William Blake’s “London” (1714)
describes a city on the edge of disaster.
The London depicted in poem is a depressed and horrible city. Historical London at the time had complex and
complicated problems where monarchal power is dictating, while, on the other
hand, people are suffering. One of the
ways in which Blake portrays London as in crisis is through the use of images
of weakness and despair. London is
described as a depressed city, where the people living there are sad and unsatisfied
with their surroundings. For example, in
the first stanza, Blake says “And mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness,
marks of woe” (3-4). A reader understands
that the people who live in this London are distraught. They feel hopeless and useless to themselves,
their family, and to their country.
Moreover, through the image
of the words “crying,” “blood”, and “manacle,” London is described as a terrible
city, since everyone is crying, and even the “hapless” soldiers just accept the
horrible things as normal occurrence because they do not know and cannot
imagine any other life. According to
Blake, “In every cry of every man, in every Infant’s cry of fear,” there is
woe. There is something horrible in the city
that makes people pessimistic and feels no future. An image like “the hapless Soldier’s sign runs
in blood” (11) questions how the soldier can protect his people in these dire
circumstances. Eventually, from the
imagery of “Harlot” and “hearse”, London is described as a dangerous city: “How
the youthful Harlot’s curse, And blights with plagues the marriage hearse”, the
reader imagines that in the city, there are some young women who earn a living
as whores. If a husband has a sexual
intercourse with them, they will contract a disease that can be past to their
wives and their children. This kind of
habit can jeopardize people’s personal lives.
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