Transcript Lecture 11 William Blake

Lecture 11
William Blake
Part one Introduction of William Blake
1.1. Life:
• William Blake, born on 28 November 1757, was the son of a London
hosier, The boy never went to school. He picked up his education as
well as he could, his favourite studies in early days were
Shakespeare, Milton and Chatterton, the "marvellous boy" who
wrote "The Rowley Papers". At the age of 14, he was apprenticed to
an engraver. After leaving him, Blake began to earn his living as an
engraver of illustrations for various publishers. His illustrations” for
Young's Night Thoughts", Gray’s poems and the Book of Job show
him a great artist with a style of his own. But he was never
prosperous in this business and remained poor all his life.
• In 1782, he married Catherine Boucher, an illiterate girl. Blake taught
her to read and to help him in engraving. Catherine proved an
excellent wife, sympathizing with his work and sharing in it.
• In 1827, Blake died in obscurity and poverty.
• William Blake was a transitional figure in
British literature. He was the one of the
first writers of the "Romantic Period."
Before this period, most writers, such as
Alexander Pope, wrote more for form
instead of for content. Blake, on the other
hand, turned back to Elizabethan and
early seventeenth-century poets, and
other eighteenth- century poets outside
the tradition of Pope.
• In 1788, at the age of thirty-one, Blake began to
experiment with relief etching, which was the
method used to produce most of his books of
poems. He called this method "illuminated
printing." He wrote the text of his poems on
copper plates with pens and brushes, using an
acid-resistant medium. The illustrations were
also drawn onto the plates. He then etched the
plates in acid in order to eat away the untreated
copper and leave the design standing. The
pages printed from these plates then had to be
colored by hand in water colors and stiched
together to make up a volume. Blake used
illuminated printing for four of his works. These
included "Songs of Innocence and Experience,"
"The Book of Thel," "The Marriage of Heaven
and Hell," and "Jerusalem."
1.2. Major Works
“Songs of Innocence” (1789) and “ Songs of
Experience” ( 1794):
•
The best of Blake's short poems is to be found
in these two little collections of lyrics. “Songs of
Innocence” contain poems which were
apparently written for children. Using a language
which even little babies can learn by heart, Blake
succeeded in depicting the happy condition of a
child before it knows anything about pains of
existence. The poet expresses his delight in the
sun, the hills, the streams, the insects and the
flowers, in the innocence of the child and of the
lamb. Here everything seems to be in harmony.
• In “Songs of Experience”, a much maturer work. entirely
different themes are to be found, for in this collection of
poems the poet drew pictures of neediness and distress
and showed the sufferings of the miserable. The will to
freedom must endure, for a time, the limitations of worldly
experience, and salvation is said to come through passion;
the revolt, through revolution. The poet was conscious of
some blind hand crushing the life of man, as man crushes
the fly.
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The Contrast between "Songs of Innocence” and
Songs of Experience" is of great significance; it marks a
progress in the poet's outlook on life. In the earlier
collection there seem to be no shadows. To the poet's
eyes, the first glimpse of the world was a picture of light,
harmony, peace and love.
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But in the later years, experience had brought a fuller
sense of the power of evil and of the great misery and
pain of the people's life.
Part Two Excerpts of Poems
2.1. THE LITTLE BLACK BOY
• My mother bore me in the southern wild,
• And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
• White as an angel is the English child,
• But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
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My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointed to the east, began to say:
• "Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
• And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
• And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
• Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
• "And we are put on earth a little space,
• That we may learn to bear the beams of love
• And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
• Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
• "For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,
• The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
• Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care
• And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice',"
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Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy
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I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
2.1.1. Summary
• A black child tells the story of how he came to know his own identity
and to know God. The boy, who was born in “the southern wild” of
Africa, first explains that though his skin is black his soul is as white
as that of an English child. He relates how his loving mother taught
him about God who lives in the East, who gives light and life to all
creation and comfort and joy to men. “We are put on earth,” his
mother says, to learn to accept God’s love. He is told that his black
skin “is but a cloud” that will be dissipated when his soul meets God
in heaven. The black boy passes on this lesson to an English child,
explaining that his white skin is likewise a cloud. He vows that when
they are both free of their bodies and delighting in the presence of
God, he will shade his white friend until he, too, learns to bear the
heat of God’s love. Then, the black boy says, he will be like the
English boy, and the English boy will love him.
