WILLIAM BLAKE What do you associate with these words INNOCENCE E XPERIENCE William Blake divided his poems into two volumes Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience Poems from Songs of Innocence offered an idealised childlike view of the world ID: 621780
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Slide1
LONDON
WILLIAM BLAKESlide2
What do you associate with these words?
INNOCENCE
E
XPERIENCE
William Blake divided his poems into two volumes – Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.
Poems from Songs of Innocence offered an idealised, child-like view of the world.
Poems from the Songs of Experience showed the corrupted world which was controlled by the Church and the Government. Blake had very strong political opinions about the treatment of the
poor.Slide3
LONDON – 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 Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,The mind-forg'd manacles I hear How the Chimney-sweepers cryEvery blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sighRuns in blood down Palace walls But most thro' midnight streets I hearHow the youthful Harlots curseBlasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
So does this poem come from the Songs of Innocence or Experience?
What are your initial impressions of life in London at this time?Slide4
Form of the Poem
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 Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,The mind-forg'd manacles I hear How the Chimney-sweepers cryEvery blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sighRuns in blood down Palace walls But most thro' midnight streets I hearHow the youthful Harlots curseBlasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
The poem is split into 4 quatrains.
It has a strict ABAB rhyme scheme.
Why do you think the poem is so strictly structured?Slide5
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.Repetition is a common feature of the poem.Used to represent mapping/legalism.Why?
Repetition again!
What does ‘marks’ suggest? How are they used slightly different in lines 3 and 4?Slide6
In every
cry of every Man,In every Infants cry
of fear,
In every
voice:
in every
ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear What are ‘manacles’? What connotations does ‘manacles’ have?So why are they ‘mind-forged’?
We only hear the cries and voices of those who are suffering. Just traces of the people remain.
Repetition?Slide7
How the Chimney-sweepers
cryEvery blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers
sigh
Runs in
blood down Palace walls
Again – No-one is actually present. Only traces are left behind.
The Chimney-sweepers and the soldier leave evidence of their suffering on the buildings of the Church and Palace.
What is Blake saying about the Church and Government in this stanza?What is the significance of what the cry/sigh turn into?Slide8
But
most thro' midnight streets I hearHow the youthful Harlots
curse
Blasts
the new-born Infants tear And
blights
with
plagues the Marriage hearse.Why is it the birth of a prostitute’s baby that is the noise that stands out the most?Focus on the language choices in bold. What are their effects?
Why do you think the poem ends which such contrasting ideas?Slide9
Live Model
Let’s complete the paragraph as class.In the poem, Blake shows London as
By saying “ “
he suggests
The word “ “ implies
This is supported by the use of “ “ as
Blake’s message is that