🏭 london

Question 1

Who is the poet of London?

Answer 1

William Blake

Question 2

Summary of London

Answer 2

Speaker walking through London and commenting on the corruption they see

Question 3

5 key quotes in London

Answer 3

1) ‘I wander through each chartered streets /… chartered Thames’
- ‘chartered’ means government gave the wealthy exclusive rights to land and resources that had been previously own in common, which meant the wealthy started owning monopolies of land
- Power of nature of the supposed power of man: Man would seek to charter and control, even something as uncontrollable and natural as Thames. Satirical attack of the obsession for property rights. Even the river Thames, that should be free, is divided up and controlled.
- Irony: A river cannot really be controlled by the passing of a law.

2) ‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe.’
- Permanently marked on their faces like branding
- People are physically, spiritually, and morally in decay as a result of being in the city
- Alliteration of ‘weakness’ and ‘woe’ tie these ideas together
- Pessimistic vocab

3) ‘The mind-forged manacles I hear.’
- People restrict themselves mentally and cannot think freely, freedom of thought removed and has the mindset of the industrial revolution

4) ‘Runs in blood down palace walls.’
- Reference to the French Revolution suggesting that the ordinary people suffer whilst the rich and royal are protected behind palace walls
- Palace is marked with bloodshed

5) ‘Blights with plagues the marriage hearse.’
- Oxymoron (contradiction) of marriage and death. Happiness is ruined and corrupted.
- Overwhelmingly negative image suggest that something so good (old london) is destined to be destroyed

Question 4

Context for London

Answer 4

FRENCH REVOLUTION
- “reign of terror”
- A symbol of how the disenfranchised and oppressed could seize power from the privileged
- Resulted in the end of the French monarchy
- Thousands executed via guillotine

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
- Urbanisation led to most of London beign covered in smog from factories and industrialisation
- ‘chartered’ means government gave the wealthy exclusive rights to land and resources that had been previously own in common, which meant the wealthy started owning monoploies of land

Question 5

Form and structure of London

Answer 5

• Rhyme ABAB: sounds like footsteps of the person walking through the streets
• Repetition: Life of suffering is repetitive and inescapable
• Cyclical structure: 1&2 people suffering -> 3 causes of the suffering -> 4 returns to the topic of those suffering (never ends)
• Iambic tetrameter: except from line 4 -> reflects the weaknesses of those suffering

Question 6

Key themes in London

Answer 6

• Suffering is never-ending and has a great impact on everyone, but will remain until people are willing to take action to remove it
• Call for revolution

Question 7

Poems to compare with London

Answer 7

CHECKING OUT ME HISTORY
- S: Oppression
- D: London is class and internalised oppression. History is racial externalised oppression

TISSUE
- S: show human power as a source of opression and suffering. Criticise material wealth and inequality
- D: London is accepting the cyclical nature of corruption. Tissue is offering a solution to the problem of power

EMIGREE
- S: both explore the power of place through its ability to influence its citizens and both explore places which cause suffering
- D: London place is real but has symbolic values. Emigree is a place of fantasy -> symbolic for the place she rmbrs but no longer exists