London: historical and political context
Blake was writing about a real city as he saw it at the time. The City of London was, as it is today, the centre of commerce and finance, where money was made. London was a much smaller city then, and the countryside south of the river Thames, which was the setting for many of the Songs of Innocence, is now the suburbs of south London.
At the time that the poem was written, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, there was social and political unrest. The government responded with restrictions on the freedom of speech and the mobilisation of foreign mercenary soldiers. Several phrases have a strong political significance.
...each chartered street, / Near where the Chartered Thames does flow. In the first draft Blake had written 'dirty', but changed this to 'chartered'. Towns and corporations, like the East India Company, had charters which gave them monopoly privileges.
In his book The Rights of Man (which was banned by the government) Tom Paine had attacked the charters: 'It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates to a contrary effect - that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights to the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of the few.' Blake's own references in a fragment from his Notebook to: 'the cheating waves of charter'd streams' and 'the cheating banks of Thames', also show how Blake linked corruption with commerce in London.
the hapless soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down palace walls. This refers to ordinary British soldiers rather than foreign mercenaries, who were often close to mutiny because of their conditions. Britain was at war with France from 1793. There are records of revolutionary slogans being daubed on palace walls, such as 'Damn Pitt' (the Prime Minister), 'Damn the Duke of Richmond!' and 'No King!' in 1792.
'London': biographical context
'London' was written as part of Blake's Songs of Experience, the second part of the songs 'Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul'. They were designed and printed after he had moved to 13 Hercules Buildings in Lambeth, south of the river Thames, in 1794, with his wife Catherine whom he had married in 1782. Some of the poems had probably been written the previous year.
'London' is perhaps the most political of the Songs. Blake was a friend of the bookseller and publisher Joseph Johnson, who had employed him as an engraver. Johnson's circle included such radical thinkers as the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the republican writer Thomas Paine.
It was once thought that Blake had warned Paine to escape to France to avoid arrest in 1792, but this is not now believed to be true. Although Blake was a religious man, unlike most of Johnson's circle, he shared many of their radical ideas about the monarchy and the established church.
London: literary context
London was a poem published in Blake's Songs of Experience in 1794. It was printed together with the earlier set of poems, Songs of Innocence, to make up the collection Songs of Innocence and Experience Showing Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.
The Songs of Innocence had been about the state of innocence in childhood when feelings were spontaneous, and relationships loving and natural. Many were set in the countryside.
The Songs of Experience were originally intended as satires on the Songs of Innocence, and many are matched with individual poems as 'contrary poems'. Thus, the contrary poem to 'The Lamb'(Innocence) is 'The Tyger' (Experience), and there are contrary poems which share the same title, such as 'The Chimney Sweeper' and 'Holy Thursday'. London does not have a contrary poem in the Songs of Innocence.
Many of the poems from the Songs of Experience were etched on the back of the printing plate for their contrary poem. The state of experience is the state of oppression, both external and, more importantly, internal. Spontaneity and trust have been replaced by fear, envy, corruption and self-disgust. The style of the prints also differs: the Songs of Experience is more realistic and the lettering less elaborate.
Much of Blake's other writings, such as the Prophetic Books, where he developed his own unique mythology and philosophy, are obscure and difficult to understand. The Songs, on the other hand, use simple language to convey ideas which are often complex and profound. 'London': technological context
Copies of the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience were not printed and published like most books. Each page was printed from a single copper plate.
Blake often used both sides of the plate. For this he developed a technique called 'relief etching'. Usually in etchings a copper plate is treated with acid and the ink is held in the places eaten away by the acid.
Blake, who had been trained as an engraver, used the acid to eat away the areas which were not to be used for printing. The parts of the plate which were left raised above the rest of the surface of the plate were then inked, and prints made.
Blake kept the plates and he printed copies of the Songs throughout his life. The prints were mainly hand-coloured by Blake and his wife Catherine. In later copies the colouring is much bolder compared to the pastel shades of earlier copies. About two hundred copies of the book were printed in his lifetime.
Copyright notice for source of image of London
(Copy R, Fizwilliam Museum, Cambridge, etched 1894, printed between 1802 and 1808)
'London': the audience context:
The Songs of Innocence were originally thought of as a book of moral songs for children which would be profitable for the print shop that Blake had set up in 1784. However, they were so different from the other songs for children popular at the time that there was no possibility of profitable sales.
By the time the Songs of Experience were written and printed Blake's purpose was not to reach a wide audience, but to express ideas which he felt to be true.
The way in which the Songs were printed was slow and time consuming (about 200 copies only were printed), and very few people had any understanding of Blake's writing or art during his lifetime. No two copies of the Songs were the same, and the order of the pages was often changed.
It was only in the second half of the 19th Century that Blake began to be thought of as an important writer, and editions of his work were published in a conventional way. In the 1890's the poet William Butler Yeats published an edition of Blake's poetry which was particularly successful in creating a larger audience.
