London: every street chartered, and not one free person

Is a chartered street a free street? Magna Carta is a charter, a written grant of rights, so most people hear the word as a promise of freedom. In Rights of Man, Thomas Paine argued the reverse. He called it a perversion to say a charter gives rights, because a charter takes rights away from everyone it leaves out. In seventeen ninety-four, William Blake walked through London and called every street chartered, and even the river. In all those streets, he does not meet a single free person: not the child, not the soldier, not the bride. Why nobody is free, Blake answers himself, in one line at the centre of the poem.

Here is the whole poem, four short verses of four lines, spoken by a man walking through the city. "I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered 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-forged manacles I hear:" "How the chimney-sweeper's 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." In plain words, the speaker walks the streets, looks at faces, and listens. Everyone he sees is damaged, and the sounds he hears lead him to a church, a palace and a wedding. Look closely at the first verse. The word mark comes twice in two lines, and it does not mean the same thing both times. In "mark in every face", does the first mark mean notice, damage, or a grade? Notice. He marks, meaning he notices, and what he notices are marks, meaning scars. Noticing and damage share one word, so looking at the city means seeing its injuries.

Now the word Blake puts first: chartered. A chartered thing is owned, licensed and mapped out by somebody with the right to say who may use it. Why would Blake call the River Thames chartered, when nobody can own a river? To show the ownership has no limit. If even a moving river has been signed over to someone, nothing in the city is left outside it. Then Blake points at three places that are meant to protect people. The church should shelter a child, the palace should send soldiers home, and marriage should begin new lives. Instead, the chimney sweep's cry stains the church, and a soldier's sigh runs as blood down the palace walls. Then a young prostitute's curse blights the marriage hearse, so the wedding and the funeral become one journey. A hearse is the car that carries a coffin. Disease passed on through the city's streets reaches the marriage bed, so the start of a family already carries a death. And in the middle of the poem sits the line that explains the rest: "The mind-forged manacles I hear". Manacles are chains for the wrists.

Here, then, is what holds them all. Nobody in the poem is in chains, and everybody is chained, because the manacles are mind-forged, made and worn inside the head. That is why the poem needs no jailer, no prison and no villain to show a city under control.

Plenty of answers reach for this line, and one examiner's report is encouraging about it: Many students wrote about mind-forged manacles, often in a considered or analytical way. So the fix is to keep it and do one thing more. Put the blackening church or the blood on the palace walls beside it, doing the same job in a way fewer answers show.

Six lines carry this poem in an exam, and each one has its own job. The opening pair is "I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow". Ownership is the first idea in the poem: the streets are owned, and so is the river. The second row: "And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe." Mark turns from what he does to what he sees, so noticing and damage come in one word. Then the manacles line you have just heard about. The chains are made and worn in the head, so the control does not need a jailer. Then the church: the sweeper's cry makes every black'ning church appal, which means turn pale with shock. The institution that should protect the child is the thing the child's cry stains. Then the palace: the soldier's sigh "Runs in blood down palace walls." Last, the harlot's curse blights the marriage hearse, the poem's closing chain from a curse, to a baby's tears, to a wedding that is already a funeral. Why does Blake put the soldier's blood on the palace walls, of all the walls in London? Because the people who send soldiers to war live behind those walls. The cost of their decisions is painted onto the building that made them, so the blood lands on the decision makers. In the cluster, London answers power first, and the soldier and the city's marked faces let it sit beside poems about the reality of conflict and about identity and belonging.

Here's how to find out whether the lines stuck: each one returns with a word gone. Every street, and even the Thames, is described with which one word? Chartered. Every street and the Thames itself, owned and signed over. Now the faces: marks of weakness, marks of what? Woe. Grief marks every face he meets. Try the chains: the what manacles I hear? Mind-forged. Manacles made in the head, so nobody needs to lock them on. One more, a line never unpacked: "In every infant's cry of fear". When do the manacles start? At birth. The infant is already afraid, so the manacles are learned before anyone is old enough to choose them. A charter sounds like a promise of rights. In Blake's London, chartered is the word for a city where even the river belongs to someone else.

Explaining what chartered does to a river means you own this one, and a quick thumbs-up records that. Not quite there, hold onto it and read Blake's sixteen lines aloud, slowly, once more.

Next in the chapter: Ozymandias: the king whose name is all that is left. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly E L four oh, oh five.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.