English Literature GCSE: William Blake - London

Akala: Take a trip around the place where you live. What do you see? What do you feel? Over 200 years ago, that's exactly what William Blake did. What happened on that trip? What did he see? What did he feel? But, most importantly, what did that inspire him to write?

London by William Blake:
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

Akala: So, walking through the streets of London, as Blake did in the 1790s, how much of that essence of the London that he is describing do you think is still here?

Mr Gee: He described these "charter'd streets" and the River Thames as being "charter'd", you know? He was, I suppose, expressing the sense of ownership, the fact that the streets are owned by someone. Or a river. When you think of a river, you imagine something that flows freely, but the fact that a river is owned by someone. London at that time was starting to assert itself, it was starting to, like, beat its chest. But Blake, he just peeled the veneer behind that image and he spoke about "weakness" and "woe." These are not adjectives that London would use to describe itself to the world, you know?

Blake has seen the London that he grew up in as a child sometimes being ripped apart by the extreme wealth and extreme poverty that exists within London. And so even when he spoke the line "the mind-forg'd manacle," and the only modern equivalent I can see for that would be, say, the debt system, whereby you're essentially free and you're working, but sometimes the money that you're getting paid and the money that you owe everyone…disparity.

Akala: It ain't adding up.

Mr Gee: Exactly! It ain't adding up. You've got this manacle around you which no-one can see, but, in your mind, you can see it.

Akala: There is also that industrial reference in there, that idea of forging. You know, forging these manacles, forging these chains.

Mr Gee: The Industrial Revolution, it formed a big influence on Blake's work and so industrialisation brings forth profit, brings forth capitalism and it brings forth a desire for the material.

Akala: Taking us back to Blake's time, if you were a chimney sweeper, again, something you don't think about - child labour.

Mr Gee: The fact is that they were doing a job that kept the pollution, kept the smog, kept it all going. A lot of kids used to die, you know?

Akala:Yeah, you forget about stuff like that.

Mr GeeExactly, and that occurred. That actually happened. That went to build this wonderful city that we call London.

London by William Blake:
How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

Deanna Rodger: As well as painting a picture of what he is seeing, he's also allowing us to hear the sounds that he's encountering.

Young Deacon: Yeah, like "cry," "sigh" and "curse."

Deanna Rodger:Exactly.

Anthony Anaxagorou:What's also… Have you noticed how he's done a lot of capitalisations?

Deanna Rodger: Yeah, and it's almost like he's talking about the body of people, and so they are their own entities.

Young Deacon: The infants, the soldiers…

Anthony Anaxagorou:The church, the chimney sweeps… These are all pockets of society.

Akala:You've got that really fascinating line, "hapless Soldier's sighs, Runs in blood down Palace walls."

It could be a nod to revolutionary France, to what was going on at the time, but it kind of also offers this image of an exploited soldier fighting in needless wars on behalf of the Palace.

Mr Gee:Again, you wouldn't use the word "hapless" to describe a soldier in that time. These are times of Empire, these are times of showing strength…

Akala:Of glory.

Mr Gee: Of glory, you know what I mean? The idea that government could be overthrown, the idea that monarchy could be overthrown. England has already executed a king 100 years before, they didn't want to do it again. I see Blake as being this, like, creative visionary that was almost frustrated by the world that was around him.

Akala:Yeah.

Mr Gee:This was a time when reason has its triumph over belief, the science of things and the actuality of things.

Akala:Blake's idea that he saw visions, you know, he claims to have seen an angel in a tree in Peckham Rye.

Mr Gee:He's living in the world of the seen and the unseen, so I don't think it was an accident that Blake wasn't recognised in his life.

Akala:He wrote about the world around him, he wrote about his thoughts and feelings and ideas and in some sense was a radical, you could say.

Mr Gee:I think with Blake, the main idea is just the concept of freedom, you know? Using your imagination to free yourself. So despite your surroundings, despite the entrapments that seem to be oppressing you, he used his words and his thoughts to just elevate himself beyond his immediate surroundings.

So though he lived his life in poverty, he was probably the richest man in London.

Akala:It's obvious Blake was angry and horrified at what was happening to the city and to its people. This is not a pretty poem, it almost feels like a warning or an urgent plea to the people around him to break free of their prison. But Blake also saw beyond his own time and could London also be Blake's vision of the future, a future that we are living in right now?