"London" by William Faulkner

William Blake’s poem “London” takes a complex look at life in London, England during the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds as he lived and experienced it. Blake’s use of double meaning words makes this poem both complex and interesting. To better understand this poem it may be helpful to understand some history about London during the time the poem was written. London was at one time the undisputed cultural, economic, religious, educational, and political center of England. It was a city of warehouses, docks, factories, prisons, palaces and slums, of beggars, laborers, shopkeepers, and bankers. This was the time of the industrial revolution; the streets were filthy, the water and air were polluted, and rats were everywhere. The average Londoner lived until age 29, and as many as 1 in 8 drank themselves to death. While there were wealthy merchants and professional classes, the poor were in greatest numbers and were crowded into filthy slums of the city.

Repetition and rhyme are an integral part of Blake’s “London.” The first stanza of the poem shows this repetition and rhyme. In lines 1-4, “I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet

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Her life “blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

In the last stanza the church is again to blame for society’s problems. It is a symbol of the restraint the speaker saw men cry for, children fear, and heard in the voices of the people of London. In line thirteen the speaker hears young prostitutes swearing late into the night.

After traveling around the public streets of London near the Thames River and characterizing the features of weakness, sorrow, and grief, in the people he passes, the speaker digs deeper into the issues of these people in the second stanza. ” The soldier is unfortunate because the church, which is part of the state and therefore the Palace, is not listening to his sighs dies at battle. ” This line, although difficult to interpret, is crucial to the poem and packed with meaning. In the “cry of every man” and in “every Infant’s cry of fear” the speaker sees restraints. These banners according to the poem contain some form of restraint. Because of the dirty nature of burning coal the air was heavily polluted resulting in the London Fogs, and chimneys were always in need of cleaning. It seems that repetition is not only a literary device in this poem, but also one of its themes. “Every” is used to place an emphasis on the occurrence of the things happening in this stanza. The city of London is stuck in a downward spiraling cycle because the church is restraining and weakening the minds of its people instead of aiding and helping them. The first meaning of cry is to call out or proclaim.

Approximate Word count = 1424
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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