Summary
Highlights
The video introduces William Blake's poem 'London' and notes that a companion guide is available. It delves into Blake's background, highlighting his birth and near-lifelong residence in London, suggesting the 'I' in the poem is Blake himself. Blake was a poet, painter, and printmaker who respected the Bible but disliked organized religion. He often wrote about rebelling against the misuse of power and class, a central theme in 'London'.
'London' is from Blake's 'Songs of Experience' (1794), a companion to 'Songs of Innocence' (1789). While 'Songs of Innocence' focused on simple moral lessons and nature, 'Songs of Experience' presented a harsher view of a world corrupted by humans, critiquing human power and the suffering it caused. Historically, London's population exploded due to the Industrial Revolution (starting around 1760), leading to a shift from rural to urban life. This era brought about terrible working conditions, especially for children, and transformed London into a smoke-ridden city, ruining nature, a development Blake strongly opposed.
Mr. Bruff reads and provides a simple translation of the poem. The speaker wanders through 'charter’d' streets and the 'charter’d Thames', observing 'marks of weakness, marks of woe' in everyone. He hears cries of men, infants, and 'mind-forg’d manacles' in every voice. The distress of chimney-sweepers, 'blackning Church', and 'hapless Soldiers sigh' are highlighted, along with the 'youthful Harlots curse' which 'blights with plagues the Marriage hearse'.
The poem is structured in quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme, reflecting the relentless and overwhelming suffering in the city. Repetition of words like 'charter’d', 'mark', and 'every' further emphasizes the inescapable suffering. The poem’s structure is cyclical: stanzas one and two focus on suffering, stanza three on its causes (church, industrialization, landowners, monarchy), and the final stanza returns to the suffering, reinforcing the inescapable fate of the city's inhabitants.
Most of the poem is in iambic tetrameter (eight syllables with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables), symbolizing the repetitive, inescapable life of the poor. However, some lines, like 'marks of weakness, marks of woe', have seven syllables, making them 'weak' in syllable count, directly reflecting the weakness of the suffering populace Blake describes.
The poem uses extensive negative language to depict suffering ('Marks of weakness', 'cry of fear', 'mind-forg’d manacles'). The overwhelming list of negative imagery reflects the pervasive suffering. The word 'charter’d', repeated twice, is significant. Originally not in Blake's draft, its inclusion and repetition highlight the privatization of land and public spaces for profit, a product of government-issued charters. This 'chartering' of streets and even the River Thames is a satirical attack on the obsession with property rights and human control over nature, further widening the gap between rich and poor.
The repetition of 'mark' carries a dual meaning: 'notice' and 'signs'. This highlights the inescapable and repetitive suffering, and the changing meaning could reflect Blake's frustration with London's transformation by those in power. The numerous repetitions of 'in every' build up to 'the mind-forg’d manacles I hear', suggesting that the suffering observed is a consequence of mental chains forged by external authority.
Blake introduces the powerful image of 'mind-forg’d manacles', referring to the mental chains imposed by external authorities like the government, as an intertextual reference to Rousseau's idea that 'Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.' Blake argues that people's lack of freedom stems from ideas imposed by those in power. The line 'the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls' alludes to the French Revolution and suggests that widespread unhappiness among British soldiers could lead to a similar uprising if ignored. The 'palace' directly implicates the monarchy in this abuse of power.
The poem concludes with the oxymoron 'blights with plagues the Marriage hearse', an overwhelmingly negative image suggesting the destruction of what was once good – the old London Blake cherished. This powerful ending critiques those in positions of power, including the monarchy, government, organized religion, and landowners, whose misuse of power leads to widespread suffering and despair.