The document analyzes William Blake's poem "London" using historical criticism and new historicism. It summarizes that the poem depicts a bleak view of London where people are dominated by sorrow, fear, and obsession with materialism. It describes how the poem uses archetypes like chimney sweepers and soldiers to represent how institutions like the monarchy and church cause human suffering. The analysis concludes that the poem shows how diseases and issues like syphilis destroy life and families, which are important parts of English society at that time.

1. By :
NUR MURNI BT ABDULLAH
NOR ILLYANA BT AHMAD NAZRI

2.  A branch of history which looked at literature of
evidence about economic and political events going on
at the time at which the works were produced, and
that also looked at historical events to explain the
content of literary works.
 Historical criticism insisted that to understand a
literary piece, we need to understand the author’s
biography and social background, ideas circulating at
the time, and the cultural milieu

3.  New Historicism
 Is a theory in literary criticism that suggests literature
must be studied and interpreted within the context of
both the history of the author and the history of the
critic.
 Critics using this approach look at the work and
consider other writing that may have inspired it or
inspired by it , as well as the life of the author and how
it relates to the text.

4.  Old Historicism
 Insisted that a literary work be read with a sense of
time and place of its creation.
 This is necessary, insist historical critics, because
every literary work is a product of its time and its
world. Understanding the social background and the
intellectual currents of that time and that world
illuminate literary works for later generation of
readers.

5. LONDON
I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A 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

6. In the first quatrain, the author is talking about how he
is walking through every transitory street. The adjective
“chartered” seems to suggest the idea of the importance of
money to live everyday in this ephemeral world, where
everything is focused around money, richness and its value
to reach anything. But, in despite of the role of money has
in the world and happiness because of its value, many
people are dominated by sorrow and sadness. The verses “In
every cry of every man” and “in every infant’s cry of fear” are
examples of this fact. People are not happy. They are living
in fear all the time, inside the dark of a society influenced
by materialism. Human beings are loosing the real sense of
life.

7. The materialism of words is reflected in the second
quatrain with “the mind-forged manacles”, which
represents people’s obsession for money and the
dependence to the important institutions.
In the third quatrain, the author is comparing two
different representations: a chimney-sweeper and a
soldier. Both of them are archetypal that represent the
most important institutions of that time: Monarchy and
the Church, which are the reason of the suffering of
human beings. This one has a clear connotation of
power and manipulation in society.

8. The fourth quatrain represents the author talking
again about what he hears metaphorically while he is
walking through the street. “The youthful harlot’s
curse” makes reference to the disease of syphilis, very
frequent in that time, in the 18th century, which is the
principal cause of death. The term “harlot” has negative
connotations, as “curse”. It is interpreted as something
which destroys life and society. Syphilis destroys
life, whereas harlots destroy families, and family is the
most important part in society, in this case, in English
society. “The marriage-hearse” could be understood as
a “vehicle in which love and desire combine with death
and destruction” (Elite Skills classics, 2004).