2.1.2. Form
• The poem is in heroic quatrains, which are
stanzas of pentameter lines rhyming ABAB.
The form is a variation on the ballad
stanza, and the slightly longer lines are
well suited to the pedagogical tone of this
poem.
2.1.3. Analysis of the Poem
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Blake believed in equality for all men, and this is reflected in this poem. It may
not be immediately obvious that this is the case, as the narrative in the first
stanza plays upon the traditional stereotypes of "black" and "white", black
being the color that denotes evil and sin, - "black, as if beareav'd of light" and white being the color that denotes innocence and purity.
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It becomes clear over the course of the poem, however, that Blake had a
deeper message to convey to his reader. "The Little Black Boy" was published
in 1789, a time when slavery was still legal and the campaign for the abolition
of slavery was still young. In "The Little Black Boy", Blake questions
conventions of the time with basic Christian ideals. This becomes apparent in
the third stanza, where Blake uses the sun as a metaphor for God and His
Kingdom: "Look on the rising sun: there God does live,". This line is
particularly important, as the reference to the sun not only introduces the
running religious metaphor in the subsequent stanzas, but the fact that it is
"rising" denotes change.
• In accordance with the running metaphor of the sun, the
fact that Blake speaks of "black bodies" and a "sunburnt
face" in the fourth stanza seems to imply that black
people are near God as a result of their suffering – for
one can only become dark and sunburned as a result of
being exposed to the sun's rays. In the final stanza this
idea is developed further, as the black boy says that he
will "shade him [the English boy] from the heat", this
implies that the English boy's pale skin is not used to the
heat (derived from God's love) – some critics assert that
the paleness of the English boy in this poem is symbolic
of the fact that the English were distanced from God as a
result of their treatment of the black peoples.
• In the 5th stanza, we see all of humanity being united:
For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear, The
cloud will vanish... In the 6th stanza this metaphor is
continued: When I from black and he from white cloud
free, Here, Blake uses the clouds as a metaphor for the
human body. These stanzas therefore imply that after
physical life has passed, all will be united with God.
• Also notable in this poem is Blake's use of politically neutral colours
such as gold and silver when describing things of moral value. The
most valuable things in life, in terms of spirituality and wisdom are
anointed with colours that are indifferent to race and social class, yet
are related to financial status, as gold and silver evoke images of
precious metals.
• In this child-monologue Blake's treatment of the little black boy's
perspective on Christianity and salvation may well be ironic, forming
the basis for a more savage attack on religious and social hypocrisy.
The child's mother consoles the child with a vision of a better life to
come, away from the prejudices and hardship of this life, and the child
accepts this, encouraging him to a further vision of leading (rather
than being led by) the little white English boy to God and Heaven. The
mother's teaching may itself be a form of 'innocence', and the boy's
vision of a Heaven, transcending the divisions of race, is certainly
'innocent'. The central question the poem raises, like Holy Thursday
(Innocence) is what Blake's attitude is towards the child's (and the
mother's) attitudes: does he see them as touchingly naive, or tragically
misguided? Throughout the poem, in the references to 'black' and
'white', Blake plays around with the traditional associations between
'white' and 'good', but also, in the little black boy's views on Soul/Body,
makes the point that colour is skin deep, but colour is no indication of
spiritual state. The poem should, perhaps, be approached in the light
of British attitudes towards missionaries, and arguments about the
abolition of slavery in the late eighteenth century.
