Sample Research Paper

Exxx Fxxxx

Prof. Crosby

WRT-201

December 3, 2015

Destruction by Experience

            William Blake, an unknown London born artist in his time inspired by the paranormal gifts given to him by “God” who “put his head to the window” (poets.org, WEB).  Blake’s sightings gave him a more inventive view when it came to the creation of his paintings and poems.  “London” is a poem written in the Songs of Experience that depicts what Blake sees as he walks through the streets of his hometown.  This piece by Blake is a constituent of Songs of Experience, by William Blake, that display how the children in the Songs of Innocence, by William Blake, have been destroyed by the Church and the practices of daily adult living.

            “London,” is a poem that “is a protest against the social conditions that the speaker observes as he walks the streets of London” (Constantakis, 144).  Blake, in this piece, is showing his reader the disgust that he has towards the tainted beings he views in his journey through the streets of London.  Blake was a nonconformist, whose views did not conform to prevailing ideas or practices; he was “a man of radical political views, opposed to the established order… he expressed himself through his art rather than his actions” (Aubrey, 152).  Blake used his poems to express his nonconformist views, signifying how “London” was written to do this. 

Unlike the church, a strong political figure at the time, Blake believed that humans should live naturally and freely as they pleased; being unafraid and unchained to express their inner-selves.  Churches taught that humans were creatures born with sin, predestined to live a life of prayer and servitude to God so that they may be cleansed and accepted to the heavens.  In opposition, Blake felt that human life “is unbounded and unrestricted; it can never be confined, and it does not belong within the restrictive realm of laws and morality” (Aubrey, 153).  Blake believed that life should not be trapped and committed, that humans deserved to be open to live as freely as they desire.

Blake desires to be a prophet and a man of inspiration, wanting others to believe that man should not be trapped.  However, he does not act as the prophet that he should be.  He is a man who expresses feeling via manuscript as opposed to speech, and one can see this as Blake wanders “thro’ eachcharter’d street” (Blake, 1).  The action of wandering is to signify that he has no purpose or role.  When a deliverer of faith and inspiration walks through a crowded city he has a purpose, and does not “wander” like Blake does.  Blake, a clever man, “knew all this, and knew it with a knowing beyond our knowing” (Bloom, 55-58).  Blake implements the word “wander” implicitly, having a greater knowledge on the effect of the word than the one reading his piece.

Considering the creativity on how Blake can implicitly execute word placement, one has to analyze words to estimate the greater picture that Blake is trying to portray.  Blake sets up the rest of the poem with his first two lines via the word “charter’d.”  A charter “is not claimed as of right” and is something “bestowed upon some group by some authority” (Thompson, 5-8).  Something that is “charter’d” is given and controlled by a higher power; that higher power being the Church that Blake is so radically against.  Blake’s use of the word “charter’d” depicts how the Church controls the streets that he is wandering in line one. 

The usage of the word “charter’d” in line two, shows the extent of the control by the Church; “near where the charter’d Thames does flow” (Blake, 2).  Thames is a river in southern England that flows 210 miles east from the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire through London to the North Sea.  The influence of the Church is amplified this way, noting how their power affects a river of such magnitude.  Blake purposely includes the Thames, showing his ability to pick and choose words to illustrate something over and above.

The Church’s influence was a great one, and Blake takes note of this, “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” (Blake, 5-8).  Blake is showing his reader how he hears the suffering from all of the people; including newborn whom are already suffering in fear of the shackles from the Church.  In Catholicism, one is baptized before they can even walk, being predestined to live a life of service to the Catholic God.  Considering Blake’s supernatural claim to see more than is possible to be viewed by the human eye, Blake must have seen children as smart and intelligent; believing that even the children knew of the suffering that was to come. 

