Nikki Kendall - H10 Coursework
GCSE Pre-1914 Poetry Coursework: Romantic Poets
Impressions of the people and society Blake lived in.
In this essay I will be exploring William Blake and the Romantic views expressed in his poems. Romanticism was an early and artistic way of looking at things which ended with Victorian age. Romantic’s supported freedom of thought, movement and life style and were against oppression of any kind. Romantic’s saw children as the future and were against child labour and the snatching of childhood. They saw the negative affect on life due to industry and viewed industrialisation as blameworthy for enslaving people and their ‘masters’ treated them badly. Romantics felt all people should have rights and be respected. Blake was a romantic born in 1757 and died in 1827; he was born into a time of a developing industrial revolution, in which he wasn’t in favour of. He preached his romantic views in his poetry and painting. He had many views including his strong belief on the innocence of children, this caused him to hate all child labour and show disgust to the world he was living in. William Blake felt hatred towards groups of people that he felt forced oppression such as the church and the royals. He disliked the church even though he was a profoundly religious man and found his spiritual life inspired much of his writing and painting. Though he was a Christian, he didn’t accept the orthodox doctrines and the authority of the Church of England and, as time went on, he developed his own symbolic version of the faith. Blake was also completely against child labour and oppression against the lower classes this is shown in his poems along with his coldness towards the poverty and disease he saw blossoming next to ‘flowers of London town’.
The first poem I have chosen is ‘London’ by William Blake, this is written in quatrains using an alternate rhyme scheme to create a walking beat and together with the first line ‘I wander thro’ each charter’d street’ it gives us a sense of movement. The first line uses the word ‘I’ which immediately tells us it is the poet, William Blake that is talking. The title of the poem seems to build up to expectations of hope and colour though the poem destroys all of these ideas. For me, when I begin to read this poem I sense Blake has no sense of direction and isn’t really taking notice of his surroundings, this message is delivered by the use of the word ‘wander’. The word ‘chartered’ is also used here, chartered is a word with two meanings and here it could mean ether one of the two; it could be referring to the mapping of the streets, as maps were being made of London at this time, or it could be used to express a dirty and restricted River Thames. Blake is against all oppression and hates the fact, the once most free thing, The Thames, is now forced to follow the path between buildings and is completely controlled with dams and bridges. Blake is found repeating the word ‘every’ this expressing a fact; no one escapes this torment. These people that walk the streets are scarred with sadness, hurt and the poverty that he stands against, though in ‘every face’ Blake meets he is to see ‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe’. With the repetition of ‘every’ he gives us ideas of crying children who are scared of the world they are born into and see no hope. Verse two creates an image of ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ that he hears, this may be expressing the people Blake is talking about being trapped within their own mind with no education to help improve themselves or it could be expressing these people having no hope and being forced into the actions shown to us in the third verse. Chimney sweepers kept in work driven to death and a ‘solders sigh’ as his life is destroyed and blood is spilled for royalty. These ideas are shown as corrupt, ‘black’ning’ is used to give us the idea that the church is corrupt because they are keeping chimney sweepers in work. Towards the end of the poem images get stronger and more powerful, they also seem to affect Blake the most. The last verse is full of deep and compressed ideas. Firstly, he chooses the midnight atmosphere creating images of darkness and silence before he gives us a character in the ‘youthful harlot’s curse’. This is a young prostitute, Blake sees the young as innocent and this is against all romantic ideas. The ‘Harlot’s curse’ could be seen as her being cursed as she is exposed to disease, though she is probably crying out for business, selling herself. ‘Blasts the new born Infants tear, and blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.’ is full with imagery and begins to express how harsh the cruel the situation is. Blasting is a harsh and angry sound the ‘new born’ and innocent is given by the harlot’s cry and this ‘infant’s tear’ is expressing just how scared of the world it is, what a terrible world it has been born into and how much sickness and health is there. ‘Plagues the Marriage-hearse’ is a strange combination made in an oxymoron, combining two words which don’t belong together to make an important point. Blights and Plagues can be linked as they are both, illness or disease, however, though marriage-hearse makes no real sense it is a powerful way of expressing how a marriage can be poisoned and destroyed by prostitution. Overall, this is a dreary, depressing, bleak and maybe frightening poem, we are given this idea from words such as; plagues, midnight and curse shown to us in the forth verse. In some ways this poem could be seen as simple though if you are to just look under the surface it is deep and complex. Romantic themes are expressed clearly in this personal poem, showing some of Blake’s morals.
