London: Blake's Chartered Streets
One walk through the city, and every face tells the same story. Learn what happens in London, the lines to know by heart, how Blake turns repetition into an accusation, and which poems to pair it with.
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London
William Blake, 1794. Sixteen lines in four short stanzas, all in one voice. • A speaker walks through the streets of London, beside the river. • He looks at the people he passes, then listens to the city: crying, sighing, cursing. • The walk ends late at night, with the bleakest sounds kept for last. Nothing dramatic happens. The power of the poem is in what he notices, and in who he blames for it.
The opening lines
Complete the first stanza of London. I wander thro' each _____ street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of _____, marks of _____.
Blake at work
Five terms cover most of what Blake does in sixteen lines:
Name the method in London
- "In every cry of every Man"
- "The mind-forg'd manacles I hear"
- "the Marriage hearse"
- "And mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness"
- Anaphora: no one in the city escapes the suffering
- Metaphor: chains that people have made in their own minds
- Oxymoron: a new beginning that is already a funeral
- Pun: to notice something, and the scar it leaves
Blood on the walls
This is the third stanza. Tap the line that shows the suffering of ordinary people staining the home of royal power.
- How the Chimney-sweepers cry
- /
- Every blackning Church appalls,
- /
- And the hapless Soldiers sigh
- /
- Runs in blood down Palace walls
Why charter'd?
Blake calls both the streets and the river Thames "charter'd". A charter is a legal document granting rights or ownership. What is the word suggesting?
- Even the streets and the river are owned and controlled, so nothing in the city is free
- The city has been carefully mapped, so the speaker always knows where he is going
- London is old and full of history, which the speaker is proud to walk through
- The streets are crowded with traders, showing how wealthy the city has become
Who does Blake blame?
Blake links the suffering in London to three institutions. Sort each image by the institution it points at.
- The cry of the chimney-sweeper
- A place of worship darkening with soot
- The sigh of a hapless soldier
- Blood running down royal walls
- The curse of a young prostitute
- A wedding carriage turned into a hearse
Who was Blake?
William Blake was a Londoner all his life: a poet, painter and engraver who printed and hand-coloured his own books. London appeared in Songs of Experience in 1794, the companion to his earlier Songs of Innocence. He wrote it a few years after the French Revolution of 1789, whose early ideals of liberty he admired, at a time when the British government was clamping down on radical ideas. The London he walked was full of extreme poverty. Small boys were sent up chimneys to clean them, and many soldiers came home from wars abroad with nothing.
Make the context work
Which sentence uses context to sharpen a point about the chimney-sweepers, rather than just adding a fact?
- Child sweeps were among the most helpless people in London, so by setting their cry beside the Church, Blake accuses it of ignoring those it should protect
- In the eighteenth century small boys were sent up chimneys to clean them, which was very dangerous work
- Blake was a painter and engraver who printed and coloured his own books by hand
- London was published in 1794, a few years after the French Revolution of 1789
Partners from the cluster
Settle on partners for London before the exam. Here is what happens in three public-domain poems that pair well with it. The Emigrée and Checking Out Me History are strong partners too.
Soldiers and power
Which is the strongest comparison point between London and The Charge of the Light Brigade?
- Both show soldiers paying for decisions made above them, but Blake openly accuses the palace, whereas Tennyson honours the men and only hints at the blunder
- Both poems are about war, because each one mentions soldiers somewhere
- London has four short stanzas, but The Charge of the Light Brigade has six
- Both poems end on a hopeful note about the future of the country
Compare power over people
Exam practice. Compare how poets present the effects of power on ordinary people in London and in ONE other poem from Power and Conflict. Write at least 150 words.
- A shared point covering both poems
- A short quotation and a named method from each
- The effect of each method
- How the two attitudes differ
- Context only where it explains
The darkest hour
Complete the final stanza, where the walk ends. But most thro' _____ streets I hear How the youthful Harlots _____ Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with _____ the Marriage _____.