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    A Study Guide for William Blake's "London"
    A Study Guide for William Blake's "London"
    A Study Guide for William Blake's "London"
    Ebook32 pages21 minutes

    A Study Guide for William Blake's "London"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for William Blake's "London," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 28, 2016
    ISBN9781535827546
    A Study Guide for William Blake's "London"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for William Blake's "London" - Gale

      12

      London

      William Blake

      1794

      Introduction

      London is a poem by William Blake, who was one of the greatest of the English romantic poets. It was first published in 1794 in Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a collection of poems written and illustrated by Blake and also published by him using a method of printing he invented himself. London is one of the Songs of Experience, which show the suffering that people endure when they lose or forget their former innocent state.

      It is one of Blake's best-known and most powerful short poems, offering a keen sense of the indignation Blake felt at the social injustices of his day. Blake lived in London, and the speaker of the poem, who can safely be identified as the poet himself, walks the streets and records impressions of what he sees and hears in the city. It is not a flattering or uplifting picture of England's capital city. Blake thought that people did not have a clear understanding of the way life should be lived, in joy and freedom. He blamed the institutions of church and state for enslaving people's minds with limiting beliefs that led only to emotional and physical suffering.

      Widely anthologized, London can also be found in Blake: Poetry and Designs, edited by Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant and published by W. W. Norton in 1979.

      Author Biography

      Blake was born on November 18, 1757, in London, to James Blake and his wife, Catherine. Blake's father was a hosier. Blake was tutored at home until he was eleven and was then sent to a drawing school, which he attended until 1772. He was then apprenticed to an engraver, Joseph Basire, for seven years. In 1779, he began to study at the Royal Academy of Art and did commercial engravings for Joseph Johnson, a bookseller. Three

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