Flashcards for London

The Chimney Sweeper

The Chimney Sweeper surfaces in a striking, haunting image in William Blake's poem "London" (Songs of Experience, 1794): the speaker sees him weeping as he works in the streets — "the chimney-sweeper's cry / Every black'ning church appalls."

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The Harlot

The Harlot emerges in the climactic final stanza of William Blake's "London" (Songs of Experience, 1794), introduced by the wandering Speaker as the last and most devastating symbol of the city's corruption.

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The Soldier

The Soldier appears in William Blake's "London" (from Songs of Experience, 1794) as one of several figures whose suffering condemns the oppressive social and political order of the city.

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The Speaker / Wanderer

The Speaker / Wanderer serves as the central consciousness in William Blake's poem "London," acting as both the narrator and a moral witness to the suffering that permeates the city's streets.

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“Blasts the new-born Infant's tear, / And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.”

These closing lines are from William Blake's poem "London," which appeared in Songs of Experience (1794).

Unnamed narrator / lyric speaker · Songs of Experience

“But most thro' midnight streets I hear / How the youthful Harlot's curse.”

These lines conclude William Blake's poem "London," which appears in Songs of Experience (1794).

First-person narrator / the poet-speaker · Songs of Experience

“I wander thro' each charter'd street, / Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.”

These lines come from "London," a poem by William Blake featured in Songs of Experience (1794).

The Wanderer / Poetic Speaker · London (Songs of Experience)

“In every cry of every Man, / In every Infant's cry of fear.”

These lines are from William Blake's poem "London," which first appeared in Songs of Experience in 1794.

Unnamed narrator / the poet · London (Songs of Experience)

“And mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe.”

These lines are from William Blake's poem "London," which appeared in Songs of Experience (1794).

Unnamed narrator / wandering speaker · London (poem), Songs of Experience

“In every voice, in every ban, / The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.”

These lines are from William Blake's poem "London," which was published in Songs of Experience in 1794.

Unnamed narrator / lyric speaker · Songs of Experience

“And the hapless Soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls.”

These lines are from William Blake's poem "London," which appeared in Songs of Experience (1794).

Unnamed narrator / lyric speaker · Songs of Experience

“How the Chimney-sweeper's cry / Every black'ning Church appalls.”

These lines are from William Blake's poem "London," featured in Songs of Experience (1794).

Unnamed narrator / the poet · London (Songs of Experience)

Chartered Streets

In William Blake's poem London, the "chartered streets" and "chartered Thames" represent the stifling control of institutional power over every part of human life.

Mind-Forged Manacles

In William Blake's poem London, the "mind-forged manacles" represent the invisible chains of mental and psychological oppression that people impose on themselves, often reinforced by society.

The Chimney Sweeper's Soot

In William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the soot covering the chimney sweepers symbolizes the heavy burden of industrial exploitation and the moral decay inflicted on the innocent.

The Marriage Hearse

In William Blake's poem London, the "Marriage Hearse" combines two contrasting ideas—marriage and death—into a powerful and unsettling image.

The Thames River

In William Blake's poem London, the Thames River represents the heavy control that social, political, and religious institutions have over people's lives.

Anaphora

Blake hammers the word "every" throughout the poem's central stanzas with relentless insistence: "In every cry of every Man, / In every Infant's cry of fear, / In every voice, in every ban."

Repetition

Beyond the anaphoric use of 'every,' Blake repeats the word 'charter'd' in the poem's opening lines — 'I wander thro' each charter'd street, / Near where the charter'd Thames does flow' — compelling the reader to encounter the word twice before the poem truly starts.

Imagery

The poem is packed with sensory details that come together to depict urban despair.

Symbolism

Blake's concept of 'mind-forg'd manacles' serves as the poem's key symbol: these chains aren’t made of iron but are instead rooted in our consciousness, shaped by ideology, religion, and law.

Metaphor

The phrase 'mind-forg'd manacles' serves as the poem's most potent metaphor: the mind transforms into a blacksmith's forge, crafting its own chains.

Oxymoron

'The Marriage hearse' in the poem's final line represents Blake's sharpest oxymoron: marriage, which symbolizes social and sexual union, is linked to the hearse, a symbol of death and finality.

Juxtaposition

Blake deliberately positions the powerful next to the powerless to highlight the violence in their disparity.

Irony

The poem's irony lies in its examination of institutions.

Personification

Blake turns abstract concepts into harmful agents.

Quatrain

London consists of four quatrains, each following an ABAB rhyme scheme, a structure linked to ballads and popular songs — the literature of the people.

End Rhyme

The poem's ABAB end-rhymes — 'street/meet,' 'flow/woe,' 'fear/hear,' 'ban/man,' 'cry/sigh,' 'appalls/walls,' 'curse/hearse' — might seem straightforward, following the ballad tradition.

Volta

The poem takes its sharpest turn at the beginning of the third stanza with the lines, 'How the Chimney-sweeper's cry / Every blackning Church appalls.'

wander

To walk slowly and without a fixed destination, drifting from place to place rather than moving with purpose or urgency.

verb · Chapter 1

charter'd

Officially granted, mapped, and owned under legal documents; here it suggests that even the streets and river have been bought, sold, and controlled by commercial or royal authority.

adjective · Chapter 1

mark

To notice and take careful note of something; to observe with close, deliberate attention rather than merely glancing.

verb · Chapter 1

woe

Deep, heavy sorrow or misery, especially the kind that shows plainly on a person's face or in their behaviour.

noun · Chapter 1

ban

An official prohibition or curse; in this poem the word carries both the sense of a legal restriction and a spoken curse that oppresses people.

noun · Chapter 1

mind-forg'd manacles

Mental chains hammered into shape by thought and belief rather than iron; the invisible psychological and social constraints that people accept or impose on themselves and others.

phrase · Chapter 1

manacles

Metal shackles locked around the wrists to restrain a prisoner; used here as a metaphor for any force—mental or social—that binds and enslaves a person.

noun · Chapter 1

hapless

Unlucky and without any power to change one's fate; deserving pity because circumstances have left a person helpless and without hope.

adjective · Chapter 1

chimney-sweeper

A child or worker hired to climb inside narrow chimneys and scrape out the soot; in Blake's time these were often very young, poor children forced into dangerous, filthy labour.

noun · Chapter 1

appalls

Fills with horror and shock; causes a powerful feeling of disgust or moral outrage in whoever witnesses or hears something.

verb · Chapter 1

blackning

Becoming covered in black soot or moral darkness; the spelling Blake uses suggests both the physical staining of church walls by chimney smoke and the Church's growing moral corruption.

adjective · Chapter 1

harlot

An old word for a woman who sells sexual favours; Blake uses it to point to prostitution as a symptom of poverty and social injustice rather than personal sin.

noun · Chapter 1

blights

Ruins or destroys something, the way a disease kills a plant; to infect and corrupt something that might otherwise have been healthy or innocent.

verb · Chapter 1

plagues

Infects or contaminates with disease; here it suggests that the harlot's curse spreads like a contagion, tainting the newborn and the institution of marriage.

verb · Chapter 1

hearse

A vehicle that carries a coffin to a funeral; Blake pairs it with 'marriage' to create an image in which marriage itself becomes a kind of death, corrupted beyond any hope of joy.

noun · Chapter 1