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2.2. THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry "Weep! weep! weep! weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
• There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
• That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,
• "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,
• You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."
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And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! -That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
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And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins, and let them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
• Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
• They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;
• And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
• He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.
• And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,
• And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
• Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy
and warm:
• So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
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THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER
A little black thing in the snow,
Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? Say!"-"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
"Because I was happy upon the heath,
• And smiled among the winter's snow,
• They clothed me in the clothes of death,
• And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
• "And because I am happy and dance and sing,
• They think they have done me no injury,
• And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,
• Who make up a heaven of our misery."
2.2. Analysis of the second
• The first stanza is a testimony that describes the
situation of a little chimney sweeper in the snow
who is crying and calling for his parents while
they are praying at the church. In the second
and third stanzas, the child explains his situation.
He describes that he had been happy and
“smiled among the winter snow,” but also he was
taught to suffer when he says “and taught me to
sing the notes of woe.” Adults are mentioned in
the poem when he questioned “Where are thy
father and mother?” and when he says “God &
his Priest & King.” Finally he blames “they” and
adds “who make up a heaven of our misery.”
2.2.2.Analysis of the two
• William Blake wrote "The Chimney Sweeper" of "Songs
of Innocence" in 1789. In the next to last line of the first
stanza, the cry "'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" is the
child's attempt at saying "Sweep! Sweep!," which was
the chimney sweeper's street cry. This poem shows that
the children have a very positive outlook on life. They
make the best of their lives and do not fear death.
• This is quite the opposite in it's companion poem in
"Songs of Experience" which was written in 1794. In this
poem, the child blames his parents for putting him in the
position he was in. He is miserable in his situation and
he also blames "God & his Priest & King". This point of
view is different from that of its companion poem
because the chimney sweeper has been influenced by
society and has an "experienced" point of view.
• For these poems, an understanding of the ideas of one poem, as well
as the ideas that it lacks, illuminates the other poem. This gives the
reader a different interpretation of the poem than if one of these “The
Chimney Sweeper” poems would be read alone. For instance, in
Songs of Innocence, the chimney sweeps are offered hope by the
outcome of Tom Dacre’s dream. The narrator offers comfort that no
harm or punishment will come to those who obey. Also, Tom is used to
illustrate another point. He is originally frightened but later feels
“happy and warm”, showing that one can experience a certain degree
of happiness in the even in the worst of circumstances. These ideas of
hope and happiness place further emphasis on the bitterness of the
chimney sweep in Songs of Experience. He understands his
circumstances and sees no hope of freedom from his oppression.
Instead of believing that obedience will prevent punishment, he
perceives his current circumstance as a punishment for being happy
with his childhood. Also, he does not seem to endorse the Christian
idea of having joy in the midst of adversity; he sees little if any reason
to be happy in his miserable predicament. In fact, the God that his
parents praise seems as cruel as others who allow children to be
mistreated in such a way. These examples illustrate how an
understanding of the themes of “The Chimney Sweeper” in Songs of
Innocence can further illuminate the some of the ideas in Songs of
Experience.
• However, in Songs of Experience, many of the ideas are
more realistic in some ways. The chimney sweeper
understands that he has been placed in a situation
where he is isolated from society and will almost
certainly die young because of the hazards of his
profession. He mentions established institutions such as
the Church of England and the government in the same
line with his mother and father, who think they have done
no harm. These institutions could have used their power
to improve life for the chimney sweeps, but they have
made little if any effort to do so. The understanding that
this particular sweep possess emphasizes the naivete of
the speaker in “The Chimney Sweeper” of Innocence,
who believes that everything will be fine if he is obedient
even though his obedience will eventually cost him his
own life. The naive child is more accepting of his
circumstances, and the narrator himself does not seem
to see anyone as being at fault but whose faith in God is
a constant source of hope.
