London - William Blake

Vocabulary
1. Chartered - plotted or mapped, unemotional scientific process
2. Woe - sadness
3. Manacles - leg irons
4. Appalls - rejections, Church is not helping people
5. Hapless - abandoned
6. Harlot - prostitute
7. Blights - overshadows
Poetic techniques
1. ABAB rhyme scheme - regular pattern, suggests link between 2 disjointed sections of soeciety
2. Metaphor
3. Regular rhythm - 8 beats, a measured view, not ranting, only facts
4. Repetition
5. Oxymoron - marriage hearse
Poet and Background
1. Blake had lost his religion as the Church would not help suffering children - inequality
2. Frequent themes - poverty & homelessness
3. French Revolution
4. Industrial Revolution
5. Blake was horrified at what was happening to 'his' London
6. Conflict - Industrial Revolution, there is power and status but underneath there is poverty and despair
Ideas and Imagery
1. On the surface London is pleasant. calm etc
2. Every man etc. - they all have a terrible life
3. Mind-forged manacles - freedom of thought taken away, no opinions
4. Ban - imposed by those in power, restricting the poor
5. Black'ning Church - the Church is pure, not helping people
6. Harlot's curse - symbolic of her life she is cursed, not choice but to suffer
7. Blood down palace walls - a stain on the institution, reference the French Revolution
8. Marriage hearse - prostitutes passed on STIs which 'plagued' (ruined) marriage
9. Chimney sweep - represents child labour
10. People in the city are not benefiting from the Industrial Revolution
11. London is built on child labour and the poverty of workers
12. Is this a vision of London today?

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London - William Blake

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	Created by Heather Crosby about 8 years ago

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