The term “chartered” used in lines 1 and 2 is symbolic of the lack of freedom of the inhabitants of London and ironically implies that the Charter of the Free City of London is a mockery in her present condition, which admits little freedom for anyone. “Charter” is also indicative of the idea that all of London, including her people, is owned and part of the materialistic world that is representative of the Industrial Revolution.
Blake’s use of symploce in lines 3 through 7 further reinforces the desperate plight of the people of London. The recurrence of the word “mark” three times in lines 2 and 3 creates a visible, physical image of the burdens that oppress them and emphasizes how hopeless their situation is. The numerous repetition of “in every” and “of every” in lines 3 through 7 strengthens the notion of universal suffering and evokes desperate inevitable consequences for everyone if the situation is allowed to endure in its present chaos where people are little better than slaves to Industry.
The “mind-forg’d manacles” (8.35) of the second stanza serve a two-fold purpose for Blake. In using this powerful metaphor he has created an image of people enslaved not only physically but also mentally and morally as well. Their own social and political institutions imprison the people and they might just as well be in actual physical manacles so helplessly are they enslaved. I think that Freedman clarifies their hopelessness to fight this oppression most succinctly when he states “ The fearful cries of the Londoners are understood to signify mental repression as powerful and despotic as manacles of actual steel” (3).
The tone of the first two quatrains is monotone and creates a sense of dullness, which precludes any escape for anyone. There is a sense that the observer feels solemn and somber as he wanders through the streets of London although strong emotion regarding the futility he observes in the condition of the people is also present. In the final two stanzas the tone becomes angry and antagonistic towards the institutions that have caused the current state in which London finds herself.
In the third stanza the chimney sweep is a symbol of oppression whose very occupation also conveys the image of pollution in a soot-covered city. Other images of pollution are also vivid in this stanza. A second double entendre is apparent in the “blackening church” (10.35) in that it refers to the corruption growing within the church, which is in itself a form of pollution and the physical pollution created by the Industrial revolution that covers the white churches in soot. The cry of the chimney sweep condemns the church because it allows the exploitation of children and ignores its moral obligations to truth and God as it becomes mired in the corruption of the day.
“The soldiers hapless sigh” (11.35) points to the corruption of the government and indicates that perhaps the soldier has lost sight of the reason for fighting wars that shed so much blood. The image of blood running down the palace walls is also a image of the mental pollution that holds the city in thrall and is an overt criticism of a monarchy that sends soldiers out to do what goes against their will and sense of justice.
The final stanza is one filled with powerful images like that of the “youthful Harlot’s curse” (14.35) that alludes to the practice of forcing young girls into prostitution and laments marriage as an institution in decline. The practice of marrying for interest alone rather than any consideration of love led men to search for fulfillment elsewhere and the economics of the time forced many young women of lower classes into prostitution. The “midnight streets” (13.35) symbolize the dark nature of the morals of society where the birth of illegitimate children and disease abound as a result of this practice.
The curse of the harlot “blasts the newborn infants tear” (13.35) seems to be a mourning cry for the death and destruction of family values also lost in the forced marriages of the day. Finally the poet joins marriage to death in the image of the “marriage hearse” (14.35), an image, that Freedman says, originates in “the sexual and economic exploitation of women by the men of respectable society” (3) in a society rife with venereal disease. The images created by Blake in this stanza are the final pieces spawning a bleak image of London that is full of horror and apathy that afflict the very institutions that have created it.
Blake the prophet has effectively written a universal message that transcends London and time and carries a warning that applies as much now as it did in 1794. If we look around we can clearly see similar decline affecting our own society and the witness the same disregard that Blake the observer saw in the streets of his London.
“London, 1802” is written in sonnet form and quickly and concisely conveys its message and provokes thought not only of Wordsworth’s time but our own just as Blake’s “London” does. William Wordsworth also clearly mourns the decline of a society, although he is speaking of more of England as a whole rather London herself. He is not as vehement in his condemnation of society as Blake is in “London” but the themes of pollution, moral corruption, materialism and loss of “happiness, manners virtue, and freedom” (6, 8.255) come through just as clearly. He recognizes the need and longs for the return to a time when materialism and corruption are not paramount.
Wordsworth uses apostrophe and calls upon Milton, dead for about 150 years, to witness the depths to which England has sunk. He characterizes England as a swamp “of stagnant waters” (2-3.255) which is representative of the moral and political corruption symbolized by altar and sword metaphors for church and government. Stagnant can also been seen as a reference to the pollution that accompanies an industrial and materialistic society. This corruption and pollution would have been more visible in London than anywhere else as it is the nature of such evils to manifest themselves where there is a large concentration of people.