• This example of the “Chimney Sweeper” poems
in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
illustrates William Blake’s view that neither naive
innocence nor bitter experience is completely
accurate. There is a higher state of
understanding that includes both innocence and
experience. Both are need to complete one
another to form the more accurate view. In this
case, it is an expression on the poet’s view of
the political issue dealing with chimney sweeps
that dominates both poems. Although the
viewpoints of each poem are different, both
show plight of the majority of the chimney
sweepers in the cities of England, and while one
endorses hope and the other bitterness, the
reader must acknowledge that something needs
to be done to improve life for these children.
2.3. THE TIGER
• Tiger, tiger, burning bright
• In the forests of the night,
• What immortal hand or eye
• Could Frame thy fearful symmetry?
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In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
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And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
• What the hammer? what the chain?
• In what furnace was thy brain?
• What the anvil? what dread grasp
• Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
• When the stars threw down their spears,
• And watered heaven with their tears,
• Did he smile his work to see?
• Did he who made the lamb make thee?
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Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
2.3.1 Summary of the poem
• Stanza 1 Summary
• What immortal being created this terrifying creature
which, with its perfect proportions (symmetry), is an
awesome killing machine?
• Stanza 2 Summary
• Was it created in hell (distant deeps) or in heaven (skies)?
If the creator had wings, how could he get so close to the
fire in which the tiger was created? How could he work
with so blazing a fire?
• Stanza 3 Summary
• What strength (shoulder) and craftsmanship (art) could
make the tiger's heart? What being could then stand
before it (feet) and shape it further (hand)?
• Stanza 4 Summary
• What kind of tool (hammer) did he use to fashion the
tiger in the forge fire? What about the chain connected to
the pedal which the maker used to pump the bellows?
What of the heat in the furnace and the anvil on which
the maker hammered out his creation? How did the
maker muster the courage to grasp the tiger?
• Stanza 5 Summary
• When the stars cast their light on the new being and the
clouds cried, was the maker pleased with his creation?
• Stanza 6 Summary
• The poet repeats the the central question of the poem,
stated in Stanza 1. However, he changes could (Line 4)
to dare (Line 24). This is a significant change, for the
poet is no longer asking who had the capability of
creating the tiger but who dared to create so frightful a
creature.
2.3.2. Analysis
• 2.3.2.1. Type of Work and Year of Publication
• "The Tiger," originally called "The Tyger," is
a lyric poem focusing on the nature of God
and his creations. It was published in 1794
in a collection entitled Songs of
Experience. Modern anthologies often
print "The Tiger" alongside an earlier Blake
poem, "The Lamb," published in 1789 in a
collection entitled Songs of Innocence.
• 2.3.2.2. Meter
• The poem is in trochaic tetrameter with catalexis at the end of each
line. Here is an explanation of these technical terms:
• Tetrameter Line: a poetry line usually with eight syllables.
• Trochaic Foot: A pair of syllables--a stressed syllable followed by an
unstressed syllable.
• Catalexis: The absence of a syllable in the final foot in a line. In Blake’s
poem, an unstressed syllable is absent in the last foot of each line.
Thus, every line has seven syllables, not the conventional eight.
• The following illustration using the first two lines of the poem
demonstrates tetrameter with four trochaic feet, the last one catalectic:
• .....1...........2...............3..................4
• TIger,..|..TIger,..|..BURN ing..|..BRIGHT
• .....1..............2...............3...............4
• IN the..|..FOR ests..|..OF the..|..NIGHT
• Notice that the fourth foot in each line eliminates the conventional
unstressed syllable (catalexis). However, this irregularity in the
trochaic pattern does not harm the rhythm of the poem. In fact, it may
actually enhance it, allowing each line to end with an accented syllable
that seems to mimic the beat of the maker’s hammer on the anvil. For
a detailed discussion of meter and the various types of feet, click here.
