There are some greater differences to be considered. They both have completely different overall views of London. In ‘London’ Blake creates a horrible image of London.
He talks of the streets being ‘chartered’, which can be taken a few ways, but both create the same image. It could mean that they belonged to the city of London and was forced to obey certain rules, but had certain rights too, which could be Blake’s way of saying that those streets were the best off and yet they were still terrible and tied down by rules. However, it could also just be saying that they are confined and restricted. In this line Blake also uses an oxymoron because he says that he ‘wandered through each chartered street’ which is self-contradictory. If something is chartered and restricted it would be impossible to wander because wandering suggests freedom. By using this oxymoron it would appear that Blake is trying to show that he is fighting against the restrictions and sees himself as being free from all that ties down the people of London.
The theme of being restricted continues throughout the poem when he says ‘the mind-forged manacles I hear’. This is very vivid imagery, which describes how people are effectively chained to a certain idea and there is no escaping it. People would not ever think of living any other way, it is quite obviously an idea that Blake was against. Blake was a very opinionated man and believed that people should think for themselves.
In the second quatrain Blake repeats ‘cry’ along with ‘fear’. This is emotive language that causes the reader to feel saddened for those who live in London. He also uses ‘in every’ at the beginning of three of the lines. This creates an insistent pattern in the rhythm to create the sound of somebody hammering the point.
Also, later on, Blake describes the churches as ‘blackening’. There are many ways to look at this description. He may be trying to point out that the churches are meant to be important but even they have been neglected, or it may have a more philosophical or religious significance. He could be seeing the church blackening with sin or that the restrictions of the church is disgusting him, which links with the fact that Blake was against restrictions. In the same quatrain Blake says ‘The hapless soldier’s sigh runs in blood down Palace walls.’ This links with the French revolution with blood literally running down palace walls, showing Blake’s political views, but it also could just be him expressing that all blood spilled by English soldiers was in the hands of the palace and the royalty, thus it metaphorically running down palace walls.
In the last quatrain Blake talks of the deaths that were caused by people sleeping with prostitutes and catching venereal diseases. He describes it as being a ‘plague’. He also has another oxymoron here by saying ‘Marriage hearse’ and ‘Youthful harlot’s curse’. This creates the image that marrying these men, who have been cursed by having relationships with the prostitutes, just leads to certain death. During this quatrain he creates emotion with the line ‘blasts the new-born infant’s tear’, which has been added to cause reaction with anyone who reads it. It causes people to feel empathetic towards the child who will grow up without parents.
However, Wilde has a completely different view of London in ‘Symphony in Yellow’, which may be because he found a lot of success there. The title suggests a lot of things working together in a mass of yellow. A symphony is ordered, but not chaotic which often may be associated with London.
The poem creates positive images in your mind throughout, very unlike Blake’s poem ‘London’. Though, he is talking mainly of polluted fog, an omnibus and a wharf he creates a picture of beauty in the readers mind.
He describes the yellow, sulphur-filled fog as a ‘yellow silken scarf’ as if it were as precious as silk. He compares the Thames to ‘rippled jade’ when jade is a precious green gem. Really the Thames should not be green and yet Wilde makes it out to be something beautiful.
Also, he compares the omnibus to a ‘yellow butterfly’. Comparing it to a delicate tiny insect shows that he is looking from a distance and that he views most things as being beautiful. This links to the fact that Wilde was involved in the Aesthetic movement. This movement believed that beauty should be found in places where most did not find it. They tended to use the colour yellow and refer to transient things like butterflies and they believed that art was a moment that could be captured. His involvement in the movement is well shown in this particular poem.
However, he describes the people in the poem as showing like a ‘restless midge’. This is not a pleasant description, though it is not making it sound any less beautiful. Comparing the people to small, annoying bugs perhaps could be taken to say that they are small and insignificant and hardly noticeable and yet, alternatively, it could be seen to mean that they are irritating.
To describe them as midges and being small tells us that Wilde is probably looking at London from a distance.
The poems have completely different moods and tones. The mood to ‘London’ is very pitying and sombre. Blake seems somewhat disgusted with the state of London- ‘Every blackening church appals’. Whereas, the mood to ‘Symphony in yellow’ is far more positive with use of positive words such as ‘silken’ and ‘jade’ which create a positive and rich sense. Also the word ‘flutters’ is used which creates a sense of calming and gracefulness.
The tones of each poem are extremely different. Blake’s is far more bitter than Wilde’s.
The two poems, are very separate but for their initial layout and their topic of the city of London. Wilde has a very positive view of London. He became very successful and was a leader in style and fashion there. He became very rich in his time of living there also. Being part of the Aesthetic movement meant that he was extremely into writing poems about beauty, especially in obscure places. Whereas Blake grew up in London in the lower middle class society and was little known in is time. This meant that he had a very negative view about London. He felt strongly about individuality and was involved in the Romanticism movement. The ideals of the Romantics were that money, the church, religion, trade and the industrial revolution corrupted people hence Blake’s comments about the church blackening and people being tied down in their minds.
Both of the poet’s backgrounds are made apparent in their poems and thus reflect the poet’s views in how they describe the city. However, it could be seen that Wilde was just exercising his writing abilities as a poet to turn London into something very beautiful.
The poems are both successful in their own rights. ‘London’ was Blake’s way of sharing how London was to him. Many people would have seen London to have been the way Wilde did because they had not experienced London in the same way as Blake did in growing up there. Thus, Blake was trying to show how it was corrupted. He managed it through strong, clear imagery. However, Wilde, being part of the Aesthetic movement, believed that he could find beauty in London. Writing it as if from the distance he constructed a poem, which does find aspects of London being described as beautiful with many similes.
I found that ‘London’ was probably a lot more effective at getting Blake’s views across, however. It was far more emotive and gave you a much stronger sense of what he had to say than Wilde’s ‘Symphony in yellow’ did because Blake had a much stronger message to put across. In ‘London’, Blake has some very strong imagery, which allows you to actually visualise, whereas Wilde’s poem seems a lot less visual as his comparisons are not as strong.
