Discuss the importance and evocation of place in the poems "London" by William Blake and "Callaloo" by Merle Collins.
In the following text I would like to discuss the importance and evocation of place in the poems "London" by William Blake and "Callaloo" by Merle Collins.
At first, I want to examine the poems with regard to their form and structure. After that, I would like to give you some information about the author and a detailed analysis of their poems. Next, I want to examine the stylistic devices that are used. Finally, I want to discuss the meaning of place in "London" and "Callaloo".
The poem "London" was written by William Blake in 1794. He was the son of a draper from Westminster and was born on 28th November 1757 and the third of five children. His father could only afford to give William enough schooling to learn the basics of reading and writing, though for a short time he was able to attend a drawing school run by Henry Par. William Blake worked in his father's shop until his talent for drawing became so obvious that he was apprenticed to engraver James Basire at the age of 14. He finished his apprenticeship at the age of 21, and set out to make his living as an engraver.
Blake married Catherine Boucher at the age of 25, and she worked with him on most of his artistic creations. Together they published a book of Blake's poems and drawing called "Songs of Innocence". Blake engraved the words and pictures on copper plates, and Catherine coloured the plates and bound the books. "Songs of Innocence" sold slowly during Blake's lifetime, indeed he struggled close to poverty for much of his life. The result of uncountable failed attempts that forced him into social isolation, is his work which came into being as the adverse circumstances and disdains of his contemporaries were there. Blake was too radical in both his artistic individuality and his way in not making compromises to achieve during his lifetime some kind of popularity. Of course, there were friends and supporters in his life but often they had argues because of his extreme sights. That is why he remained known as an artistic artisan till his death. Only a little group of friends knew of his double skill as poet and artist.
Yet his extreme originality makes him stand apart from other poets, particularly the romantic poets. He was a dreamer and a visionary with an immense power of imagination (he had visions of angels sitting near him in the garden!). Besides his famous work "Songs of Innocence" (1789), he wrote his "Songs of Experience" (1794) where he repeatedly voiced his protest against authority, restrictive codes and social injustice. The poem "London" that was published in Blake's "Songs of Experience" is a good example of his deep compassion for the poor:
LONDON
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.
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 ...
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LONDON
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.
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.
William Blake
In his reflection "London", William Blake laments the poverty faced by the lower class of modern, industrialized London, and he can find no note of consolation or hope of their future.
At this time the industrial revolution was underway and there was vest growth in the population, due to medical advances and people having more children.
Blake criticizes social abuses of his time, such as the employment of little boys as chimney sweepers, and the poverty and sad fate of soldiers.
Now I want to examine the form and structure of the poem. "London" is written in a heavily iambic meter that remains rigid throughout, emphasizing the drudgery and immutability of the lives of the people Blake observes as he walks through the streets. Blake's walk itself is chartered and deliberate, and the rhythm of the poem is as tyrannical and stagnant as the class system whose oppression it describes. Each stanza is further organized by a rigid "ABAB" rhyming structure. The author uses the structure of the poem to emphasise the words in them. This ballad is written in four, four line stanzas. Each line of each verse has the same number of syllables; this creates a regimented, almost mechanical effect. It uses alternate line rhyming to make the poem sound regular. This system also accentuates the last word of each line.
Blake uses his rhetorical skills of alliteration, imagery and word choice to create his poem, but more importantly to express the emotional significance that is implied. As in many of Blake's poems, the language is simple but the meaning is not immediately obvious, due to the enigmatic imagery he uses.
"London", is obviously a sorrowful poem. In the first two stanzas, Blake utilizes alliterations (line 4: "Marks of..., marks of...") to emphasise the meaning of this line. Many of the words in Blake's poem have more than one meaning. In the first line he talks of London's "charter'd streets". "Chartered" can be interpreted to mean responsibility of the church or state; on the other side of the coin it can be use to mean licentious and freely immoral. Taken in context with the rest of the poem I consider it to mean freely immoral as further in the poem he alludes to prostitution, and other such corrupt activities.
