blake londons imagery

Jake Perrone
Patrick S, Nicole B

Blake’s London imagery


In the poem London by William Blake the topic of imagery is very obvious. Blake uses imagery to describe how the city has changed since a plague began. He starts out giving you a brief description of where he is in London, England. He talks about how he wanders the streets of London and how they are leased out under patent. From his words you understand these streets happen to be near the Thames River. When he states,” Marks of weakness, marks of woe” it makes me think of how each person has a different look on their face. The look seems to be one of grief, despair, and sadness. As Blake continues in the poem, he continues to describe the looks and feelings you can see on the occupants faces. These looks mainly come from the poverty and hardships that come with having a plague in your community. The final lines are very inevitably writings of sadness. Blake talks about the new-born children crying and how young harlots are cursing. Both of these lines make you visualize that the young men have anger on their face and I believe they are swearing or talking with profanity, while the children are crying with pain because they have acquired the plague. Elsewhere in the poem Blake also talks about the infants fear and the chimney sweeps crying. This just shows you how horrible a plague can be on the community. You’re talking about men who face great heights and fears every day, breaking down and crying from how painful or hard the plague is to watch.
In line 12, you get a very gruesome visual of blood running down palace walls. This means either there is people who are wounded, are dying or who have died atop the palace walls. These words just make me picture a waterfall effect, with how the blood would be running down a stony wall of a London palace. This also shows that even the royalty and their minions were not immune to the plague. The poem in its entirety shows you how in just one street you can see some of the most horrible things you would ever see just because of an illness.

Works CitedBlake, William. *London.* Literature Across Cultures. 5th ed. Gillespie, Sheena, et. al. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 853.Print.