2.3.2.3. Structure and Rhyme Scheme
• The poem consists of six quatrains. (A quatrain is a fourline stanza.) Each quatrain contains two couplets. (A
couplet is a pair of rhyming lines). Thus we have a 24-line
poem with 12 couplets and 6 stanzas–a neat, balanced
package. The question in the final stanza repeats (except
for one word, dare) the wording of the first stanza, perhaps
suggesting that the question Blake raises will continue to
perplex thinkers ad infinitum.
2.3.2.4 Figures of Speech and Allusions
• Alliteration: Tiger, tiger, burning bright (line 1); frame thy
fearful symmetry? (line 4)
• Metaphor: Comparison of the tiger and his eyes to fire.
• Anaphora: Repetition of what at the beginning of
sentences or clauses. Example: What dread hand and
what dread feet? / What the hammer? what the chain?
• Allusion: Immortal hand or eye: God or Satan
• Allusion: Distant deeps or skies: hell or heaven
2.3.2.5. Symbols
• The Tiger: Evil (or Satan)
• The Lamb: Goodness (or God)
• Distant Deeps: Hell
• Skies: Heaven
2.3.2.6. Themes
• The Existence of Evil
• .......“The Tiger” presents a question that embodies the
central theme: Who created the tiger? Was it the kind
and loving God who made the lamb? Or was it Satan?
Blake presents his question in Lines 3 and 4:
• What immortal hand or eye
• Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
• Blake realizes, of course, that God made all the creatures on earth.
However, to express his bewilderment that the God who created the
gentle lamb also created the terrifying tiger, he includes Satan as a
possible creator while raising his rhetorical questions, notably the one he
asks in Lines 5 and 6:
• In what distant deeps or skies
• Burnt the fire of thy eyes?
• Deeps appears to refer to hell and skies to heaven. In either case, there
would be fire--the fire of hell or the fire of the stars.
• .......Of course, there can be no gainsaying that the tiger symbolizes evil,
or the incarnation of evil, and that the lamb (Line 20) represents
goodness, or Christ. Blake's inquiry is a variation on an old philosophical
and theological question: Why does evil exist in a universe created and
ruled by a benevolent God? Blake provides no answer. His mission is to
reflect reality in arresting images. A poet’s first purpose, after all, is to
present the world and its denizens in language that stimulates the
aesthetic sense; he is not to exhort or moralize. Nevertheless, the poem
does stir the reader to deep thought. Here is the tiger, fierce and brutal in
its quest for sustenance; there is the lamb, meek and gentle in its quest
for survival. Is it possible that the same God who made the lamb also
made the tiger? Or was the tiger the devil's work?
• The Awe and Mystery of Creation and the
Creator
• The poem is more about the creator of the
tiger than it is about the tiger itself. In
contemplating the terrible ferocity and
awesome symmetry of the tiger, the
speaker is at a loss to explain how the
same God who made the lamb could make
the tiger. Hence, this theme: humans are
incapable of fully understanding the mind of
God and the mystery of his handiwork.
THE LAMB
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Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
• Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
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2.4. LONDON
I wandered through each chartered street,
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In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
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How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appalls,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.
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But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.
2.4.1. Summary
• The speaker wanders through the streets of
London and comments on his observations. He
sees despair in the faces of the people he meets
and hears fear and repression in their voices.
The woeful cry of the chimney-sweeper stands as
a chastisement to the Church, and the blood of a
soldier stains the outer walls of the monarch’s
residence. The nighttime holds nothing more
promising: the cursing of prostitutes corrupts the
newborn infant and sullies the “Marriage hearse.”
2.4.2. Form
• The poem has four quatrains, with
alternate lines rhyming. Repetition is the
most striking formal feature of the poem,
and it serves to emphasize the prevalence
of the horrors the speaker describes.
