Analysis of Blake's London Poem

Right, good evening you guys. Really good to have you here. Just a quick note, obviously there's always a slight time delay between when I start speaking and when the call goes live, so if you could refrain from deliberately lying with things like you're late or ignoring me or whatever, that would be wicked. I'd appreciate it if you could be Sensible, decent human beings, you know? That's always the goal. So once you can see me, let me know my camera is working, let me know the lighting is okay from the studio lights, let me know my microphone is all functional and that you can see big me as well as little me on the green screen behind me. That would be fantastic. So if you just let me know once that happens, just drop a plus or a hi or a what's good bestie or whatever. That would be fantastic. Just gonna... close my door because i can hear my neighbor in the garden shouting about roses um aki don't be a loser what's up amara appreciate that what's good bestie how we doing bro i hate english so much well then don't be here mate just go away i only want kings here not clowns so if you're not going to be taking part if you're not interested then spend spend your hour doing something else the rest of us will be smashing it together all right uh what's my favorite car i'm not really a car guy to be honest i can drive one and i can maintain one but i'm not uh i'm not the best uh when it comes to like cars and f1 and stuff not really my area uh hi gavin what's up hi alina you How was my day, Unc? Yeah, it was good, Fatima, thank you. Yeah, it was alright. I've got a bit of a cold, so my throat is quite sore. But other than that, it's all good. It's all good. Thanks, Eto. Appreciate that. Eto's going to be modding today. Favourite football team? Again, not really into football. Makes me sound a little bit lame. Not into cars, not into football. Am I even a boy? Appreciate that, Fatima, thank you. So, Anthology, just as a reminder, we are doing our Power and Conflict Anthology cluster. So if you do your kind of love and relationships, that's obviously with Alex. So if you're in the wrong place, then obviously you go to Alex's lesson later on this week. I'm actually covering Alex's lesson on Thursday, tomorrow, because he... He's unavailable. So you'll have me tomorrow if you're in that group anyway. But hopefully we are all in the right place today. Specifically, we're looking at the poem London by William Blake. OK, Zinon. Now, whoa, we do not emasculate people due to preference. Right, chap. I appreciate that. I appreciate not being emasculated. That's that's very kind of you. I. I don't mind being emasculated. I think masculinity is overrated in some aspects anyway. Nice one. We're liking the poem. So if this is your first lesson, don't you worry too much. You can go back and you can watch the previous recordings. We've only done one specific. We've only done one poem so far, which is obviously which is obviously Ozymandias that we did last lesson. So you can always catch up, as Etta has just said. Yeah. That's good. Is this lesson related to the last lesson because I was not there? No. So each lesson is going to be a different poem. And specifically, we're looking at London by William Blake today. OK, so first of all, can you drop a plus into the chat if you have already studied this poem in school at some point? Aspect, you've already done this poem. Should you stay on it? Yeah, definitely. This is this is all revision. Right. So if you've done it before, look at all of the people typing plus in the chat now. they've already seen the poem before um so if you have as well this is all about um improving your uh your annotations in the anthology um being able to say more about it okay let's cease the um let's cease the uh the the pluses now also guys um if you've already put your symbol into the chat please don't spam it multiple times or i will have to put you in timeout um which feels a little bit primary school doesn't it so Let's not do it. OK, Lorenzo, I need help with exam strategy and structure. Are we going to be doing that? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, 100 percent. Pish, can we have a word of the day for expansion of vocabulary? I do that on TikTok. I've got a word of the day on TikTok. So if you follow me on there, it's LouisDoesEnglish. As you can see on the bottom of the screen, LouisDoesEnglish. So if you want to be improving your kind of essay vocabulary, it's the same handle on TikTok if you want to do the words of the day on there. Okay, so loads of you have done this poem already. Ruchi, yes, we're going to do every single poem in... the power and conflict cluster of the anthology we will do one each lesson um so we've done uh we've done one uh last time we're doing another one today we're going to be doing another one on friday okay um appreciate that guys do i use a stylus to annotate oh uh you mean a stylus i use this this pen right here which goes with the tablet that i'm using okay um so let's jump in So our goal with all of these is basically revision. OK, so because most of you typed plus, it is revision. We're going to go deeper into the poem than you might have done in school. So we're going to go deeper. However, we're also going to take a distanced look at the poem, which basically means what's the minimum to commit to memory? when it comes to revision. Okay, so we're going to look at using first to just pull out the most important information and if you don't remember the content of the poem then you can at least remember those first ones. Okay, what if you've never read it? Well we're going to be reading it together anyway so we're all good. Thanks Fatima, appreciate that, I'm sure. sure teachers in schools um will will come to hate me as time goes on um um uh uh araba said uh so are you going to cover one of the john agard poems yeah checking out my history but that's not until later um will we be doing revision for mock exams in november flame um uh no because we're not having mocks in in my headspace but we'll be covering the content over the course of the year so it's all revision basically Um, uh, someone else says, how long have I been teaching English? Uh, 10 years, 10 years. Um, okay. So think back, this is for those of you who were here last lesson, uh, and we're just going to recall what we learned about Ozymandias. So what does Ozymandias roughly translate to? Just remember, let's kind of connect to last time. Okay. Yeah. So air ruler, basically king of nothing, which is significant because it's ironic because he calls himself king of kings. Okay, lovely. Okay, who wrote that poem? Who wrote Ozymandias? Cast your minds back to last lesson. Shelley. Yeah. So specifically Percy Shelley, not Mary. So Mary Shelley was his wife. Also check that there's a second E in Shelley. You're not going to be docked marks for this in the exam, but it's good to be precise. So don't get it confused with Mary Shelley. Whoa. Don't get it confused with Mary Shelley. She was the one who wrote Frankenstein. They were husband and wife though, okay? They were husband and wife. In fact, it's kind of crazy. So Mary Shelley was like 17 or whatever. Percy Shelley was like 20-ish. And he was engaged and his fiance was pregnant. And he fell in love with Mary Shelley and abandoned his... um abandoned his fiancee his pregnant fiancee um who went on to commit suicide and he runs off with Mary Shelley and they become this kind of uh sweet little married couple it's super super dramatic so the kind of stuff that would be um that would be kind of like front page news these days but um uh yeah it's kind of intense anyway so Percy Shelley there is a link there you can remember the spelling of that but they are two different people okay uh what did you Napoleon and Ramesses II have to do with the poem? No worries, Ashnim. Nice one, yeah. So both downfalls and Aman has just said very accurately as well, they were both tyrants. Okay, yeah. So downfall of tyrants for both of them. Napoleon was what we would call contemporaneous, i.e. recent. Whereas Ramesses II is an ancient example, but they were both tyrants who had a downfall. OK, yeah. So contemporaneous is a bit like modern, but contemporaneous refers specifically to the time that you're talking about. OK, so contemporaneous with the poem that we've we've read already. OK, so it's not you wouldn't say something now is contemporaneous. You would call it contemporary, which is slightly different. Contemporaneous is like at the same time as. OK. Downfall of tyrants. So a tyrant is someone who rules brutally, so they have all power and they're not kind with how they use their power. And a downfall is obviously when they kind of all fell apart. Ironic has just been explained up above. What's the significance of the framing narrative of the poem? Yeah, oh yeah, and dictators are usually tyrants and vice versa. Yeah. Asaid, your teacher talks about playing Fortnite every lesson. Wow, that's interesting. What is a framing narrative? Yes, it creates distance. Well done. It creates distance between, so