2.4.2 London

Question 1

Poet

Answer 1

William Blake

Question 2

Theme Code

Answer 2

LEGAR

Question 3

Themes

Answer 3

Individuals Experience, Loss and Absence, Negative Emotion of Anger, Power of Humans, Power of Control

Question 4

Quotes

Answer 4

• ‘I wander through each chartered street… Near where the charter’d Thames does flow’
• ‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe’
• ‘In every infant’s cry of fear’
• ‘Mind-forged manacles’
• ‘Blackening church appals’
• ‘And blights with plagues of marriage hearse’

Question 5

Main Structural Points

Answer 5

• 4 stanzas of 4 lines
• Rhyme Scheme of ABAB
• Iambic Tetrameter
• Breaks Poetic Metre

Question 6

Explain the quote ‘I wander through each chartered street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow’

Answer 6

Irony
‘Charted’ essentially means they are owned and controlled by the wealthy and powerful. Man has a chartered and controlled nature, Blake is writing ironically as you can not be controlled by the passing of a law. The misuse of controlling and chartering the streets and the river Thames lets the rich become richer and the poor continue to suffer.

Question 7

Explain the quote ‘Mind-forged manacles’

Answer 7

Metaphor
Internal oppression accumulates suffering experienced by the proceeding lines. Forged means to make metal objects like blacksmiths do. So the mind is making manacles which are handcuffs, this person is chained up and locked with internal suffering due to everything around them.

Question 8

Quotes for the Main Structural Point

Answer 8

‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe’

Question 9

Simplified Main Structural Point

Answer 9

The tight control of the poetic metre, stanzas and rhyme scheme reflects the tight control of the Government. The break of the metre could reflect it is weaker or if people break free and change, they can cause an uprising to stop suffering from the Government.

Question 10

Main Structural Point

Answer 10

The poem ‘London’ has four stanzas of four lines, strictly sticking to the rhyme scheme ABAB and being written in iambic tetrameter. The austere and controlled structure of the poem resembles the strict and controlling Government. The repetitive nature of the poem’s structure could also reflect the repetitive days of suffering and sorrow for the Londoners. ‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe’. Blake has chosen to shorten this line which should contain eight syllables to seven syllables, empathising the importance of this line. The line is significantly weaker than all the others, and this could reflect that because of the Government, the people of London are getting weaker. Blake was also an early supporter of the French revolution and disliked how the Government and the ‘blackening churches’ treated people, this line could reflect that if people rose against institutions, they can free themselves from societal restraint just like how this line breaks free from the iambic tetrameter.