2.4.3. Commentary
• The opening image of wandering, the focus on sound, and the
images of stains in this poem’s first lines recall the Introduction to
Songs of Innocence, but with a twist; we are now quite far from the
piping, pastoral bard of the earlier poem: we are in the city. The
poem’s title denotes a specific geographic space, not the archetypal
locales in which many of the other Songs are set. Everything in this
urban space—even the natural River Thames—submits to being
“charter’d,” a term which combines mapping and legalism. Blake’s
repetition of this word (which he then tops with two repetitions of
“mark” in the next two lines) reinforces the sense of stricture the
speaker feels upon entering the city. It is as if language itself, the
poet’s medium, experiences a hemming-in, a restriction of resources.
Blake’s repetition, thudding and oppressive, reflects the suffocating
atmosphere of the city. But words also undergo transformation within
this repetition: thus “mark,” between the third and fourth lines,
changes from a verb to a pair of nouns—from an act of observation
which leaves some room for imaginative elaboration, to an indelible
imprint, branding the people’s bodies regardless of the speaker’s
actions.
• Ironically, the speaker’s “meeting” with these marks represents the
experience closest to a human encounter that the poem will offer the
speaker. All the speaker’s subjects—men, infants, chimney-sweeper,
soldier, harlot—are known only through the traces they leave behind:
the ubiquitous cries, the blood on the palace walls. Signs of human
suffering abound, but a complete human form—the human form that
Blake has used repeatedly in the Songs to personify and render
natural phenomena—is lacking. In the third stanza the cry of the
chimney-sweep and the sigh of the soldier metamorphose (almost
mystically) into soot on church walls and blood on palace walls—but
we never see the chimney-sweep or the soldier themselves. Likewise,
institutions of power—the clergy, the government—are rendered by
synecdoche, by mention of the places in which they reside. Indeed, it
is crucial to Blake’s commentary that neither the city’s victims nor their
oppressors ever appear in body: Blake does not simply blame a set of
institutions or a system of enslavement for the city’s woes; rather, the
victims help to make their own “mind-forg’d manacles,” more powerful
than material chains could ever be.
• The poem climaxes at the moment when the cycle of misery
recommences, in the form of a new human being starting life: a baby is
born into poverty, to a cursing, prostitute mother. Sexual and marital
union—the place of possible regeneration and rebirth—are tainted by
the blight of venereal disease. Thus Blake’s final image is the
“Marriage hearse,” a vehicle in which love and desire combine with
death and destruction.
2.4.4. Other Analyses
• As with most of Blake's poetry, there are several critical interpretations
of London. The most common interpretation, favored by critics such as
Camille Paglia and E.P. Thompson, holds that London is primarily a
social protest. A less frequently held view is that of Harold Bloom; that
London primarily is Blake's response to the tradition of Biblical
prophecy.
• The use of the word 'Chartered' is ambiguous. It may express the
political and economic control that Blake considered London to be
enduring at the time of his writing. Blake's friend Thomas Paine had
criticised the granting of Royal Charters to control trade as a form of
class oppression.However, 'chartered' could also mean 'freighted', and
may refer to the busy or overburdened streets and river, or to the
licenced trade carried on within them.
• In Blake's notebook, the word 'chartered' originally read, 'dirty'
• In Thompson's view, Blake was an unorthodox Christian of the
dissenting tradition, who felt that the state was abandoning those in
need. He was heavily influenced by mystical groups. The poem
reflects Blake's extreme disillusionment with the suffering he saw in
London.
• The reference to a harlot blighting the 'marriage hearse'
with 'plague' is usually understood to refer to the spread
of venereal disease in the city, passed by a prostitute to
a man and thence his bride, so that marriage can
become a sentence of death.
• The poem was published during the upheavals of the
French Revolution, and the city of London was suffering
political and social unrest, due to the marked social and
working inequalities of the time. An understandably
nervous government had responded by introducing
restrictions on the freedom of speech and the
mobilisation of foreign mercenaries.
• The City of London was a town that was shackled to
landlords and owners that controlled and demeaned the
majority of the lower and middle classes.[citation needed]
Within the poem that bears the city's name, Blake
describes 18th century London as a conurbation filled
with people who understood, with depressing wisdom,
both the hopelessness and misery of their situation.