between Ozymandias. and us as readers, right? Creates that distance. And you're absolutely right in saying that the learning point that we get from that is that nature is all that survives. Certainly not humans, certainly not human power. Okay. So what's first, we'll get onto that in the next slide. Fatima, where am I from? I am from the West Midlands, so like Birmingham area. That's where I live anyway. What makes literature more permanent than architecture and statues, guys? Because they talk about nature surviving, but they also talk about literature surviving. So why does it why does it outlive architecture and statues? Birmingham on top. Love that. Nice one, Michelle. Literature is permanent. And these edifices, they crumble. They are susceptible to decay, aren't they? And so they function as metaphors for the people whose power is not going to last either. OK. Yeah, absolutely right, Flame, because architecture decays. Spot on. What does it say next to Ozzy? Oh, here. Between Ozzy and us as readers. the distance that created. Okay. What's the connection between most... do you mean Ramesses? Ramesses the second? So he was the real... the real-life Ozymandias. KWH, your handwriting, please make it better. Okay, I'll do that instantly. Look, right, it's done, sorted. Watch how amazing my handwriting is on the next slide. Okay, so... Here is the poem itself. The poem is called London. It is by, obviously, thank you guys. He's trying. So much sympathy. I appreciate it. You don't have to. It's all good. It's all good. Good feedback on the handwriting. I will make it better on the next one though. Okay. So this poem by Blake, we're going to read it first, then we're going to explore it using first specifically. And those of you who haven't seen first before, you will see it in action. Yeah, I know my handwriting looks just like Ariel Black. It's crazy. I've been working really hard. Anyway, so London. Fatima, yeah, it's a fair point about the workbook. The idea is that on the workbook, I would say... I would say just get the bare bones of the annotations. onto this and you've also got um you've also got annotations on your your home uh sorry on your school given anthology so uh hopefully there should be enough space between the the two of them okay um i see okay so london just bring the microphone over just for the experience london 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-sweepers cry, every blackening 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 newborn infant's tear and blights with plagues the marriage hearse. Okay, so first impressions guys, how does Blake feel about London? How would you say Blake feels about London? Straight up, without doing any kind of tight analysis. Thank you guys for the... Feedback on the writing. Yeah, so bad, bleak, doomed, dull. He won a new kit. No, I think he wants to save it. But you're absolutely right. It's not the most pleasant experience. Depressing, poverty, bad, dull. Ashton just throwing in some inspector calls there as well. Bro is used to Gotham City. Yeah, cool. Okay, so this is generally what's going on. So the first thing that we do. is first. So just to remind people or to inform those who were not introduced to this method, first is just a way of getting some initial annotations on the page by focusing on something that you will find in every single poem that you come across, which is all of these features. Okay, so first and last line, imagery, repetition, structure, and the title. So title is the first thing that we come across. So let's go straight into annotating the title. So it's a one word title, which means that it's particularly evocative. I was so still, I thought you were bugging me. London then. What connotations do we get from that single word London? Thanks Etta. Yeah, 1794. OK, so the first thing to bear in mind is that it is the capital, it's the capital city and therefore most important. Now, what should a capital city do? What should a capital city do for for a country? What should it represent for the country? Would you say capital city in general? Stand out, be good. Run the country pride landmark should be the center. It should represent. Thank you bunny girl. It should represent The country. Okay, so it should be What we would call an example of synecdoche Okay now synecdoche is where one thing represents the whole thing. Okay, one thing represents the whole thing So in this case, it's basically London should be representative of English, sort of England rather, as a whole, okay? And synecdoche is literally just London represents the larger thing, okay? Now, the significance of that, guys, if we could save some of the comments on other parts of the poem just for now, because otherwise people are going to get pulled in different directions. Really great points, but just we'll do them one at a time. The city of London should represent England. So when Blake is commenting on London, he's not just commenting on London, he is commenting on England, okay? So if this is a critical poem, which it most certainly is, then his criticism is not just of London. He's not just going, London's, you know, a bit of a dive, but... Birmingham, that's the place to be, right? He's not doing that at all. He's very much going, this is a snapshot, a microcosm, a synecdoche of the whole country, okay? So that's how he's being critical. That's all we can really get from just London. We could potentially mention busy, highly populated. We could potentially mention that it's kind of like the heart of the industrial revolution, as some people were pointing out in the chat. All those things are certainly true, okay? But we can't say much about it because it's just one word, okay? Thanks Etta for explaining to Nettakee. It is up there in the corner as well, if you lost it, okay? So that's title, okay? That's title we can tick off. Let's go to the first and last line. First thing, I wander through each chartered street, blights with plague the marriage hearse. OK, so straight away, the first impression that we get of our poem is I wander. OK, so not all those who wander are lost, but there is a sense of potentially being lost. He's not on his way anywhere. He is just exploring. OK, so lost, but also open. He's not looking for anything specifically. He's just taking it all in. So it's quite sort of general. One through each chartered street. OK, so chartered literally means stop. It means recorded and by extension owned. Who owns the streets? Who owns the streets, would we say? Yeah, absolutely right. It's a kind of a metaphor for being owned. Yeah, you're absolutely right. The rich, the nobles, the government, the church. Yeah. Okay. So owned by nobility or those with power. 100%. Okay. So we get a sense that there's nothing explicitly negative here. We just get hints. of fascism, right? Just slight hints, the fact that the city is owned, okay? Right, what do I mean by open? So just that he's wandering, rather than going in with an intention, he's open to seeing what the city has in mind. So it sets the scene for him just exploring. He's not going, I'm going from one end to the other, he's just literally going, I'm wandering through each chartered street. Okay, so he's exploring it to try and take it in. Fascism is kind of like, it's a little bit like tyranny, a little bit like dictatorship. It's basically an idea of unkind and total dominion in terms of rule. Okay, yeah, very authoritarian as Anthony said, or Senator Bee said, yeah. Open and general was that word there, general. I forgot to do my arrow black handwriting for that bit. Okay, and then compare that then. compare the first line with the last line which straight away is more directly negative so blights which are basically like um sores or damage plagues again we've got disease hearse obviously is the kind of car that we carry bodies in so we've got death and also the fact that marriage is linked to hearse as people are typing into the chat right now it is an oxymoron um and highly critical of the notion of marriage it's not serving people okay um yes exactly yeah um really great question neon universe was he part of the lower class he witnesses in the poem you No, he wasn't. He was fairly privileged. Blake was. What does oxymoron mean? Oxymoron is where you have two words that contradict each other. OK, so we think that marriage should be positive. Right. Should be a cheery connection between people. But hearse associates with death. So it's like doomed in that case. So that's how the oxymoron is functioning there because they're opposites. OK. Okay, so that gives us first and last line. Easy, right? Imagery. Imagery. So there's all sorts of imagery we could pick. However, probably the most striking piece of imagery in the poem is the whole of the third stanza. So we've got blackening church of Paul's blood down palace walls. OK, so that's going to be the imagery that I pick out, because what is it telling us about these two institutions? OK, what's it telling us about these two institutions? the church and the palace first of all what do they represent who are the uh the the church