Mike Munoz
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Born in 1757
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Son of a Hosier (sold gloves, stockings, haberdashery)
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Shortly attend conventional school
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Later withdrew and was trained in drawing painting and
engraving
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Saw mystical visions and as a child once “screamed when
he saw God put his head to the window“ (Richardson 1).
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Worked as an artist and engraver
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Wrote poems inside his illuminated books
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Printed illuminated books as Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and For Children: The Gates of Paradise
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Died known as a painter and engraver.
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Now recognized as one of the great Romantic poet alongside
Wordsworth.
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The poem was written in 1794
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American Revolution ended about a decade before
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French Revolution in progress
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England increases the control of people with restricting
laws and bans
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Industrial Revolution booming
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1.
2.
3.
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1.
2.
Loss of innocence:
Children
Nature
Marriage/love
Corruption of institutions
Government: restricting free thought
Church
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“London” Text
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Explanation
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I wander through each chartered street,
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Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
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And mark in every face I meet
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Even the harbor
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Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
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Each face I see is tired and weary
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In every cry of every man,
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The weariness is seen in every aspect of life.
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The peoples minds are being restricted
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In every infant's cry of fear,
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In every voice, in every ban,
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The mind-forged manacles I hear.
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“Charter” Each street Is not owned by the
people
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“London” Text
How the chimney-sweeper's cry
And the hapless soldier's sigh
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Runs in blood down palace walls.
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Child laborers suffer
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The church is becoming corrupt, nature is
becoming corrupt
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Workers are complaining
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Prostitutes solicit the street
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“Curse”: STD, bartering between customers
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“Marriage Hearse”: sanctity of marriage is dead,
But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the newborn infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.
Explanation
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Every blackening church appalls;
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STD causes death
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I wander through each chartered street,
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Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
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
And mark in every face I meet
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How the chimney-sweeper's cry

Every blackening church appalls;

And the hapless soldier's sigh Runs in blood
down palace walls.
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,

In every infant's cry of fear,

But most through midnight streets I hear

How the youthful harlot's curse Blasts the
newborn infant's tear,
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In every voice, in every ban,
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The mind-forged manacles I hear.
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.
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Blake, William. “London.” Songs of Innocence and Experience. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Print.
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Google Images
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O'Keeffe, Bernard. "'London' and 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge': Bernard O'Keeffe compares and contextualises
Blake's and Wordsworth's poems to illuminate aspects of writing from the Romantic era." The English Review 17.1
(2006): 21+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 May 2013.
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Reinhart, Charles. "William Blake." British Romantic Poets, 1789-1832: First Series. Ed. John R. Greenfield. Detroit: Gale
Research, 1990. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 93. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 May 2013.
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Richardson, Alan. "William Blake." British Children's Writers, 1800-1880. Ed. Meena Khorana. Detroit: Gale Research, 1996.
Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 163. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 May 2013.
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