The repetition of words like "every" and "cry" (line 5-7) in the second stanza shows that he is haunted by all the misery he has witnessed, and his intention is obviously to arouse the reader's concern. He wants to symbolise the depression the depression that hovers over the entire society. The "mind-forged manacles" (line 8) the narrator hears suggest that he is not mentally stable.
The third stanza contains two metaphors parallel to each other: the black colour of the church stands for the guilt of the Church as an institution; and the blood running "down Palace walls" suggests that the State (the King living in the Palace) is responsible for the blood shed in war. Here he is attacking the monarchy and the government for condemning young men to death by sending them off to fight in foreign wars. "London" was written in 1794, in the aftermath of the French Revolution. This was a time of great political conflict in Britain.
In both cases a pathetic complaint ("cry", "sigh") is uttered in vain against a wall of indifference. So this is an accusation of the Church and the State for allowing such evils as war or exploitation, and for doing nothing to relive poverty. These metaphors (the black church and the red trickle of blood), appealing to our sense of sight, are typical of Blake, the visionary poet and painter. In the last stanza of the poem there is a theme of sexually transmitted disease, leading to the end of society. This is most apparent in the last verse. The unusual, poignant juxtaposition of "Marriage" with "hearse" (line 16) brings the mood of hopelessness to a peak, as a result of sexually transmitted diseases. Marriage is supposed to be a happy occasion though here it is shown to be an institution that carries people to their deathbeds, so Marriage and sex are now connected with death, not life.
Each line begins with a capital letter that shows that these words or each line is very important.
Each verse of the Blake poem attacks a different aspect of London. It is clear that Blake found London a very corrupt and immoral place. He uses hyperbole to criticize London and the sadness and malice of the people who live there.
In my opinion he wrote this poem to illustrate his views on the city of London what succeeds him very well.
I think the poem is very emotional and melodramatic. Besides, sadly corruption and transmitted diseases are still relevant themes today.
The author of the second poem "Calloloo" is Merle Collins. She comes from Grenada and has worked both as a teacher and researcher. She has studied at the University of the West Indies and at the University of Georgetown USA. Collins has written as a novelist but is most widely known as a poet. The sense of a plurality of "belonging" runs trough much of her work. As she has a typical British surname she may be regarded as "not yet Grenadian, but still British".
Collins is also well known as a performance poet. She works as a member of "African Dawn" a group that employs music and mime as well as poetry in its presentations. Much of Merle Collins poetry belongs to an oral tradition and needs to be heard, not simply read by the eye. This poem "Callaloo" is built on repetitions, on the balance of long and short lines with significant pauses.
As well as William Blake uses repetitions in his poem "London", Collins wants to emphasize the meaning and the importance of the words. Unlike Blake's poem Collins mixes Standard English forms with the grammar of Caribbean (or Black British) English. The language is phonetically, that means it is written as it is spoken. I think she has done this intentional because she wants to show the reader that she is proud of her language and the way the inhabitants of Grenada speak there. The poem consists of ten stanzas. The structure of this poem is quiet regular. There is a lack of punctuation what keeps a continuous rhythm throughout the poem. The length of lines is not regular, unlike in the poem of Blake. The first stanza comprises 16 lines.
I guess the background of this poem is the Revolution in Grenada of 1979 to 1983. Grenada had nearly always been a plantation economy, which involved the large scale production of agricultural commodities, generally for export markets. It employed lot of unskilled labourers under the direction of a few highly-skilled supervisors. The nation was ripe for change: the workers had always been denied the access to land so that they could be employed cheaply in the service of the plantations and estates, rather than working their own private plots. This process of exploitation, dubbed "plantation slavery", kept the population relatively docile for years. However, as its hold on the populace dwindled, and more of the masses attained some form of education, dissatisfaction arose, and an indigenous "intelligentsia" was born that gave rise to the Grenada Revolution and led it to fruition.
I guess the poem "Callaloo" is about this theme. The people live in poverty and slavery there. Here you can see the parallel between the poems. Both are about poor people that are in this situation because of the government. Although the poems were written in different centuries they are about nearly the same topic, about the conditions and circumstances the people had to cope with.
Historical events that took place in the area the poem is about play an important role.
Anne Kolouschek
2 MA
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