so the church it literally just means religion in general or church of england and yet nice power people keep saying um so it's the monarchy right so the monarchy and religion They are sources of power, places of power, as Toi Toi has just said, creating a sense of inequality. One hundred percent. Yeah, really, really nice analysis, guys. I'm really enjoying dipping into the chat to see what we're saying. So the blackening church of pools and there's blood down palace walls. So a fantastic word that someone just used in the chat is corruption. OK, corruption of these authority. figures. Okay, really, really nice contributions coming out there. We would expect the monarchy to be looking after its people. We would expect religion to be caring about people. The way that Blake sees it, though, is that the blackening church appalls. Well, what is it that the church isn't doing? It's not helping the poor. And the way that he sees religion, certainly Christianity, is that it should be all about charity and helping those people out. Again, monarchy. Not serving its country, war. Young men just dying, okay? Hopefully that makes sense. Yeah, you're absolutely right, guys. A miserly society. That's a really, really nice word there, number one. It doesn't help people, should be helping the poor. Could it refer to the French Revolution? Definitely, Mohamed, yeah. Aki, would I say that that's ironic since the government is supposed to care about the country? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So there's more irony going on here because you expect both the country and the church to be helping people. But instead they are exploiting them. Yeah. OK, so that is imagery ticked off. Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. This should be nice and easy because this poem is actually. teeming with repetition i would say that's the word that i would use for it um uh and what color should i go with guys what color should i go with oh choices choices i'm gonna go with orange okay so um people are yeah you guys are absolutely right you've got every all the way through and you've also got charted twice okay so both of those sets of imagery i think are worth talking about okay I'm just going to mute my screen over there. OK, hopefully that makes sense. OK, so why is that significant? Well, why that's significant is because Chartered is all about this sense of ownership, which relates to this idea of corruption and an imbalance of power. OK, so everything so far is tying together. It's a very neat kind of. very understandable accessible poem because the whole thing is just criticizing how the the city and by extension the country has been ruined um by the way that people are behaving someone's also pointed out that marks and marks are repeated as well okay um so we've got every cry every cry um every voice so all of these sorts of things are negative so um those those without power if you're without power if you're not in a powerful position you are miserable if you look at the language that surrounds the every cry of every man every infant's cry of fear every voice and then the mind forged manacles meaning like uh handcuffs they are trapped miserable trapped in contrast if you look at the repetition here of charted and charted you The people who own the uh the chartered streets and the Thames like you can even own a river, like you can own nature, they are in the money. They're winning, okay? So we've got this massive sense of inequality coming through in the poem. Samuel, what about the word cry? This meaning the abuse of innocence. Yeah. So the fact that it's infants cry, not just every man, but also every infant. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Really, really nice point about the sense of innocence that you get with infants cry of fear. Maria, could you call it a semantic field? Yeah, you can talk about the semantic field of. kind of exploitation couldn't you yeah so if you wanted to talk about a a semantic field it would be a semantic field of exploitation yeah absolutely um uh gray area wasn't london really dirty at that time yeah yeah 100 yeah so um in the 18th century when this is set. It was a very dirty, polluted kind of a place. Tamina, what does imagery mean? It's anywhere where you've got a picture being conjured up in your mind. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really nice. What does the every repetition represent? Louis does English. It's the sheer number, the sheer number. of these powerless people okay that's what the repetition does it shows just how many of them there were yeah um uh adam ahmad yeah you could definitely talk about the anaphora um so the in every cry in every infant in every voice definitely um uh yeah 100 100 okay uh So let's just quickly add the context. Now that we've done our first annotations, let's have a look at the context that we can have a look at here, because this can help us to understand why some of the stuff in the poem is the way that it comes up. Yes. For those of you commenting on other things, by the way, if you're commenting on things like rhyme, on anaphora, on... you know, the youthful harlot's curse, all of those sorts of things. There are loads and loads and loads of other things you can comment on. The point of first is just to get like five really good bits of analysis out of the way. That's not to say that we are finished with our points about the poem. There's loads more to say about this poem. However, once we've done first, we then think about what context we can add. Okay. Is this the same time as Jack the Ripper? Yeah, it's around that sort of time. Okay. Everyone, let's help a brummie out. Thanks, JJ. I appreciate that. OK, so Blake was another romantic poet. So when I say another, I'm saying that last lesson we looked at Percy Shelley, who was also a romantic poet. So they they should believe in the same sorts of things. OK, so social justice was a really important thing to him. He rejected the Enlightenment's obsession with progress and rationality, particularly as represented by the effect of the Industrial Revolution in England. poverty injustice and oppression is how he saw this happening okay so his understanding was that um the social justice um was uh was ruined or was injured or damaged by the industrial revolution so the industrial revolution um it obviously made it made a lot of people rich but it made a lot of people you It made a lot of people really poor as well. So we could talk about how the Industrial Revolution, it's what we would call widened the gap. Okay. It widened the gap between rich and poor. I don't think it shows the likes to... Repetition at the beginning of a sentence or clause. Yes. Good. There's semantic field included as well. Yeah, we just talked about that one Mason Semantic field of exploitation was the one that we we spotted. Yeah, we're talking about this context Right now Neeraj. Okay Yeah, someone's just spotted a really nice little kind of acrostic here here Yeah That's a lovely point. I've actually never seen that before and I've been looking at this poem for years and years. Tamina, appalls means disgusted. Okay, come back here. Okay, right. So another thing to bear in mind is where this poem comes from. Okay, which collection it is published in, in 1794. This poem comes from the of experience section of his collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, representing the progressively more cynical worldview he adopted as he grew up and recognised the degradation of society and... nature. So what happened is he published this collection of poems in two sections. And in the first half, which he called Songs of Innocence, he narrates the world in an optimistic, childish way. An optimistic, childish view of the world. is what he had in the first half. Whereas in the second half, Songs of Experience, it was much more cynical, okay? Much more cynical and adult. So this is kind of like an autobiography, where he's exploring his growing up and developing and changing how he feels about the world. Yes, Sahasro, yeah. Romantics in general didn't like the Industrial Revolution. Romanticism wasn't necessarily a reaction to it, but it stood in the face of it. It definitely, they were opposing ideas. