William Blake - London
I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals;
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls.
But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.
William Blake’s poem “London”, first published in 1974, deals with the difficult and hard life in London at that time. He describes how dirty the streets and the Thames is and how the poor people suffer hopelessly and how they are in dire need of money.. He has created a dark atmosphere, that’s dull and tiring.
In the poem the speaker wanders through the streets of London and comments on his observations. He sees despair in the faces of the people he meets and hears fear and repression in their voices. The woeful cry of the chimney-sweeper stands as a chastisement to the Church, and the blood of a soldier stains the outer walls of the monarch's residence. The nighttime holds nothing more promising: the cursing of prostitutes corrupts the newborn infant and sullies the "Marriage hearse."
The main ideas in ‘London’ that Blake is trying to put across are that London is a horrible, grotty place. He also suggests that the people in London live in fear and misery. The poem has four quatrains, with alternate lines rhyming. Repetition is the most striking formal feature of the poem, and it serves to emphasize the prevalence of the horrors the speaker describes. For example ‘every cry of every man’. This suggests that everyone is upset and as a result of this they are crying and also the repetition of ‘every’ really emphasises everyone of London. He also uses repetition of ‘every’ to emphasise the idea that every man of London is suffering. The repetition may also symbolize the way in which things can be enforced into peoples minds, repeatedly doing things may cause them to become a habit.
The language Blake has used in ‘London’ is mainly negative, because he uses dark, gloomy adjectives, such as, ‘blackening’. This suggests a dark, evil and corrupt scene. He does this to create a negative picture of London. Blake shows his disgust and hatred of the London he lived in. for example, he mentions the idea ‘Plague’ for example, ’Blights With Plagues the marriage-hearse’. This suggests that even the happiest things, such as marriage are tarnished with disease. Blake also uses dark imagery to create a dark tone of the poem. There is also an example of juxtaposition in ‘London’ when Blake put ‘marriage’ and ‘hearse’ together, suggesting marriage then death. The effect of placing a symbol of death next to marriage – a happy event is saying basically that happiest things in life are tarnished by disease, such as the plague, causing death.
The poem ‘London’ is written in four stanzas. The poem uses an ‘A, B,A,B’ rhyming pattern, which is restricted to that beat. Blake also uses assonance for example ‘flow’ and ‘woe’. It has 14 lines and is written in iambic pentameter. Blake uses his rhetorical skills of alliteration, imagery, and word choice to create his poem, but more importantly to express the emotional significance that is implied. the central metaphor of this poem, the "mind-forg'd manacles" of the second stanza. Once more a vivid symbol explains a deep human truth. The image of the forge appears in The Tyger (stanza 4). Here Blake imagines the mind as a forge where "manacles" are made. Blake writes ironically of "the chartered Thames". The "weakness" and the "woe" (a strong word in 1794; =misery) of every person is plain to see "in every face", as in their cries, whether of adults or babies (stanza 2). the "hapless" (unfortunate) soldier is topical: the poem was written shortly after the start of the French Revolution: this was so bloody an uprising that the figure of speech called hyperbole (=exaggeration) was often used, as blood was said to be running down the walls.
William Blake's poem, "London", is obviously a sorrowful poem. In the first two stanzas point out to us that London is restricted by rules and regulations. Blake utilizes alliteration and word choice to set the sad atmosphere. Blake introduces his reader to the narrator as he "wanders" through the "chartered" society. A society in which every person he sees has "marks of weakness, marks of woe." Blake repeatedly uses the word "every" and "cry" in the second stanza to symbolize the depression that circle around the entire society. The "mind-forged manacles" the narrator hears suggests that he is not mentally stable.
In the third stanza, shows us who are restricting the people of London, i.e the Church The Soldiers and the Palace/Monarch.Blake utilizes imagery of destruction and religion. This imagery is a paradox, which implies some religious destruction like the apocalypse. The "chimney-sweeper's cry" symbolizes the society trying to clean the ashes that causes their state of depression. Blake uses the religious imagery of the "black'ning church" to represent the loss of innocence, and the society's abandonment of religion. The use of the soldiers creates an imagery of war. The "hapless soldier's sigh" symbolize how men are drafted into war and have no choice but to serve their country. As these soldiers unwilling march to the beat of the country's forceful drum, they know their lives will be taken, as their "sigh runs in blood down palace walls." Blake uses this sense of destruction to explain how people are forced to repair the "weakness" and "woe" of their society.
The fourth stanza of "London" unravels the complex meaning of the poem. The "youthful harlot's curse" symbolizes how the youth's sinful deeds will effect the next generation. Their "curse" causes the "newborn infant's tear" which exemplifies how the new generation will have to correct the mistakes of the previous generation. The "plagues" also symbolizes this curse, and the "marriage hearse" creates a paradox, which confuses eternity and death.
The poem climaxes at the moment when the cycle of misery recommences, in the form of a new human being starting life: a baby is born into poverty, to a cursing, prostitute mother. Sexual and marital union--the place of possible regeneration and rebirth--are tainted by the blight of venereal disease. Thus Blake's final image is the "Marriage hearse," a vehicle in which love and desire combine with death and destruction.
William Blake's "London" is a poem about a society that is troubled by the mistakes of the generation before. Blake uses the rhetorical components of imagery, alliteration, and word choice to illustrate the meaning of the poem. What exactly does this poem mean? Blake creates complexity by using his rhetorical skills, which in turn opens up the poem for personal interpretation.
追问这位。。。爱心人士。。。我的学历是高中一年级。。。能给点翻译不。。。
追答威廉布莱克-伦敦
我在每个特许街，附近的特许泰晤士河川流不息，和标记在每一张脸我满足软弱的痕迹，痕迹的悲哀。在每个人的每一声呼喊，在每一个婴儿的哭泣的恐惧，在每一个声音，从每一条禁令，我听到的mind-forged手铐。多少扫烟囱的孩子的哭泣每一个黑教堂吓怕了；和不幸士兵的叹息如鲜血沿着宫墙流淌。但大多数深夜的街头我听到如何年轻妓女的诅咒爆炸的新出生的婴儿的眼泪，又用瘟疫婚姻灵车。