we can picture that, as well.

Four of the things described as physical objects are not really physical. The poet uses figurative language to draw a comparison between an abstract idea and a real thing. The "mind-forged manacles" are the painful thoughts in the minds of the miserable Londoners. That the chimney-sweeper's cry appalls "every blackning Church" means that churches, which should be buildings of righteousness and hope, take on a spiritual blackness because of the poverty and sadness of those poor children who work in the neighborhood cleaning chimneys. We can picture the unfortunate soldier's sigh as it "runs in blood down Palace walls," although that doesn't literally happen. It means that the soldier is serving the King to the point where he is sacrificing his life for him. Finally, in the last stanza, marriage is depicted as a "hearse," meaning either a funeral bier or a coach that bears away the dead because men have been unfaithful to their wives. 

Blake's use of language and linguistic devices adds power to the poem. In lines three and four, the word "mark" or "marks" is repeated three times. This reinforces the idea of blots or stains on humanity's soul. These lines also contain alliteration with the repetition of the initial /m/ sound in "mark," "meet," and "marks." Alliteration is a pleasing sound device that makes the poetry more cohesive and lyrical. In stanza two the word "every" is repeated five times. This emphasizes how pervasive the sorrows are.

The poem is designed to make the reader feel deep sadness and despair over the plight of those living in London. When someone cries, we automatically want to comfort them, and when someone sighs, our hearts go out to them. So using the word "cry" three times and "sigh" makes us very sympathetic to the infants, men, chimney-sweeps, and soldiers. We are also saddened at the description of the faces bearing "marks of weakness, marks of woe."

The last stanza, however, calls up the greatest emotional effect. We know Blake meant that it should, for he says in line 13, "but most," emphasizing what follows. This situation is the hardest to understand, but what it describes is a baby who has been born blind. The cause of the blindness is a disease that the parents had that resulted from the baby's father being unfaithful to the baby's mother and having slept with a "harlot" or prostitute. Thus, the "youthful Harlot's curse," that is, the disease, has brought blindness on the innocent baby. It is possible the mother did not know she and her husband were infected, but the birth of the blind child would make it impossible for the father to deny his marital unfaithfulness. Thus the relationship between the man and woman will be a "hearse," a lifeless marriage in which the child's handicap is a constant reminder of the great wrong the man perpetrated not only on his wife and child, but also on the Harlot, who herself was "youthful," probably a teenage girl who had turned to prostitution to escape from poverty. This last stanza sums up the ultimate misery where even the love and integrity of the family unit has failed.

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What strategies does the poet use in the poem "London"?

In Blake's, "London," the speaker uses an adult narrator who is walking through the streets of London, a city that is not only the capitol of England, but the capitol of the British Empire.  The city, as the speaker experiences it, falls short of what it should be, in the speaker's (and Blake's, by extension) perception.

Humans suffer under charters, regulations, popular opinions and mores, which all lead to "mind-forged manacles." 

The speaker uses rhyme, with every other line rhyming in each stanza.  He uses repetition:  "In every..."; "charter'd"; "mark" and "Marks"; "cry."  He uses alliteration:  "And the hapless Soldiers sigh...."

The poem also uses allusion, referring to the "Chimney-sweepers" who appear in other poems in Blake's collections Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (in which "London" is included).

Rhyme, repetition, consistency of theme, and the linear walk through the streets of the narrator, create unity in the poem, with the speaker's opening of the final stanza leading to the final thoughts:

But most thro' midnight streets I hear....

And in the final stanza we see what sex and marriage in London lead to, what women having to sell themselves to survive leads to, and what marriage that must be maintained because society says so leads to. 

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How is the city depicted in William Blake's "London"?

William Blake's “London” is one of the Songs of Experience; therefore, it presents the city through a negative lens that invites readers to see and experience the misery of the common Londoner. Let's look at the poem in more detail to get you started on your analysis and evaluation.

The speaker wanders through London, noticing how everything is “charter'd” or planned. The streets and even the river Thames are kept strictly within their boundaries. There is no ability to flow freely, and the people of London also reflect that restriction. The speaker sees it in every face. London's inhabitants are miserable. They are weak and sorrowful, crying out, and bound with “mind-forg'd manacles,” unable to escape their misery.

As the poem continues, we read about the cries of the chimney sweepers and sighs of the soldiers. Even the buildings reflect the misery of the people. The churches are “blackening,” dark and comfortless, and the palace walls seem to run with blood, suggesting that the government is responsible in some way for much of the suffering. The speaker also hears the “youthful Harlots” curse, drowning out even the tears of the infants; instead of the marriage bed or marriage joy, he speaks of the “marriage hearse.”

This is a dark poem indeed. Blake focuses only on the bleak, miserable side of London which presents a rather skewed portrait of the city. As part of your evaluation, you might write about how this affects readers and whether it skews their perspectives about London. You could also discuss how the poet's language contributes to the bleakness of his depiction. Look closely at the words he chooses and how he puts them together. They create images in our minds as we read. Ask yourself how effective those images are for you. Finally, think about the poem's simple form, and consider whether that contributes to its bleakness or counteracts it in some way.

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