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, really, really nice. So if we were to bring these ideas together, all of the stuff that we've annotated for first, all of the stuff that we've just noted in terms of context over there on the left, then what we would end up with is an overall impression of a poem. where Blake is saying the world has been messed up by the industrial revolution and people trying to seize power who shouldn't have power. And the outcome is we've got a dirty city full of people who are being exploited and are miserable. And that's basically the overall thrust of his poem. OK, the overall thrust of his poem is that London, which represents the whole of England, has been damaged. by the Industrial Revolution, which has benefited those in power, such as the Church of England, such as the monarchy, such as the nobility, and it has ruined the lives of those who are lower down, okay? And that's kind of what he's saying in general in this poem. Omar, Louis does English, what's a harlot? So a harlot, it's basically a euphemism for a prostitute. um harlot is a euphemism for a prostitute so it talks in that final stanza about how the youthful harlot's curse blasts the newborn infant's tear it's talking about um stis basically it's another way that the city has become like dirty um because of how how society has developed um the it's the um when it says the newborn infants it's talking about how uh certain sexually transmitted diseases can be passed on to the babies and be born blind. That's kind of what it's referring to when it says the newborn infant's tear. So it's this whole kind of sense of like the world has become kind of corrupt and dirty and morally questionable. Now I'm not sure that most people these days would say that a harlot is inherently immoral or amoral but certainly in the late 18th century um prostitution was not something which was widely um uh kind of accepted i guess it was something that was highly criticized as morally unacceptable um yeah uh can you stop asking what anaphora is i either look it up or actually look at the um uh look at all of the responses that you've been given etta has answered your question about 1100 times um you political statement to raise awareness did it end up working what do you mean neon universe another word for immersive what's wrong with immersive immersive is a good word what do I mean by optimistic children did I talk about optimistic children Cheyenne How was the Industrial Revolution bad for poor people? Yeah, excellent question, Cheyenne. So the reason that it was bad for poor people is basically what happened is... um is this if i just put it on a different different slide for a second so the industrial revolution meant a few things this is not a history lesson but i think it's worth noting okay so a few things happened as a result of the industrial revolution okay so production went up the need for laborers went down Why was that? Because of automation. It meant that people in the working class no longer had a job because a machine could do that job for them. OK, so that's what happened as a result of the Industrial Revolution. More factories were made, more production, which meant more money for the rich because they could invest in open factories. Whereas the poor who'd be working them would be receiving lower and lower wages because their jobs were less important. OK, lots of you are mentioning the relevance of an inspector calls to this. Yeah, 100 percent. That kind of imbalance there. So that's why the Industrial Revolution created this this kind of it increased the gap between the rich and the poor. OK, hopefully that. answers your question. I'm not answering the question what does anafora mean. Tamina what do I mean by production? I meant that I mean that factories opened. Yeah so if loads of factories open, wealthy people open factories which meant that more things could be produced, more things could be produced more rapidly. So production went up. yeah production of anything any any particular um any commodity that people wanted um so it could be it could be it could be coal it could be clothing it could be furniture it could be food um anything like that okay um in your gcse can you say and spectacles i wouldn't link this to one inspector calls no i wouldn't link it to one inspector calls OK, lots of us are just quoting from An Inspector Calls now. What I wanted to think about now is the two poems that we've looked at. I want you to think about what comparisons we might make between them. OK, because in the exam, you're welcome to me. In the exam, you are basically going to be asked something like this. Compare X in a named poem, so they will give you the poem, and another poem of your choice. OK, that's what the question will look like. OK, so it's going to ask you to do comparison. It's going to ask you to explore a specific theme. in two different poems at the same time, which is why we need to start thinking about the links that we could be making between these poems that we're studying. Okay, so thank you. Etta has answered that question for you, Arab, there. You compare the anthology poem to another poem in the cluster. Okay, so we've studied two poems now. We studied two poems now, which means that we are now looking for links. So CNRH679, that's a bit of a mouthful to say, has talked about, as mentioned, power. Yeah. So power is definitely in there and potentially it's misuse. That would be an obvious link. Samuel, yes, they give you one poem and you have to. do the other one from memory. Okay, so that's why I said named poems. It will say compare Ozymandias with another poem in the cluster or compare London with another poem in the cluster. So you choose the second one and you have to remember what happens in that poem. Yeah, absolutely. Will you get an anthology booklet during the exam, Madhavi? No, you will not. The only thing you will get in the exam is a list of the poems in the cluster. and one of the poems, the poem that you're going to be comparing to. Okay, hopefully that makes sense. Aki, what's the best poem to compare everything to? It depends on the question. I don't like answering that question. Some teachers will say that, you know, checking out my history is great for comparing to all poems. I disagree. It depends entirely upon the question. There isn't a hack, there isn't a cheat that we can get there. uh afia has made a nice uh comparison point uh the idea of the rich having the benefits and the poor suffering um yeah okay so inequality inequality definitely would be another link really nice uh richie do we get a random poem and from our anthology no you get one poem from the anthology is reproduced for you and you're asked a question about it and you have to compare it to another poem from the anthology that you remember. Nice, yeah, so a link here, someone has said exploitation slash tyranny, someone else just said. Yep, lovely. I read online examiners give you mark for swearing with meaning and context on the paper. What? What are you talking about? I wouldn't recommend swearing in the exam. It's not that you'll necessarily be docked marks. It's just that it's almost never going to be relevant. So no, it's like in the nine years that I spent marking exams like actual GCSE exams, never did I see someone effectively using swearing as a point that they did. So just no, ignore that. Yeah, people making a link there with power and kind of monarchs. Good. Tamina, will I be doing an example of comparing attitudes to war photographer and remains? Potentially. Potentially. Depends which order they come up in. Subplex. Have I seen people swear in exams? Yeah, of course I have. But it's usually people just getting annoyed at the exam. They'll be like, oh, I don't bleep get this. And that will be like the whole answer. It's not usually beneficial. So forget about swearing. OK, so if we are making links here between power in these two poems, we would need to start picking out some quotations that we would link. OK, so let's look at power here, particularly tyranny. Let's try and find some examples of. tyranny um how about king of kings look on my works ye mighty and despair okay so the focus there is um obviously tyranny and oppression 100% there and then we can link that straight away to um runs in blood down palace walls because that's suggesting that those in power are causing suffering to those without power you And the key word to do with suffering would be despair and blood. And that would be that could be our first link there. OK, Afia has mentioned the rich gaining benefits, the where where those benefits go. Yeah. OK, let's have a look at that then. So the where the benefits go in London, you have. each chartered street and chartered Thames does flow. OK, so that's obviously the ownership of these places. Whereas in in Ozymandias, you have the benefits being used selfishly. OK, so you've got selfish, selfishness slash. exploitation people taking what they want so cold command just telling people what to do uh chartered street these things belong to us not you okay so there's a very very clear link there um aki made a nice point maybe compare the contrast between two poems since ozymandias now has an inherent lack of power since he's forgotten about and compare it to the authoritarianism in london yeah lovely point because that power remains so you can talk about what's going on with the power now um Nothing beside remains in this one. So the power has gone. However, you could talk about the every blackening church of Paul's suggests that that is still ongoing. OK, so ongoing. Slash faded power. Yeah, fabulous link there. That'd be a really, really nice one. Remember, if you look at the way that I'm doing this, I started with just some general ideas of what I might explore between the two poems. And from then I went straight into the poems and I linked in terms of evidence. OK, the important thing to do and the thing that people