london分析.doc

This is a poem which makes sense to the modern reader, as it exposes the gulf between those in power and the misery of poor people. The picture of the city as a place of nightmare is common in the 20th century, but is perhaps surprising to find in such an early text as this. Although there are several details which we need to note, we should begin with the central metaphor of this poem, the mind-forgd manacles of the second stanza. Once more a vivid symbol explains a deep human truth. The image of the forge appears inThe Tyger(stanza 4). Here Blake imagines the mind as a forge where manacles are made. Manacles (for the hands - Frenchles mains) and shackles for the legs, would be seen on convicts, perhaps passing along the streets on their way to prison or, commonly in London in Blakes time, on their way to ships, for transportation to Australia. For Blake and his readers, the image is a very striking and contemporary one: they will have seen manacles and will view them with horror.A man of sharp perception, original thinking, exceptional boldness, contempt for reason, deep concern with the Revolution. A precursor of Romanticism in English poetry. An innovative poet and thinker (mystic). Strong opposition to rationalism and tyranny of all forms, emphasis on intuition and imagination. An undaunted revolutionaryBlakes poetry largely divided in to 2 groups:lyrical poems: “Poetical Sketches” (poetry of ages 12-20), “Songs of Innocence”, “Songs of Experience”prophetic poems: “Visions of the Daughters of Albion”, “America”, “The French Revolution” ,“Jerusalem”, “The Book of Los”, “The Book of Urizen”, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” The poem has four quatrains, with alternate lines rhyming. Iambic tetrameter, ababWhat do you know about the poem from the title?It is a poem about London, the city and people in London.What is the location of the poem, countryside or city?The speaker is not the piping, pastoral bard of the earlier poem: he is in the city. The poems title denotes a specific geographic space, not the archetypal locales in which many of the other Songs are set.The first quatrainThe speaker wanders through the streets of London and comments on his observations.charter: n. a written statement describing the rights that a particular group of people should have.(宪章)Charter: v. to state officially that a new organization, town or university has been established and has special rights and privileges.(特许设立)We know that there are chartered companies at the time when Blake wrote this poem. But why was the river Thames chartered?Everything in this urban space-even the natural River Thames-submits to being “chartered”, a term which combines mapping and legalism. Blakes repetition of this word reinforces the sense of restriction the speaker feels upon entering the city. Besides the word “chartered”, can you find other repetitions in the poem? How do you understand them?It is as if language itself, the poets medium, experiences a hemming-in, a restriction of resources. Blakes repetition, thudding and oppressive, reflects the suffocating atmosphere of the city.But words also undergo transformation within this repetition: thus “mark”, between the third and fourth lines, changes from a verb to a pair of nouns-from an act of observation which leaves some room for imaginative elaboration, to an indelible imprint, branding the peoples bodies regardless of the speakers actions.Repetition is the most striking formal feature of the poem, and it serves to emphasize the prevalence of the horrors the speaker describes.The second quatrain the mind-forgd manacles :Once more a vivid symbol explains a deep human truth. The image of the forge appears inThe Tyger(stanza 4). Here Blake imagines the mind as a forge where manacles are made. Manacles (for the hands - Frenchles mains) and shackles for the legs, would be seen on convicts, perhaps passing along the streets on their way to prison or, commonly in London in Blakes time, on their way to ships, for transportation to Australia. For Blake and his readers, the image is a very striking and contemporary one: they will have seen manacles and will view them with horror.The third quatrainHow does the speaker present/ describe London?He presents London through his observation: sight and hearing.What is the speaker seeing and hearing in London?He sees despair in the faces of the people he meets and hears fear and repression in their voices. The woeful cry of the chimney sweeper stand as a criticism to the Church, and the blood of a soldier stains the outer walls of the monarchs residence. The nighttime holds nothing more promising: the cursing of prostitute corrupts the newborn infant and sullies the “marriage hearse”.Who are the people of London that Blake describes?Men, infants, chimney-sweeper, soldier, harlot.Do they have anything in common?They are suffering from a miserable life.How are they described?Ironically, the speakers “meeting” with these marks represents the experience closest to a human encounter that the poem will offer the speaker. All the speakers subjects are known only through the traces they leave behind: the ubiquitous cries, the blood on the palace walls. Signs of human suffering abound, but a complete human form is lacking. In the third stanza the cry of the chimney-sweeper and the sigh of the soldier metamorphose into soot on church walls and blood on palace walls-but we never see the chimney-sweeper or the soldier themselves. Likewise, institutions of power-the clergy, the government-are rendered by synecdoche, by mention of the places in which they reside. Synecdoche:提喻法，以局部代整体或以整体代局部、以特殊代表一般会以一般代表特殊。Indeed, it is crucial to Blakes commentary that neither the citys victims not their oppressors ever appear in body: Blake does not simply blame a set of institution or a system of enslavement for the citys woes; rather, the victims help to make their own “mind-forged manacle,” more powerful than material chains could ever be.The forth quatrainThe poem climaxes at the moment when the cycle of misery recommences, in the form of a new human being starting life: a