- Last seen on Feb 13 10:19 AM 2006. Member since February 14, 2006.
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I’m really close to tears I’m teetering on the edge - One of many faces at storywrite
Looking, never seeing. You see their eyes scan around the carriage, but are they really looking for anything in particular? Are they searching out the eyes of someone who they - Crazy at storywrite
Sitting on the deep red sofa in the living room, her legs curled beneath her, she could hear the sound of the constant fireworks outside. One after the other they exploded into
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on Symphony In Yellow by Oscar Wilde, on January 24, 2006I like the way that this poem makes terrible things sound precious. Like 'silken scarf' for the polluted fog and 'rippled jade' for the green thames.
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on The Charge Of The Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson, on January 23, 2006I love this poem, we studied it in English recently. I have aleays loved Tennyson especially in his most political of times. This poem is so sombre but beautiful at the same time. It is beautifully haunting.
It has some wonderful imagery and some amazing metaphors in there.
I had to compare it to 'Symphony in Yellow' by Oscar Wilde and the two poems could not have been different. And Wilde being part of the Aesthetic movement is a big part in that
An extract from what I wrote about it for an English essay about the poem in case it helps anyone:
'In ‘London’ Blake creates a horrible image of London.
He talks of the streets being ‘chartered’, which can be taken a few ways, but both create the same image. It could mean that they belonged to the city of London and was forced to obey certain rules, but had certain rights too, which could be Blake’s way of saying that those streets were the best off and yet they were still terrible and tied down by rules. However, it could also just be saying that they are confined and restricted. In this line Blake also uses an oxymoron because he says that he ‘wandered through each chartered street’ which is self-contradictory. If something is chartered and restricted it would be impossible to wander because wandering suggests freedom. By using this oxymoron it would appear that Blake is trying to show that he is fighting against the restrictions and sees himself as being free from all that ties down the people of London.
The theme of being restricted continues throughout the poem when he says ‘the mind-forged manacles I hear’. This is very vivid imagery, which describes how people are effectively chained to a certain idea and there is no escaping it. People would not ever think of living any other way, it is quite obviously an idea that Blake was against. Blake was a very opinionated man and believed that people should think for themselves.
In the second quatrain Blake uses ‘cry’ a lot along with ‘fear’. This is emotive language that causes the reader to feel saddened for those who live in London. He also uses ‘in every’ at the beginning of three of the lines.
Also, later on, Blake describes the churches as ‘blackening’. There are many ways to look at this description. He may be trying to point out that the churches are meant to be important but even they have been neglected, or it may have a more philosophical or religious significance. In the same quatrain Blake says ‘The hapless soldier’s sigh runs in blood down Palace walls.’ This links with the French revolution with blood literally running down palace walls, showing Blake’s political views, but it also could just be him expressing that all blood spilled by English soldiers was in the hands of the palace, thus it metaphorically running down palace walls.
In the last quatrain Blake talks of the deaths that were caused by people sleeping with prostitutes and catching venereal diseases. He describes it as being a ‘plague’. He also has another great image here by saying ‘Marriage hearse’ and ‘Youthful harlot’s curse’. This creates the image that marrying these men, who have been cursed by having relationships with the prostitutes, just leads to certain death. During this quatrain he creates emotion with the line ‘blasts the new-born infant’s tear’, which has been added to cause reaction with anyone who reads it. '
Edited on Jan 24, 1:22 p.m. because ''.