1. GCSE: Poetry
London
by William Blake
Lesson Objective – To explore William Blake’s poem London, considering context and deeper meaning
Assessment Objectives for your exam:
AO1:
Read, understand and respond to texts. Students should be able to:
Maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response
Use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations (assessed in all questions)
AO2:
Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate (assessed in all questions)
AO3:
Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written (assessed in responses to the poetry anthology question and 19th century prose question)

2. London GCSE: Poetry by William Blake
Lesson Objective – To explore William Blake’s poem London, considering context and deeper meaning
Lesson Outcomes:
Bronze:
I can make simple comments on the effect that the writer’s context has on the meaning of texts.
My comments make inferences and deductions based on textual evidence.
Silver:
I can give some explanation of how the contexts in which texts are written and read contribute to meaning.
My comments consider wider implications of information, events or ideas in the text contribute to overall meaning.
Gold:
I can make some detailed discussion of how the contexts in which texts are written or read affect meaning.
My comments begin to develop an interpretation of the text making connections between meanings and making insights.
Lesson Outcomes:
Bronze:
I can make simple comments on the effect that the writer’s context has on the meaning of texts.
My comments make inferences and deductions based on textual evidence.
Silver:
I can give some explanation of how the contexts in which texts are written and read contribute to meaning.
My comments consider wider implications of information, events or ideas in the text contribute to overall meaning.
Gold:
I can make some detailed discussion of how the contexts in which texts are written or read affect meaning.
My comments begin to develop an interpretation of the text making connections between meanings and making insights.

3. Some background information on the poet: William Blake
William Blake was a poet and artist who specialised in illuminated texts, often of a religious nature. He rejected established religion for various reasons. One of the main ones was the failure of the established Church to help children in London who were forced to work. Blake lived and worked in the capital, so was arguably well placed to write clearly about the conditions people who lived there faced.

4. Context of the poem
This poem was published in 1794 in a collection called Songs of Experience. Blake wrote this collection of poems to directly contrast another collection of poems called Songs of Innocence. He wrote these two collections to show the ‘two contrary states of the Human Soul.’
Songs of Innocence contains poems which are positive in tone and celebrate love, childhood and nature. Whereas Songs of Experience, which contains the poem London, is intended to provide a contrast and illustrate the effects of modern life and reality (at the time) on people and nature. Dangerous industrial conditions, child labour, prostitution and poverty are just some of the topics explored within this collection. All, however, are mentioned within London.

5. Context of the poem: London when the poem was written
The 18th century was a period of rapid growth for London, reflecting an increasing national population, the early stirrings of the Industrial Revolution, and London's role at the centre of the evolving British Empire. The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools. Due to the increasing amount of factories being built and used within major cities, alongside the already low life expectancy, people within major cities began to die because of disease from pollution, poor hygiene and poverty. Therefore, children became orphans and were often taken into care by workhouses and religious institutions such as the church, where they would work doing manual, dirty jobs such as chimney sweeping or factory work. Some young girls had such a poor quality of life that they would sometimes resort to becoming harlots (prostitutes) from a very young age. The government was a very powerful institution within society, who controlled a very many things within the everyday running of the city – from the way factories were run, to housing laws, to the layout of the streets in the city. Everything within society was run, imposed and created by chartered laws created by the government.
How many did you get right?

6. London by William Blake
I wander thro’ each charter’d street
Near where the charter’d 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-forg’d manacles I hear:
How the Chimney sweepers cry
Every black’ning Church appalls,
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.
Stanza ONE
What is a stanza?
an arrangement of a 
certain number of lines, 
usually four or more, sometimes having a fixed  length, meter, or rhyme 
scheme, forming a division of a poem. Another word for stanza is VERSE.
Stanza TWO
Stanza THREE
Stanza FOUR

7. London by William Blake
Stanza ONE
Confined, mapped out, legally defined. (political movement) – charter: decisions made by government
No destination – narrator is wandering .
I wander thro’ each charter’d street
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
Unhappy state of society at the time.
Location – banks of the River Thames in London
Stanza One summary
The speaker begins the poem by telling the reader a little story. They are suggesting that the streets of London and even the river Thames are the subject of government control, restricted and not free. The speaker notices that every face he sees, show signs of sadness and misery.
Misery/grief/distress

8. London by William Blake
Stanza TWO
Even children share in the problems within society
Capital ‘M’ refers to Mankind – every one in London. Also suggestive of male position in society
Everyone’s problems (children and adults)
Suggests that people are very restricted by laws and bans within society
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:
Forg’d = Made.
Made in the mind – not allowed to believe in own their own thoughts
Shackles/Handcuffs – represents restriction
Stanza Two summary
Blake refers to the combination of the Industrial Revolution and the politics that lead to ‘charter’d’ streets and creates the ‘manacles’ that constrict the people the speaker sees. He suggests that the thing that imprisons the people the speaker meets is not something obvious like poverty or disease, but the way they think and approach life due to the society they live in.

9. London by William Blake
Stanza THREE
Religious imagery – people chose to rely on religion to make them feel better given the conditions and society they lived in
Typical job – usually for young children
Blackened from factories and pollution – industrial revolution
Represents sadness and misery
How the Chimney sweepers cry
Every black’ning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls;
Darkness (metaphorical) outlook on society
Metaphor for pecking order/hierarchy in society – also literal, refers to Buckingham Palace in London
Violent, negative imagery to emphasise conditions in society
Stanza Three summary
The speaker outlines how young children, mainly orphans, who were in the care of the church, were used to clean chimneys. This was a very dirty job and so a lot of these children became very ill and often died. It made them both literally blacker (they were covered in soot) but also metaphorically blacker, in the sense of less innocent and closer to death.
Blake is providing his opinion on this subject when he uses the word ‘appalls’.

10. London by William Blake
Blasts = verbal attack. Maybe the child of the harlot? Babies born into a world where young girls are prostitutes and babies tears are cursed instead of soothed.
Stanza FOUR
A young prostitute – young girls were often forced to resort to this type of work
Profanity/Swearing
Something that spoils or damages something
Positive imagery of marriage immediately followed but the image of a funeral car.
Semi Oxymoronic phrase.
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.
Diseases such as plague were rife within society – very poor levels of hygiene
Stanza Four summary
The speaker mentions how, at night time they can hear the young harlot cursing the cries of new born babies. We are not told specifically I this is the harlot’s baby – but we can assume that is the case. The speaker then provides us with two opposing ideas – one of marriage: joy, happiness, love, union; the other of disease and death. The speaker provides their own view of how even the happiest of things, in this particular society can quickly turn to something negative.

11. Some sentence starters to get you started:
Overall, what do you think William Blake was trying to say by writing this poem?
Write a statement suggesting what Blake would say this poem is about – if you were to ask him face to face
Some sentence starters to get you started:
I think that William Blake wanted to express his views of…
William Blake wanted to present how he felt about…
Blake had certain views of the city of London such as…