London Flashcards
Title of London…
Denotes a specific geographic space
Unlike the archetypal locales in which many of the other songs are set
Rhyme scheme?
ABAB throughout its three stanzas.
Little deviation from iambic tetrameter.
How many quatrains ?
4
Alternate rhyming lines
Striking formal feature of the poem?
Repetition
- emphasises the precedence of the horrors the speaker describes
What does ‘Charter’d’ mean?
Combined mapping and legalism
What submits to being Charter’d?
Everything in this urban space, even the natural River Thames
What effect does the repetition of ‘charter’d’ give?
Reinforces the sense of structure the speaker feels upon entering the city.
Thudding and oppressive, reflects the suffocating atmosphere of the city.
What happens within this repetition?
Words undergo transformation
What word is transformed? What is the transformation?
“Mark” (between 3rd and 4th line)
Changes from a verb to a pair of nouns
From an act of observation which allows imaginative elaboration, to an indelible print
What does this transformation of ‘mark’ essentially do?
Brands the people’s bodies regardless of the speakers actions
What does the speakers’ ‘meeting’ with these marks represent ?
The experience closest to a human encounter that the poem will offer the speaker
What does the poem ‘London’ deride?
The sterile mechanism of urban society
What recalls the introduction to Songs of Innocence, but with a twist ?
Opening image of wandering, focus on sound, and images of stains.
How many characters in this poem?
5
Who are the characters in this poem?
Harlot Chimney sweeper Infants Soldier Men
