The Songs of Experience - Explication of London Essay

The Songs of Experience - Explication of London nbsp; William Blake published, in 1794, a collection of poems entitled The Songs of Experience. This collection works in collaboration with an earlier collection of the authors poems called The Songs of Innocence. The works of 1794 bring to the reader a more realistic or even pessimistic view of the authors native England, in comparison to the poems in The Songs of Innocence. One of the works in the more realistic collection is simply titled London. In this work Blake gives a concise critique of the city that shares its name with the title as the speaker moves among the suffering people of that city. The poem condemns the condition of the city and its people. Blake†¦show more content†¦nbsp; The second stanza explores some of the suffering faces. Noted are the cries of men and infants. The scope is expanded to include every voice (ln.7). Then there is an extension of the ironic theme established with the use of Charterd in the first stanza. Blake writes, in every ban, / The mind-forged manacles I hear: (lns.7-10). The poet argues that the minds of the English people have been shackled by governmental control. Societys rules call up images of a people imprisoned without the freedom of thought. Blake is stating that England is not a land of liberated people, but rather a land of rules that dictate thought. It is possible that this inability to think freely is the true cause of suffering for Blake. nbsp; The third stanza explores two specific types of suffering people, and the institutions who have turned their backs on them. Blake writes; How the chimney-sweepers cry/ Every blackning Church appalls, (lns.9-10). The referential meaning of this utterance calls to mind the physical darkening of a church in the early days of the industrial revolution. Appalls, carries a variety of meanings, some of which deal with decay or the tarnishing of an object. Other more conventional meanings for our time call up images of horror. The idea of decay is there, but we can consider this decay on a spiritual level as well. Perhaps a blackning Church is one that has fallen from grace. As long asShow MoreRelated The Hidden Meaning of The Nuns Priests Tale Essay3752 Words   |  16 Pagessupporting exempla and makes passing reference to several more. Through the sheer mass of his evidence he wins his argument. However, he uses his precedents only to prove the contrary of what someone else has argued rather than to master his primary experience in order to interpret it10. Having argued that his dream presages adversitee (4343), Chauntecleer blithely ignores his own conclusion. Why is this? What was the point of the debate if not to discover whether Chauntecleer was in genuine dangerRead More The Death of the ‘Authorlessness Theory’? 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