In speaking of speaking of “Written in London, September 1802”, Wordsworth noted: “This was written immediately after my return from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade of our own country, especially in the towns and cities” (Behrendt, 7). Although it was written as a comment for a different work it can just as easily be applied to “London, 1802”. Lines 4 through 6 echo these same sentiments, which Behrendt suggests several times in “Placing Places in Wordsworth’s 1802 Sonnets” are a continuing theme for Wordsworth in his political sonnets.
Wordsworth is saying that people are more selfish and self-centered than they were in Milton’s time due to the fact that material things have become the center of their lives. He decries the forfeit of the values, which once placed home (“fireside”), honor and virtue (“heroic wealth of hall and bower”) (4.255) above all others. This forfeiture caused by selfishness and greed has also cost the people of England their inner peace and happiness.
The “pen” (3.255) becomes a symbol for lost knowledge and in lines 7 and 8 Wordsworth calls for the return of Milton to restore this knowledge and with that knowledge “manners, virtue, freedom, (and) power” (8.255). Behrendt says that in “invoking Milton for the purpose of correcting what is wrong with society the implication is that Milton is a Jesus figure who will redeem and resurrect those who are powerless to help themselves” (7). Behrendt also theorizes “Wordsworth sees himself as an extension of Milton and that through his writing and exposure of the corruption, vanity and greed so prevalent within society he can help to restore the lost knowledge that has been forfeited by selfishness and greed” (7). For Wordsworth, Milton becomes the role model to whom all men should look to as a moral and selfless example if they are to recover their lost virtue and honor.
The turn comes in line 9 and Wordsworth moves from scrutinizing the chaos created by man’s greed and selfishness to contemplating the perfection that he sees in Milton a man he distinguishes as unconcerned with material things. As a “Star” (9.255) Behrendt says, “Milton is the guiding light by which moral and political navigators can take their bearings” (8) and steer England back into safe waters away from the harmful affects of materialism and industrialization. In Milton Wordsworth symbolically recovers all of the virtues that have been lost. Milton “hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,” (10-11.255) a direct contrast to the “fen of stagnant waters” (3-4.255) that England has become. “Majestic (and) free” are juxtaposed against the imprisonment of men within the materialistic world bound by Blake’s symbolic manacles.
In the final three lines of “London, 1802” Wordsworth presents Milton as a “common, godly” (12-13.255) man who is free of the “vanity and parade” of “Written in London, 1802”. The implication is that if society would follow the example of Milton and live simply and cease to think of themselves first they might be able to overcome the vices that the turn to materialism has given rise to. They could then recover “manners”(8.255),
“the rules of decorum and behavior they govern, (that Behrendt claims)
…bind the human community in that mutually beneficial relationship in
which due consideration for the rights, privileges, happiness, and comfort
of others govern all interaction” (8).
A return of manners would eliminate the self-centered man and perhaps once again realize a society that is concerned for others, thus stalling the decline brought on by greed and selfishness.
Wordsworth wrote “London, 1802” in response to his own reactions to the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution and the materialism that it brought with it. He disliked the corruption and pollution that accompanied it and wished for a return to a simpler, less obviously wicked time. He invokes Milton on behalf of England but it is also his own personal need he is voicing. He is warning that unless people wake up and realize the effects materialism is having they will be the losers in a society that no longer considers the needs of mankind. This disregard of each other can only lead to the demise of civilized society.
These two poems written from divergent positions accurately convey the same images of a society in decline. Blake as the omniscient observer and Wordsworth as the concerned patriot/poet both paint a picture of the woes and trials of a society immersed in the effects that materialism and corruption brought on by the Industrial revolution. They contain dire warnings that mankind must change their ways are dire or the consequences will be terrible and price of whatever is gained will be too high to countenance. The fact that the messages of both these poems transcend time and strike home today as strongly as they did when they were written is the most striking aspect of these two poems in my mind.
Works Cited
Blake, William. “London.” Selected Writings of The British Romantic Period
1780-1830. Ed. Anne McWhir. Calgary: University of Calgary, 2004. p. 35.
Behrendt, Stephen C. “Placing the Places in Wordsworth’s 1802 Sonnets”. Studies
In English Literature, 1500 – 1900. (Rice Univ., Houston , TX) (35.4 ) [Autumn 1995] p. 641… LION. University of Calgary Lib. 30 Nov. 2004.
Freedman, Carl. “London as Science Fiction: A Note on Some Images from
Johnson, Blake, Wordsworth, Dickens, and Orwell.” Extrapolation (Kent
State Univ., Kent, OH) (43.3) [Fall 2020], p. 251-262. LION. University of
Calgary Lib. 02 Dec. 2004.
Wordsworth, William. “London, 1802.” ENGL 440.01 Selected Writings of The
British Romantic Period 1780-1830. Ed. Anne McWhir. Calgary:
University of Calgary, 2004. p. 255.
