William Blake`s London

“London”

      In a society that full of rationalism, racism, and suppression, William Blake is distinguished by his opposite ideas among that society. He believes of liberty, equality, and love. Thus, he is considered as a pre-romantic poet. In his poem, “London”, he focuses on the corruption and poverty of his society. Each stanza contains one kind of the corruptions that are found there such as religious, moral and social corruptions.

      First of all, he begins his poem with, “I wander through each charter`d street”. He uses the pronoun “I” to involve himself which means he notices and experiences such situations. The word “charter`d” demonstrates the “divide and rule” policy at that society under the clergy men. The church men control everything. Even the “Thames” is not a way from this oppressive power. It is an all corruption and control of even on nature. Moreover, this corruption is generalized since we have collective “marks of weakness, marks if woe”. This catastrophe hits everyone. Therefore, the first stanza is a reflection of human`s sufferings and misery under the corrupted churchmen.

      Secondly, he focuses on the social corruption. In the second stanza, he specifies o the marks of those who suffer. As he says, “in every cry of every man, in every infants cry or fear, in every voice, in every ban”, indicates the collective human plight that all people are suffering from in London. They are all unsatisfied as he says, “in every curse”. Still, this suffering is caused by their corruption.  He says, “the mind forged manacles I hear” which shows how those people closed every way of thinking. Their minds are chained and they only think the way they are forced to think of. There is no imagination at all because they only tied their mind of the society`s views and ideas such as reason from the church. The word “curse” indicates that they are unable to express themselves loudly. Therefore, Blake asks them to free their minds from such “manacles” of imagination, to express themselves, and to create the new better life they would love to live in. 

        Finally, the last two stanzas express the moral corruption. At that society, the illegal marriage flourished as he says, “most thro` midnight street I hear, how the youthful Harlot curse”. Thus, this moral corruption increases two things. First, it will increase the number of illegal children. Those children are born to be chimney sweepers. As a result, their destiny will be death either burned or by cancer in their longue. He describes their miserable cases when he says, “the chimney sweepers cry”. Second, it will increase the percentage of the diseases. Such marriage is a way to transmit diseases like AIDS, which also leads the parents to death. Therefore, he calls it as “marriage hearse”.

       Indeed, William Blake describes the agony of the entire city of London. Though the suppressed voices of people of that society, he speaks out and expresses every kind of misery, pain and suppression. This miserable case of the society is resulted from three major corruptions which are religious, social and moral corruption. Once these corruptions finish, all the sufferings among people will vanish.

  

Written by:

Sahar Alshobaki