London Flashcards
4 stanzas, 4 lines in each stanza, 4 feet in each line; mostly regular iambic tetrameter (4 beats); regular alternating rhyme (abab)
regular structure of sets of 4 suggests the rigidity and imprisoning/ oppressive nature of society for those suffering at the hands of monolithic institutions such as the monarchy and the Church - this is also emphasised by the amount of repetition in the language of the poem
End-stopped stanzas
Similarly, each stanza is ‘imprisoned’ within itself-stopped stanzas
Position of Blake/ narrator as just ‘wander[ing]’ – helpless to change anything
idea of him ‘wandering’ suggests wherever he goes he sees ‘woe’ and suffering; he does not have to go anywhere particular in London to find this. he might also represent lots of Londoners who feel helpless to change anything.
Use of present tense
Increases the sense of imprisonment – the situation is still ongoing (it’s not over and done with as past tense would have suggested)
repetition of ‘chartered’ (meaning owned/ controlled)
odd juxtaposition of the idea of chartering something and this being streets that everyone ‘wander[s]’ through (and that should therefore be communal), and a river that –as a natural phenomenon that ‘flows’ freely – cannot/ should not be owned/ ‘chartered’. A clear criticism of the control exerted over all aspects of the city by those in power.
repetition of ‘mark’ (in 2 senses)
emphasises how clear the signs of suffering are (which therefore makes the criticism of those in power who allow this to happen to be clearer)
repetition of ‘mark’ (in 2 senses)
emphasises how clear the signs of suffering are (which therefore makes the criticism of those in power who allow this to happen to be clearer)
alliteration of the nouns ‘weakness’ and ‘woe’
makes the link between powerlessness and suffering clear
repetition of ‘every’
sense of ubiquity/ omnipresence of suffering is highlighted
repetition of ‘cry’
not just ‘infant[s]’ who ‘cry’ but ‘man’ – highlights the severity of the suffering
metaphor of ‘mind-forged manacles’
imagery of ‘manacles’ emphasises the sense of imprisonment and oppression – initiated by those who have the power to use their ‘mind[s]’ to sustain such oppression; also possibly the sense that the ‘manacles’ imposed by economic/ social powerlessness also lead to ‘manacled’ thought – in other words, the oppression extends beyond what is physical to what is psychological. Also note the three stressed syllables together here (mind-forged manacles) which emphasise the sense of oppression.
juxtaposition of ‘black’ning’ and ‘church’ and the church with the ‘chimney-sweeper’
If God is usually associated with light, Blake is clearly making a point about the corruption of the Church or the lack of God within it by using the adjective ‘black’ning’. In juxtaposing the chimney-sweeper with the Church, Blake is also making a clear criticism of the way in which powerful institutions such as the Church are complicit in the suffering around them – failing to stop, the mistreatment of young children, for example.
alliteration/ sibilance in ‘hapless soldier’s sigh’
seems to convey a sense of ‘sigh[ing]’ and highlight the sense of hopelessness of those such as soldiers who are simply used by those in power (here the monarchy as represented by the ‘palace walls’)
Use of ‘palace walls’ as an image of the monarchy
As with the rather abstract and anonymous idea of things being ‘chartered’ in the first stanza, the use of ‘palace walls’ as an image of monarchy conveys a sense of the distance of those in power from the oppressed and powerless – there is a metaphorical ‘wall’ between them.
image of darkness again in ‘midnight’
Adds to sense of dark oppressiveness of society for those at the bottom