Blake had a high disdain to the Church and he felt that their teachings were against what human life was really about.  He believes that the Church traps one, damning them to a life that they should not have to live.  Blake shows this belief by saying how in “in every ban, the mind-forg’d manacles I hear” (8).  Blake is drawing how the Church shapes the mind of a person and entangles them, noting the word manacles, a metal band that is used to fasten someone’s hands or ankles.  The people of London are trapped by the suffering, sharing their agony with cries.

Not only does Blake hear the suffering of the London people, but he also sees them, “mark in every face I meet” (Blake, 3).  The marks that he sees are the tattooed influences of the Church onto the people.  To be marked is to be highlighted, implying that one can easily note who is under the domination of the church.  Blake views the citizens of London as powerless and fragile, noting how every living being that he encounters has “marks of weakness, marks of woe” (Blake, 4).  Blake wants the world to free themselves from the shackles of the Church but notes how unable they are in doing so due to their lack of strength. 

As the poem progresses, Blake becomes somewhat more literal in depicting how the Church causes suffering.  When the Chimney-sweeper’s cry, “every blackning Church appalls” (Blake, 10).  Blake uses the adjective “blackning” to exemplify how the Church taints the souls of the afflicted Chimney-sweepers, showing their great dismay towards to the suffering Chimney-sweepers whom should be happy in their confining religion.  No longer is Blake implying, but is instead explicitly writing how the Church is “blackning” the people in London.  He is unquestionably showing his disdain towards to what the Church brainwashes the people to believe.  The word “blackning” is also a literal description of what the church produces from the chimneys.  The church emits a darkness over the people “caused by the smoke from the chimneys that the sweeps clean, and darkening, instead of brightening, the lives of those who live under it” (Crehan, 72-79).  Blake is describing what the church literally does, and it paints a picture for the reader of the overall power that the church has, affecting the civilians in London. 

The suffering is widespread and inescapable and Blake instills this idea via the usage of repetition.  Three key words used by Blake are “mark, every” and “cry.”  In the beginning of the poem, the usage of the word mark is first used as an action and then is used as a noun (Changjuan, GALE).  The effects of the word mark are complex: “the observer ‘marks’, but he marks ‘marks’” (Changjuan, GALE).  The word mark is used in an interesting way as it draws an image of a man wandering through the streets as he takes note of the suffering and the ‘weakness’ and ‘woe.’  These very marks are shown to be inescapable with the word “every” in lines three, five through seven, and nine.  It magnifies the extent of the suffering, “showing that no one can escape from the miserable and tragic reality, that is, there are ‘the mind-forg’d manacles’ everywhere” (Changjuan, GALE).  Blake uses the word “every” five times in the second stanza to greater emphasize how “everything” was under the “blackning” of the church.  Blake really wanted to empower the idea that the church’s grasp is great; affecting many individuals within the walls of London.

            Blake feels that the suffering of the people in London began in their childhood state, being highly influenced from the work hard state of mind that the Churches instilled.  Blake wanted to fight this, believing that children should not work and should instead be free to live the happy lives they are meant to live.  The poems found in his book, Songs of Innocence, show his belief where children are pure and free of sin, playing to their hearts’ content and being happy for it.  In each poem, the speakers are innocent and “are playful, open to life, spontaneous, and receptive.  They do not burden themselves with guilt; they instead interact joyfully with others” (Aubrey, 153).  Since the speakers are free of sin, they get to live with a joy that would not be allowed with the “no game” mentality of Methodist church teachings.  

            Blake’s Songs of Experience, starkly contrast the happiness that one finds in his original works in Songs of Innocence.  Using the Songs of Experience, Blake depredates the work hard way of thinking that the church instills and takes note of the suffering and misery that he sees amongst the people.  In London alone, Blake writes of the “sweeper’s cry… the hapless Soldier’s sigh… the youthful Harlot’s curse” (9, 11, 14).  Blake uses these three examples within his poem to depict the people that were suffering under the church.  Blake, I believe, felt that these characters were prime examples of those that were not politically powerful like the church nor fortunate enough to live the free life that he felt they deserved.

