Compare and contrast these two views about London. What techniques do the poets use in order to convey their particular interpretations?
These two poems present two very different images of London .At the time of writing London was the largest city in the world and was rapidly growing.
This is the view of London that Blake puts forward
At a glance Blake does not like London but still believes it to be chartered (royal)
Taking a closer look Blake talks about the misery and unhappiness that was caused by the oppressive laws mistreating the poor people. Prostitution is spoken about in a highly negative light more so than it is now, this is probably because of the fact that the average age of a prostitute was thirteen years old and the youngest were about as young as nine years old. The poem is very negative and the only somewhat good thing about it is the word chartered which means royal. There is a lot of repetition and alliteration to prove points “cry”, and “every” are repeated in many different contexts; “every cry of every man” “every infants cry of fear”. Blake uses strong compressed language that presents a powerful audible impact, there is an alternate rhyme and there is four beats per line. He also uses strong compressed language that presents powerful images “soldiers sigh” “harlots curse” all of the images eventually focus on the neglected infants cry. Blake realizes that it is not the harlots fault or anyone else that is sufferings fault but it is the society and parliament that have created this diabolical situation. The oxymoron “marriage hearse” has a life “marriage” and death “hearse” to it, it means tat either marriages fail because of men sleeping with harlots ( some who are young enough to be their children or grandchildren) so the couples divorce and the marriage dies and is in a hearse or the fact that in Blake’s times a man would only really ever sleep with his wife if he wanted children, he would sleep with his mistress for pleasure and failing that or if he was away etc. he would go and sleep with harlots. In this way and because of no reliable condoms or even knowledge of these diseases therefore many STDs were passed around and so the man gave his wife STDs when it came time for having children so the wife got the pain of childbirth and the suffering of STDs so to be married was almost like a death sentence.
