William Blake`s `London`

The Levels of Meaning in Blake 's London

William Blake is a prolific poet whose works can be read on many different levels . His Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are fine examples of this . Blake 's London ' is a masterpiece in that it presents a view that can be read on religious , political and social levels through its masterful use of syntax and diction

Clearly , the title of the poem London ' sets the reader up to view the city through the eyes of the speaker . Andrew Moore notes that modern

readers can identify more with the poem than perhaps readers in Blake 's time because our association with the dirt and poverty of urban areas as nightmarish is more rooted in modern reality than those of the earlier era . He comments that it exposes the gulf between those in power and the misery of poor people (Moore . Thus , Blake 's poem can be red on a social level

Certain images in the poem aid in the social commentary that Blake is elucidating . First , the Marks of weakness , marks of woe ' draw the reader into the sadness and oppression of the London streets . The repetition of the cries of various voices in the streets , the cry of every man ' the infant 's cry ' the chimney-sweeper 's cry ' and the cry of the harlot and her newborn , give a continuous sound to the hopelessness . Moore again comments that this last cry is the most damning , in that the harlot 's cry is a curse ' on the traditional societal values of marriage and family . He says

the cry of the child-prostitute is the truth behind respectable ideas of marriage . New birth is no happy event but continues the cycle of misery and the wedding carriage is seen as a hearse , leading to a kind of death (of innocence ? of happiness . The word `plagues ' here suggests the sexually transmitted diseases which the "youthful harlot " would contract and pass on to others (men married for convenience but with no desire for their wives , giving her cursing words real destructive power (Moore

Sadly , as Blake is clearly noting , the prostitute has become what she is because of her eternally dismal situation and is thus a symbol of a declining social morality (Rix 28 . Thus , the sounds from the streets illuminate significant societal weaknesses and woes , as Blake promises in line four . As Lambert pens , The harlot--a perverse mother figure--passes down to her child a legacy of corruption and contagion one that likewise infects the marriage institution (and , by association the Church , ensuring for posterity an endless cycle of excoriation and oppression (141 . There seems to be no room for redemption or reversal of this horrendous trend

The visual image of the manacles is also significant . He notes that the mind-forged manacles ' act as iron restraints on the common man A forge is a fire which creates the manacles , just as the mind which descends into hopelessness creates the same restraints for an impoverished and...