William Blake: Draft Version

The poem London by William Blake is from his work called Songs of Experience, published on 1794 in England and just in the period of French Revolution, when authors wrote with the romantic topics, looking for the contemplation of nature and free spaces and all printed with a tone of dramatic nature.

         The first impression when reading the poem title is that the author is going to speak about the city of London, to say us how is London and probably what he feels in the city. And on first reading I think the poet writes about what he remembers of the city. Is evident that Blake address his poem to anybody, the poet’s addressee is London. There is an allegory, a personification of the city, the city becomes a person to be addressed.

         The language the poet uses is too simply and the only problem I have found is the contraction of some words as in line 1: thro’ each. This is a very directly language, and there are so many repetitions that the poet uses to emphasis his feelings, with something that is repeated: lines 5, 6 and 7 ( in every), he wants to say us that something is common in different sites: in the cry of a man, in infants’ fear, in voices… and the structure of the poem is very simple too, it is divided in four paragraphs with four verses each one.

         In each paragraph the poet describes a different feeling, in first paragraph the author talks about when he walked around England, near the Thames and how he examined each human marks, of weakness and woe. Blake as all romantic poets does not like civilization, he liked nature and this wants to see to be in a place where there are not persons, and to argue this feeling he speaks against human marks, and he only sees bad marks and he scorns them because these marks. In the second one he says us where he finds the marks, and they are in cry of pain of people, in the fear of children, in every voices of everybody and specially in prohibitions, in the minds forged by bands, Blakes does not like how the civilization manipulates our mind and forces us to act in a strictly manner. If he is free in the landscape ( we can see that in other poem of the same author, Blake, called To Summer, where he talks about the pleasure of join the life in contact with nature and far from civilization) he can act in a free way, without rules, and he would not be mind- forged. He says he can hear the manacles that presses people. When we analyse the paragraph number three we see specific groups of persons and social entities. The Chimney- sweeper is a person cleans the chimneys of all the city, they have also a metaphoric meaning that is to have the faculty of cleaning the defects of society. As the author tells us in his poem The Chimney- Sweeper, a child whose mother died in the birth, were sent by the fathers to learn this job, it was not a job with reputation but it was a job. These boys were condemned because the blackness they got when cleaning the chimney, it is  a reference to coloured people that was condemned because his colour of skin was regarded with obscurity. Then he mentions the Church, Soldiers and Palace, social entities that forge us, that put us the rules of society. When we look these entities we find they broke the rules every time. The author talks about the appals, the blood that runs down and sighs of people that is also condemned but that they want to continue the rules that condemn them. And finally, at the last paragraph, the author goes directly to mention the problems that annoy him and they are the cause because he wants to get away to the landscape’s freedom; the midnights sounds importunate him, and also the laments of Infants and how marriage blights people like a plague, he does not like this and he wants to go to a place where this does not exist. It is important the mention that Blake makes about Harlots curse, the prostitution, and the relation with youthful, in this period it was very common that men went with promiscuous women, in France for example, there was a cabaret, where men went to have sexual relations with prostitutes, called Moulin Rouge. Blake does not like this, he criticises this style of life. All the poem is a critic text of civilization, of its rules and of people actions.

         In conclusion, the poem is a good example of Romantic thought of going to live with nature, far of civilised world. It is a pleasant poem, but I think it is a little bite hard, because it talks about civilization in a very bad way. I like it because, being in the same point of view or not with the poet, it is a good critic, with argued points, with very good examples of corruption and with things that can importunate someone in a moment.