Soldiers in 19^th century London were peasants whom were forced to fight to retain power and political status.  When Blake states “the hapless Soldier’s sigh runs in blood down Palace walls” (11, 12), he is symbolically telling the reader that the soldiers bleed for the church so that they may stand.  After serving in the army, soldiers were discharged and “left destitute, having no way of supporting themselves in the city” (Constantakis, GALE).  These soldiers were abandoned in the streets were left to rot and die under the black soot that engulfed the London sky.  The word “hapless” tells how unfortunate these soldiers are because of their fates to die for a greater power.

Then comes the harlot, carrying a curse that is actually “syphilis, whose contagion indiscriminately blinds the new-born infant and turns the marriage bed into a ‘hearse’ (Crehan, 72-79).  Blake is taking note of the prostitute who is sick with a deadly sexually transmitted disease, damning her new born child with a fate that was only possible by the lack of social power that she contained; Women were forced to become harlots due to their misfortune (Changjuan, GALE).  The misery that ensued would inspire them to spread it around, infecting others that they came in touch with; such as the infant that was given birth to in line 15 of London.  She, like the soldier, is affected by the “blackning” of the church, causing her to live a life of misery and pain by the “curse” that has been placed on her. 

            An important historical fact to take into account is the use of chimney-sweepers in the industrial city of London.  The church taught children to work and not play games, children were forced to live appalling lives of labor under harsh conditions.  The chimney-sweepers crying in line nine of “London” are children that were robbed of the spontaneous and playful life that Blake felt deserved.  Children as young as “four and seven were sold by their parents or taken from the poorhouse and placed in a so-called apprenticeship that was little better than slavery” (Constantakis, GALE).  The child labor forced them into small spaces as chimney-sweepers; the children used were not treated all that well and faced harsh conditions:

“The average size of these vents was something like seven inches square,

 and the small child was prodded or pushed into the even smaller spaces

 within; sometimes they were encouraged with poles, or pricked with pins,

 or scorched with fire to make them climb with more enthusiasm.  Many

 child chimney sweepers died or were maimed in the course of their work,

 which  began at dawn and ended at midday.  After that they were left to

 roam the streets, hungry and dressed in rags” (Constantakis, GALE).

Children were forced to live harsh lives, not being able to enjoy the freedom to live happily as Blake felt they should have. 

            Blake wrote this poem in political and social protest, noting the marks on faces, the darkness that engulfed them, and the suffering that ensued in London.  Blake was a nonconformist who passively wrote instead of acting upon his feelings, failing to be the prophet that he desired to be.  Blake had high disdain towards what the church taught due to what their “blackning” effect on the people of London; such as the suffering of children, veterans, and women who simply could not do better.  London is a story of a man who is walking through this hometown, upset about how his people are forced to live with “mind-forg’d manacles” under the “blessings” of the church. 

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. "Blake and Revisionism," William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, ed. Harold Bloom (New York, Chelsea House, 1987), 55–58. Quoted as "Wandering Through 'London'" in Harold Bloom, ed. William Blake, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 2 Dec. 2015

Bryan Aubrey, Critical Essay on “London,” in Poetry for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2012.

Crehan, Stewart. Blake in Context (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan Humanities Press, 1984), 72–79. Quoted as "The Social System of 'London'" in Harold Bloom, ed. William Blake, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 2 Dec. 2015

Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol. 40. Detroit: Gale, 2012. p142-157. COPYRIGHT 2012 Gale, Cengage Learning

Thompson, E. P. "London." In Interpreting Blake, ed. M. Phillips (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 5–8. Quoted as "The Ways in Which Words Change 'London'" in Harold Bloom, ed. William Blake, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 2 Dec. 2015

William, Blake. “The Chimney Sweeper.” Songs of Experience.

William, Blake. “London.” Songs of Experience.

Zhan, Changjuan. "William Blake and his poem 'London'." Theory and Practice in Language Studies 3.9 (2013): 16