London Analysis by William Blake
London by William Blake
A poem which makes a social or political statement is London by William Blake. Blake’s poem is about the social problems, inequalities and Injustice that arose due to the industrial revolution. In London, William Blake brings to light a city that was overrun by poverty and hardship. Blake discards the glorifying view of London. He believes that London is nothing more than a city suffocated by a harsh economy, where Royalty and the church have allowed morality and goodness to deteriorate so that suffering and poverty are all that exist. Blake wrote the poem in 1792 and it was published in 1794 as part of ‘Songs of Experience’. The collection of poems were written to illustrate the negative effects of life on people and nature. The poems highlighted the dangerous industrial conditions, child labour, prostitution, capitalism and mass poverty which were rife during the industrial revolution. The experience poems were written in contrast to ‘The songs of innocence’ poems which Blake wrote with a more positive tone to convey the goodness of humanity, innocence of childhood, love and nature. Blake lived and worked in the capital, so he was arguably well placed to write accurately about the conditions people who lived there faced. . It wasn’t until after his death in 1827 that his work was given recognition, so his life was blighted by poverty. He felt an affiliation with the proletariat and loathed inequality. Throughout this poem Blake uses a range of different poetic techniques to convey the inequalities and unjust treatment of the poorer classes. This gives the reader a stronger understanding overall. The poem is written in the first person. The structure is broken down into four stanzas and is written in mostly iambic tertrameter (It’s so called tetrameter as each stanza has four feet or lines). The third and fourth stanzas use both iambic and trochaic meter.
In the first two line of the first stanza Blake uses repetition “I
A poem which makes a social or political statement is London by William Blake. Blake’s poem is about the social problems, inequalities and Injustice that arose due to the industrial revolution. In London, William Blake brings to light a city that was overrun by poverty and hardship. Blake discards the glorifying view of London. He believes that London is nothing more than a city suffocated by a harsh economy, where Royalty and the church have allowed morality and goodness to deteriorate so that suffering and poverty are all that exist. Blake wrote the poem in 1792 and it was published in 1794 as part of ‘Songs of Experience’. The collection of poems were written to illustrate the negative effects of life on people and nature. The poems highlighted the dangerous industrial conditions, child labour, prostitution, capitalism and mass poverty which were rife during the industrial revolution. The experience poems were written in contrast to ‘The songs of innocence’ poems which Blake wrote with a more positive tone to convey the goodness of humanity, innocence of childhood, love and nature. Blake lived and worked in the capital, so he was arguably well placed to write accurately about the conditions people who lived there faced. . It wasn’t until after his death in 1827 that his work was given recognition, so his life was blighted by poverty. He felt an affiliation with the proletariat and loathed inequality. Throughout this poem Blake uses a range of different poetic techniques to convey the inequalities and unjust treatment of the poorer classes. This gives the reader a stronger understanding overall. The poem is written in the first person. The structure is broken down into four stanzas and is written in mostly iambic tertrameter (It’s so called tetrameter as each stanza has four feet or lines). The third and fourth stanzas use both iambic and trochaic meter.
In the first two line of the first stanza Blake uses repetition “I