Notesale: Turn your study into money

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London
● Context: William Blake was a radical
English poet who regularly explored his
views on religion and equality in his work
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● “Marks of weakness, marks of woe” the repetition of the word “marks”
suggests a permanency to the despair
that seems to affect everyone, almost like
it is impossible to get rid of
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This gives the poem a
hopeless and desperate tone
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The monotony of these
everyday “woes” and troubles is reflected in the constant and unbroken
ABAB rhyme scheme, which could also hint at the sound of his feet pacing
along the “chartered street”
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People appear to be trapped
in every way - not just by the things they do, but also by the thoughts in their
heads
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● “The youthful harlot’s curse” - this contrast between the innocence of youth
and dirtiness of prostitution is stark and uses emotive language to make the
reader come to a realisation of the reality of London in 1794
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The oxymoron of “marriage hearse” may suggest that
even happy events (which often happen in churches, hence this yoking
together of ideas) have been tainted by the uncontrollable epidemic of
prostitution, which is portrayed as like a disease
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The word
“black’ning” connotes images of death, whilst the use of a “church” may
hint at Blake’s own damning opinions on organised religion
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In a more prosaic sense, the
“black” church may also symbolise the ugliness of the Industrial Revolution,

which conjures up images in the reader’s mind of smog and factories
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Exam question
Q) Explore how the theme of loss and absence is portrayed in “London” and in
one other poem that you have studied

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