When reading “London”, I was shocked by its cynical, negative tone, especially compared to his other poems like “The Tyger” and “The Lamb”. As I understood it, “London” is most literally about the city of London during Blake’s time. His view of the city is, apparently, a bleak one. Blake’s rather depressing diction expresses a certain turmoil about the very city itself; he uses the word cry in multiple instances, evoking images of both cries of anguish as well as tears of sadness. The poem presents multiple juxtapositions: the harsh reality of the city and the innocence of infants, the joy of marriage and the devastation of death, the highly controlled layout of London and the unbidden nature of a river, the content of the piece and its bouncy, rhythmic meter. The poem is full of contradictions that enrich its reading experience. It’s chaotic, busy, dark, and fast-paced. It’s a critique and a mimicry, all in one.
London by William Blake
Loading Likes...
I was also shocked by the miserable and gloomy tone of this poem. I read “London” as a critique of industrialism and oppression, but more broadly how we’ve created a society that failed to bring joy and freedom to the people. The juxtapositions you bring up are really interesting and another one I noticed is between the low class workers such as Chimney-sweepers and the Church that controlled them, as well as the soldiers and the royalty they worked for within the palace walls. The use of words such as “charter’d,” “ban,” and “manacles,” as well as the frequent enjambment and caesura in the lines contribute to the feeling of imprisonment and constraint in not only within the physical city of London but also in the minds of its inhabitants.
It makes sense to me that someone who sees himself as a prophet and very literally a child of God would find the city of London to be stifling in many ways. It to me almost raises the question of why he lived there if that was his view of the city.