often forget to do in the exam is they don't think about. the um they don't think about the the the evidence they just go well this poem has this in common with this poem and they don't have anything to say because they've not thought about the quotations which is why i like to draw these lines in the exam you won't have both poems next to each other however it's just a nice visual to show that you always need to be linking by evidence not just a general idea um it's charlie has made a lovely point saying there's a clear disparity in the rights between aristocracy and the institution of the government which the speaker has used as a construct for the deprived working class. So that clear disparity in terms of rights would be kind of an issue of contrast, wouldn't it? So if you wanted to make the link of contrast there, you've got the you've got the charted in contrast with the weakness and woe. So you've got that kind of inequality there. Yeah. And then in the what we're looking at, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. Again, you've got that sense of inequality there. Lovely. OK. When you do compare, Jason Mentor said, when you do compare, is it similarities and differences? It's entirely up to you. I've awarded full marks before for things that have only done similarities and also full marks for things that have only done differences. Unless it ever specifies, if it just asks you to compare or explore two things, then there's no set rule where you have to do similarities and differences. In fact, something that will really kind of, something that kind of upsets me about the way that the exam is put together. is you don't actually get marks for comparison. There isn't an assessment objective of comparison. There's only AO1 for essay structure and writing in a formal way, AO2 being analysis, AO3 being context, and AO4 being SPAC. So yeah, that's all you get. Fatima, yes I did. Asma, do I still mark for GCSE? I'm not marking for GCSE this year, no. I won't have time. Yeah, Zaini, why is it a comparison question? Well, they try and put comparison in there by saying that if you construct an essay, A01, around two poems, then you are doing comparison. Okay, that's how they kind of get away with it. I think it's nonsense, but I don't control it, sadly. Naham, how hard is it trying to memorize a whole poem? Well, I wouldn't recommend doing it because there are 15 poems So if you only memorized one of them, it's not going to be very useful even if you know it inside out. It's much more worth Memorizing a few things from each poem so you'd be able to talk about all of them Fatima, have any of my students I've taught ever gone from a grade five to a nine? Yes, I've taken on students who have come from kind of like a middle set into a top set and they've ended up with nines for sure um ritchie am i going to be writing an essay comparison no i'm going to be doing that next uh next lesson we're going to do like full comparisons um do i get paid to mark for yeah so if if you are a teacher and you mark for an exam board you do get paid for the time that you spend marking them yeah um afia nice nice link there about the uh the timing um and the best way to compare this would be looking at the tense wouldn't it? So this is all past tense because this is ancient and forgotten about, compared with the present tense of I wonder versus present, and then you can link that more broadly to ideas of the lone, nothing beside remains, like it's forgotten, whereas this is obviously ongoing with the church and the palace. So yeah, you would make that link as well. So Hasbro, can you do both similarities and differences or just one? You can do a mix. Absolutely. Up to you. Aki, how many marks this question would be? 30. Satoru, they both show humanity's unwillingness to change. There is a huge time difference, but no change in the type of ruler. Absolutely. Yeah. That's kind of the key thing to make the connection with is that in terms of tyranny and oppression, the rulers themselves are going to be doing the same thing. regardless of the time constraints and that's a really nice comparison where you go here's a similarity however the contexts are different and then you would start expanding it out to the different contexts um uh pranav uh what poems came up in last year's paper um i can't remember off the top of my head i'm really sorry uh i can't remember off the top of my head um i will i will check because i always keep a copy of the uh exams um you and I'll check and let you know next lesson. Mason, would I also be comparing tone in my papers? What do you mean by that? Sorry. As Matt has just asked for tips for English language, paper one. Not really. Not really. Are we going to revise off past papers? No, we're going to revise off papers that I've made up myself and 1V, just quite simply because due to copyright restrictions, I wouldn't be able to use past papers. So, yeah. Sir, has anyone ever compared a poem to tissue and got a nine? Yeah. Yeah. Loads of people. In fact, quite often the harder poems are the ones that. lead the best students to get the top grades if that makes sense so yes i've definitely marked grade nine responses fatima you go ahead and lock up your goats and chickens we are we're coming to a close now uh we are coming to a close now um i think it was kamikaze last yeah i think kamikaze did come up last year i actually yeah yeah that rings a bell actually i think it was kamikaze Is poetry English lang? No, it's English lit. No, I need to monetize this YouTube channel. Yeah, maybe. How many paragraphs for this question as an approximation? Realistically, like three or four paragraphs, if they're like really thorough, detailed ones. I'll show you how to write the perfect comparative paragraph next lesson. What languages do I speak? English, Spanish, pretty much it. Nice one Tamina, that's a great attitude. Can I predict what poem may come up this year? No, it's literally impossible. When it's a 1 in 15 chance, even if it's come up several times before, it could come up again. Even if it's never come up, it doesn't mean it's going to come up this year. So no. Will I make you do practice questions next lesson? We're going to be doing it together. We're going to explore how to put one of those comparative paragraphs together. JC, have I had students, more students with grade one or grade nine? Grade nine. Grade nine. It's very rare for a student to get a grade one, whereas every year you'll have like a handful of students getting nine in most schools. Gosh. couple of questions that I've missed I think um Omar I thought you weren't allowed to say you're an examiner um yeah absolutely yeah well I mean the papers are anonymized anyway so there'd be no way that like I would mark your paper and know that it's yours or anything like that um Dex does only one poem come up and you have to compare it to another poem out of your memory yes exactly that exactly that Gavin, will the same poem come twice as in last year's? Will it be the same or always different? There's no way of predicting it. They can do the same poem again. It's rare, but they can do. Michelle, is the London poem about nature or conflict? Do you mean power or conflict? As in from the anthology title, it's about power. Amro has said, would this help me if I'm doing Edexcel? Well, the anthology is slightly different, so we won't cover the same poems, but in terms of unseen poetry and how to approach unseen poetry, which is what we do before we add the context, absolutely it would be helpful. um okay guys um dynamite do you cover worlds and lives uh two for aqa unfortunately not we only have two teachers um so at the moment we're doing uh just power and conflict with me and loving relationships with alex in future we might have more teachers and more time um but yeah um hopefully that answers all the questions uh near edge what other questions will you get in english literature that's quite a big question remind me uh answer ask that one next lesson i'll let you know um ikra how hard is it to get into oxford um it was quite hard i had to have um had to have certain grades certain predicted grades had to do an entrance exam had to do an interview um uh had to send off some previous work had to write a personal statement had to have a good reference it's it's a big big picture uh but yeah it's quite quite tricky um Hema, how can I access my homework? It says it's not accessible. It should be accessible after the lesson finishes. Satoru, yes, I went to Oxford and then I did a master's at Cambridge. What did I get for my GCSEs? I got 13 A stars and an A. Lorenzo, love Oxford. That's awesome. Nice. Guys, I'm going to have to run along because I have to finally have my dinner. So I'm going to I'm going to catch you guys. it on friday friday i'll catch you guys on friday uh looking forward to it guys peace out have a lovely evening if you've got any questions by the way save them for next lesson be more than happy to answer them there excellent efforts today guys really proud of you excellent work top geezers have a nice evening see you later

