LONDON (EXPERINCE)

Question 1

What is the poem about?

Answer 1

• The speaker walks through the streets of London.
• He hears children and chimney sweeps crying and prostitues cursing marriage. He sees blackened churches.
• Everywhere is evidence of suffering and unhappiness.

Question 2

How was London like in the late 17th and early 18th centuary?

Answer 2

• On the surface: The UK’s center of goverement, commercial and colonial expanation and of national mythology.
• In reality: Rapid industrialisation resulted in stark social inequalities. The wealthy enjoyed luxury and the urban poor lived in harsh living conditions (overcrowsing, unsanitary housing) and the Church turned the other way

Question 3

Describe the political lanscape of the time

Answer 3

• Maked by revolutionary fervour.
• The American, and French Revolutions inspired political activism and dissent and debates about democracy and social justice.

Question 5

How is the current version of London different to the first version of London? What effect does this have?

Answer 5

• “German forged links” to “Mind forged Manacles”
• “Dirty” to “Chartered” streets of london
• Gives the poem political weight

German forged links- reference to German mercenaries brought to maintain public order.

Question 6

Chartered meaning?

Answer 6

• Privatisation of public land

Question 7

What did Tom Paine (American writer and revolutionary) say about chartered land?

Answer 7

• Every chartered town is an “aristocratical monopoly”
• Anti-democratic and unnatural

Question 8

What did Blake believe politically?

Answer 8

• Republican sympathizer with pro-revolutionary sentiments.
• Often adressed social issues and concerns about the monarchy and the church in his poems.
• Critical of the dehumanizing effects of industrialization and capitalism on society.
• He wrote an unfinished epic poem entitled “The French Revolution” in which monarchical France is depicted as sick and slumbering.

Question 9

Who was Urizen?

Answer 9

• Central figure in Blake’s mythology.
• A symbolic representation of different aspects of the human psyche and the universe.
• Specficially, the embodiment of reason, law, and limitation
• Often depicted as a stern, bearded figure associated with oppressive and restrictive forces.

Question 10

Describe the structure of the poem

Answer 10

• 4 quatrains
• ABAB rhyme scheme (consistent)
• Rhyming couplets (conceptual pairing)
• Iambic tetrameter (unstressed, stressed) Intensity and regularity
• Dramatic monologue
• Acrostic poem (3rd stanza: HEAR) Blake is trying to get the reader to listen to the voices of the chimney sweeper, and soldier.

Question 11

Symbolic interpretation of the poem

Answer 11

1. Scathing social critic on the institutions that perpetuate social inequality and disenfranchisement of its citizens, this includes the state and the Church in Blake’s contemporary society.
2. Exploration of the ways in which oppression can be perpetuated and exacerbated by man’s own sense of limitation.
3. A commentary on the spiritual impoverishment of a society disconnected from its divine origins. The references to “black’ning Church” and “youthful Harlot’s curse” can be interpreted as critiques of institutionalized religion and moral hypocrisy

Question 12

Language of the poem

Answer 12

• Capitalisation (represents insitutions)
• Economic terminolgy
• Antanaclasis
• Syntatic parrallellism
• Anaphora
• Compund adjective
• Fronted conjunctions
• Oxymoron