I'd appreciate it if you could be Sensible, decent human beings, you know? That's always the goal. So once you can see me, let me know my camera is working, let me know the lighting is okay from the studio lights, let me know my microphone is all functional and that you can see big me as well as little me on the green screen behind me. That would be fantastic. So if you just let me know once that happens, just drop a plus or a hi or a what's good bestie or whatever.

That would be fantastic. Just gonna... close my door because i can hear my neighbor in the garden shouting about roses um aki don't be a loser what's up amara appreciate that what's good bestie how we doing bro i hate english so much well then don't be here mate just go away i only want kings here not clowns so if you're not going to be taking part if you're not interested then spend spend your hour doing something else the rest of us will be smashing it together all right uh what's my favorite car i'm not really a car guy to be honest i can drive one and i can maintain one but i'm not uh i'm not the best uh when it comes to like cars and f1 and stuff not really my area uh hi gavin what's up hi alina you How was my day, Unc? Yeah, it was good, Fatima, thank you. Yeah, it was alright.

I've got a bit of a cold, so my throat is quite sore. But other than that, it's all good. It's all good. Thanks, Eto. Appreciate that.

Eto's going to be modding today. Favourite football team? Again, not really into football.

Makes me sound a little bit lame. Not into cars, not into football. Am I even a boy?

Appreciate that, Fatima, thank you. So, Anthology, just as a reminder, we are doing our Power and Conflict Anthology cluster. So if you do your kind of love and relationships, that's obviously with Alex.

So if you're in the wrong place, then obviously you go to Alex's lesson later on this week. I'm actually covering Alex's lesson on Thursday, tomorrow, because he... He's unavailable.

So you'll have me tomorrow if you're in that group anyway. But hopefully we are all in the right place today. Specifically, we're looking at the poem London by William Blake.

OK, Zinon. Now, whoa, we do not emasculate people due to preference. Right, chap.

I appreciate that. I appreciate not being emasculated. That's that's very kind of you.

I. I don't mind being emasculated. I think masculinity is overrated in some aspects anyway. Nice one.

We're liking the poem. So if this is your first lesson, don't you worry too much. You can go back and you can watch the previous recordings.

We've only done one specific. We've only done one poem so far, which is obviously which is obviously Ozymandias that we did last lesson. So you can always catch up, as Etta has just said.

Yeah. That's good. Is this lesson related to the last lesson because I was not there? No.

So each lesson is going to be a different poem. And specifically, we're looking at London by William Blake today. OK, so first of all, can you drop a plus into the chat if you have already studied this poem in school at some point? Aspect, you've already done this poem.

Should you stay on it? Yeah, definitely. This is this is all revision. Right.

So if you've done it before, look at all of the people typing plus in the chat now. they've already seen the poem before um so if you have as well this is all about um improving your uh your annotations in the anthology um being able to say more about it okay let's cease the um let's cease the uh the the pluses now also guys um if you've already put your symbol into the chat please don't spam it multiple times or i will have to put you in timeout um which feels a little bit primary school doesn't it so Let's not do it. OK, Lorenzo, I need help with exam strategy and structure.

Are we going to be doing that? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, 100 percent.

Pish, can we have a word of the day for expansion of vocabulary? I do that on TikTok. I've got a word of the day on TikTok.

So if you follow me on there, it's LouisDoesEnglish. As you can see on the bottom of the screen, LouisDoesEnglish. So if you want to be improving your kind of essay vocabulary, it's the same handle on TikTok if you want to do the words of the day on there.

Okay, so loads of you have done this poem already. Ruchi, yes, we're going to do every single poem in... the power and conflict cluster of the anthology we will do one each lesson um so we've done uh we've done one uh last time we're doing another one today we're going to be doing another one on friday okay um appreciate that guys do i use a stylus to annotate oh uh you mean a stylus i use this this pen right here which goes with the tablet that i'm using okay um so let's jump in So our goal with all of these is basically revision.

OK, so because most of you typed plus, it is revision. We're going to go deeper into the poem than you might have done in school. So we're going to go deeper. However, we're also going to take a distanced look at the poem, which basically means what's the minimum to commit to memory? when it comes to revision.

Okay, so we're going to look at using first to just pull out the most important information and if you don't remember the content of the poem then you can at least remember those first ones. Okay, what if you've never read it? Well we're going to be reading it together anyway so we're all good.

Thanks Fatima, appreciate that, I'm sure. sure teachers in schools um will will come to hate me as time goes on um um uh uh araba said uh so are you going to cover one of the john agard poems yeah checking out my history but that's not until later um will we be doing revision for mock exams in november flame um uh no because we're not having mocks in in my headspace but we'll be covering the content over the course of the year so it's all revision basically Um, uh, someone else says, how long have I been teaching English? Uh, 10 years, 10 years. Um, okay.

So think back, this is for those of you who were here last lesson, uh, and we're just going to recall what we learned about Ozymandias. So what does Ozymandias roughly translate to? Just remember, let's kind of connect to last time.

Okay. Yeah. So air ruler, basically king of nothing, which is significant because it's ironic because he calls himself king of kings.

Okay, lovely. Okay, who wrote that poem? Who wrote Ozymandias? Cast your minds back to last lesson.

Shelley. Yeah. So specifically Percy Shelley, not Mary. So Mary Shelley was his wife.

Also check that there's a second E in Shelley. You're not going to be docked marks for this in the exam, but it's good to be precise. So don't get it confused with Mary Shelley.

Whoa. Don't get it confused with Mary Shelley. She was the one who wrote Frankenstein.

They were husband and wife though, okay? They were husband and wife. In fact, it's kind of crazy. So Mary Shelley was like 17 or whatever. Percy Shelley was like 20-ish.

And he was engaged and his fiance was pregnant. And he fell in love with Mary Shelley and abandoned his... um abandoned his fiancee his pregnant fiancee um who went on to commit suicide and he runs off with Mary Shelley and they become this kind of uh sweet little married couple it's super super dramatic so the kind of stuff that would be um that would be kind of like front page news these days but um uh yeah it's kind of intense anyway so Percy Shelley there is a link there you can remember the spelling of that but they are two different people okay uh what did you Napoleon and Ramesses II have to do with the poem?

No worries, Ashnim. Nice one, yeah. So both downfalls and Aman has just said very accurately as well, they were both tyrants.

Okay, yeah. So downfall of tyrants for both of them. Napoleon was what we would call contemporaneous, i.e. recent. Whereas Ramesses II is an ancient example, but they were both tyrants who had a downfall.

OK, yeah. So contemporaneous is a bit like modern, but contemporaneous refers specifically to the time that you're talking about. OK, so contemporaneous with the poem that we've we've read already.

OK, so it's not you wouldn't say something now is contemporaneous. You would call it contemporary, which is slightly different. Contemporaneous is like at the same time as.

OK. Downfall of tyrants. So a tyrant is someone who rules brutally, so they have all power and they're not kind with how they use their power. And a downfall is obviously when they kind of all fell apart. Ironic has just been explained up above.

What's the significance of the framing narrative of the poem? Yeah, oh yeah, and dictators are usually tyrants and vice versa. Yeah. Asaid, your teacher talks about playing Fortnite every lesson.

Wow, that's interesting. What is a framing narrative? Yes, it creates distance. Well done.

It creates distance between, so between Ozymandias. and us as readers, right? Creates that distance. And you're absolutely right in saying that the learning point that we get from that is that nature is all that survives. Certainly not humans, certainly not human power.

Okay. So what's first, we'll get onto that in the next slide. Fatima, where am I from? I am from the West Midlands, so like Birmingham area.

That's where I live anyway. What makes literature more permanent than architecture and statues, guys? Because they talk about nature surviving, but they also talk about literature surviving. So why does it why does it outlive architecture and statues? Birmingham on top.

Love that. Nice one, Michelle. Literature is permanent. And these edifices, they crumble.

They are susceptible to decay, aren't they? And so they function as metaphors for the people whose power is not going to last either. OK. Yeah, absolutely right, Flame, because architecture decays.

Spot on. What does it say next to Ozzy? Oh, here. Between Ozzy and us as readers.

the distance that created. Okay. What's the connection between most... do you mean Ramesses? Ramesses the second?

So he was the real... the real-life Ozymandias. KWH, your handwriting, please make it better. Okay, I'll do that instantly. Look, right, it's done, sorted.

Watch how amazing my handwriting is on the next slide. Okay, so... Here is the poem itself. The poem is called London.

It is by, obviously, thank you guys. He's trying. So much sympathy. I appreciate it.

You don't have to. It's all good. It's all good. Good feedback on the handwriting. I will make it better on the next one though.

Okay. So this poem by Blake, we're going to read it first, then we're going to explore it using first specifically. And those of you who haven't seen first before, you will see it in action.

Yeah, I know my handwriting looks just like Ariel Black. It's crazy. I've been working really hard.

Anyway, so London. Fatima, yeah, it's a fair point about the workbook. The idea is that on the workbook, I would say... I would say just get the bare bones of the annotations.

onto this and you've also got um you've also got annotations on your your home uh sorry on your school given anthology so uh hopefully there should be enough space between the the two of them okay um i see okay so london just bring the microphone over just for the experience london 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-sweepers cry, every blackening 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 newborn infant's tear and blights with plagues the marriage hearse. Okay, so first impressions guys, how does Blake feel about London?

How would you say Blake feels about London? Straight up, without doing any kind of tight analysis. Thank you guys for the... Feedback on the writing.

Yeah, so bad, bleak, doomed, dull. He won a new kit. No, I think he wants to save it.

But you're absolutely right. It's not the most pleasant experience. Depressing, poverty, bad, dull.

Ashton just throwing in some inspector calls there as well. Bro is used to Gotham City. Yeah, cool.

Okay, so this is generally what's going on. So the first thing that we do. is first.

So just to remind people or to inform those who were not introduced to this method, first is just a way of getting some initial annotations on the page by focusing on something that you will find in every single poem that you come across, which is all of these features. Okay, so first and last line, imagery, repetition, structure, and the title. So title is the first thing that we come across. So let's go straight into annotating the title.

So it's a one word title, which means that it's particularly evocative. I was so still, I thought you were bugging me. London then.

What connotations do we get from that single word London? Thanks Etta. Yeah, 1794. OK, so the first thing to bear in mind is that it is the capital, it's the capital city and therefore most important.

Now, what should a capital city do? What should a capital city do for for a country? What should it represent for the country? Would you say capital city in general?

Stand out, be good. Run the country pride landmark should be the center. It should represent. Thank you bunny girl. It should represent The country.

Okay, so it should be What we would call an example of synecdoche Okay now synecdoche is where one thing represents the whole thing. Okay, one thing represents the whole thing So in this case, it's basically London should be representative of English, sort of England rather, as a whole, okay? And synecdoche is literally just London represents the larger thing, okay? Now, the significance of that, guys, if we could save some of the comments on other parts of the poem just for now, because otherwise people are going to get pulled in different directions. Really great points, but just we'll do them one at a time.

The city of London should represent England. So when Blake is commenting on London, he's not just commenting on London, he is commenting on England, okay? So if this is a critical poem, which it most certainly is, then his criticism is not just of London.

He's not just going, London's, you know, a bit of a dive, but... Birmingham, that's the place to be, right? He's not doing that at all. He's very much going, this is a snapshot, a microcosm, a synecdoche of the whole country, okay? So that's how he's being critical.

That's all we can really get from just London. We could potentially mention busy, highly populated. We could potentially mention that it's kind of like the heart of the industrial revolution, as some people were pointing out in the chat.

All those things are certainly true, okay? But we can't say much about it because it's just one word, okay? Thanks Etta for explaining to Nettakee. It is up there in the corner as well, if you lost it, okay?

So that's title, okay? That's title we can tick off. Let's go to the first and last line. First thing, I wander through each chartered street, blights with plague the marriage hearse. OK, so straight away, the first impression that we get of our poem is I wander.

OK, so not all those who wander are lost, but there is a sense of potentially being lost. He's not on his way anywhere. He is just exploring.

OK, so lost, but also open. He's not looking for anything specifically. He's just taking it all in.

So it's quite sort of general. One through each chartered street. OK, so chartered literally means stop.

It means recorded and by extension owned. Who owns the streets? Who owns the streets, would we say? Yeah, absolutely right.

It's a kind of a metaphor for being owned. Yeah, you're absolutely right. The rich, the nobles, the government, the church. Yeah.

Okay. So owned by nobility or those with power. 100%. Okay.

So we get a sense that there's nothing explicitly negative here. We just get hints. of fascism, right?

Just slight hints, the fact that the city is owned, okay? Right, what do I mean by open? So just that he's wandering, rather than going in with an intention, he's open to seeing what the city has in mind.

So it sets the scene for him just exploring. He's not going, I'm going from one end to the other, he's just literally going, I'm wandering through each chartered street. Okay, so he's exploring it to try and take it in.

Fascism is kind of like, it's a little bit like tyranny, a little bit like dictatorship. It's basically an idea of unkind and total dominion in terms of rule. Okay, yeah, very authoritarian as Anthony said, or Senator Bee said, yeah.

Open and general was that word there, general. I forgot to do my arrow black handwriting for that bit. Okay, and then compare that then. compare the first line with the last line which straight away is more directly negative so blights which are basically like um sores or damage plagues again we've got disease hearse obviously is the kind of car that we carry bodies in so we've got death and also the fact that marriage is linked to hearse as people are typing into the chat right now it is an oxymoron um and highly critical of the notion of marriage it's not serving people okay um yes exactly yeah um really great question neon universe was he part of the lower class he witnesses in the poem you No, he wasn't. He was fairly privileged.

Blake was. What does oxymoron mean? Oxymoron is where you have two words that contradict each other.

OK, so we think that marriage should be positive. Right. Should be a cheery connection between people. But hearse associates with death. So it's like doomed in that case.

So that's how the oxymoron is functioning there because they're opposites. OK. Okay, so that gives us first and last line. Easy, right? Imagery.

Imagery. So there's all sorts of imagery we could pick. However, probably the most striking piece of imagery in the poem is the whole of the third stanza. So we've got blackening church of Paul's blood down palace walls. OK, so that's going to be the imagery that I pick out, because what is it telling us about these two institutions?

OK, what's it telling us about these two institutions? the church and the palace first of all what do they represent who are the uh the the church so the church it literally just means religion in general or church of england and yet nice power people keep saying um so it's the monarchy right so the monarchy and religion They are sources of power, places of power, as Toi Toi has just said, creating a sense of inequality. One hundred percent. Yeah, really, really nice analysis, guys.

I'm really enjoying dipping into the chat to see what we're saying. So the blackening church of pools and there's blood down palace walls. So a fantastic word that someone just used in the chat is corruption.

OK, corruption of these authority. figures. Okay, really, really nice contributions coming out there.

We would expect the monarchy to be looking after its people. We would expect religion to be caring about people. The way that Blake sees it, though, is that the blackening church appalls. Well, what is it that the church isn't doing? It's not helping the poor.

And the way that he sees religion, certainly Christianity, is that it should be all about charity and helping those people out. Again, monarchy. Not serving its country, war. Young men just dying, okay? Hopefully that makes sense.

Yeah, you're absolutely right, guys. A miserly society. That's a really, really nice word there, number one. It doesn't help people, should be helping the poor. Could it refer to the French Revolution?

Definitely, Mohamed, yeah. Aki, would I say that that's ironic since the government is supposed to care about the country? Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. So there's more irony going on here because you expect both the country and the church to be helping people. But instead they are exploiting them. Yeah. OK, so that is imagery ticked off.

Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. This should be nice and easy because this poem is actually. teeming with repetition i would say that's the word that i would use for it um uh and what color should i go with guys what color should i go with oh choices choices i'm gonna go with orange okay so um people are yeah you guys are absolutely right you've got every all the way through and you've also got charted twice okay so both of those sets of imagery i think are worth talking about okay I'm just going to mute my screen over there.

OK, hopefully that makes sense. OK, so why is that significant? Well, why that's significant is because Chartered is all about this sense of ownership, which relates to this idea of corruption and an imbalance of power. OK, so everything so far is tying together. It's a very neat kind of.

very understandable accessible poem because the whole thing is just criticizing how the the city and by extension the country has been ruined um by the way that people are behaving someone's also pointed out that marks and marks are repeated as well okay um so we've got every cry every cry um every voice so all of these sorts of things are negative so um those those without power if you're without power if you're not in a powerful position you are miserable if you look at the language that surrounds the every cry of every man every infant's cry of fear every voice and then the mind forged manacles meaning like uh handcuffs they are trapped miserable trapped in contrast if you look at the repetition here of charted and charted you The people who own the uh the chartered streets and the Thames like you can even own a river, like you can own nature, they are in the money. They're winning, okay? So we've got this massive sense of inequality coming through in the poem.

Samuel, what about the word cry? This meaning the abuse of innocence. Yeah. So the fact that it's infants cry, not just every man, but also every infant.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Really, really nice point about the sense of innocence that you get with infants cry of fear.

Maria, could you call it a semantic field? Yeah, you can talk about the semantic field of. kind of exploitation couldn't you yeah so if you wanted to talk about a a semantic field it would be a semantic field of exploitation yeah absolutely um uh gray area wasn't london really dirty at that time yeah yeah 100 yeah so um in the 18th century when this is set. It was a very dirty, polluted kind of a place.

Tamina, what does imagery mean? It's anywhere where you've got a picture being conjured up in your mind. Yeah. Yeah.

Really, really nice. What does the every repetition represent? Louis does English.

It's the sheer number, the sheer number. of these powerless people okay that's what the repetition does it shows just how many of them there were yeah um uh adam ahmad yeah you could definitely talk about the anaphora um so the in every cry in every infant in every voice definitely um uh yeah 100 100 okay uh So let's just quickly add the context. Now that we've done our first annotations, let's have a look at the context that we can have a look at here, because this can help us to understand why some of the stuff in the poem is the way that it comes up. Yes.

For those of you commenting on other things, by the way, if you're commenting on things like rhyme, on anaphora, on... you know, the youthful harlot's curse, all of those sorts of things. There are loads and loads and loads of other things you can comment on. The point of first is just to get like five really good bits of analysis out of the way. That's not to say that we are finished with our points about the poem.

There's loads more to say about this poem. However, once we've done first, we then think about what context we can add. Okay.

Is this the same time as Jack the Ripper? Yeah, it's around that sort of time. Okay. Everyone, let's help a brummie out. Thanks, JJ.

I appreciate that. OK, so Blake was another romantic poet. So when I say another, I'm saying that last lesson we looked at Percy Shelley, who was also a romantic poet.

So they they should believe in the same sorts of things. OK, so social justice was a really important thing to him. He rejected the Enlightenment's obsession with progress and rationality, particularly as represented by the effect of the Industrial Revolution in England. poverty injustice and oppression is how he saw this happening okay so his understanding was that um the social justice um was uh was ruined or was injured or damaged by the industrial revolution so the industrial revolution um it obviously made it made a lot of people rich but it made a lot of people you It made a lot of people really poor as well. So we could talk about how the Industrial Revolution, it's what we would call widened the gap.

Okay. It widened the gap between rich and poor. I don't think it shows the likes to...

Repetition at the beginning of a sentence or clause. Yes. Good.

There's semantic field included as well. Yeah, we just talked about that one Mason Semantic field of exploitation was the one that we we spotted. Yeah, we're talking about this context Right now Neeraj.

Okay Yeah, someone's just spotted a really nice little kind of acrostic here here Yeah That's a lovely point. I've actually never seen that before and I've been looking at this poem for years and years. Tamina, appalls means disgusted.

Okay, come back here. Okay, right. So another thing to bear in mind is where this poem comes from.

Okay, which collection it is published in, in 1794. This poem comes from the of experience section of his collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, representing the progressively more cynical worldview he adopted as he grew up and recognised the degradation of society and... nature. So what happened is he published this collection of poems in two sections.

And in the first half, which he called Songs of Innocence, he narrates the world in an optimistic, childish way. An optimistic, childish view of the world. is what he had in the first half.

Whereas in the second half, Songs of Experience, it was much more cynical, okay? Much more cynical and adult. So this is kind of like an autobiography, where he's exploring his growing up and developing and changing how he feels about the world. Yes, Sahasro, yeah. Romantics in general didn't like the Industrial Revolution.

Romanticism wasn't necessarily a reaction to it, but it stood in the face of it. It definitely, they were opposing ideas. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, really, really nice. So if we were to bring these ideas together, all of the stuff that we've annotated for first, all of the stuff that we've just noted in terms of context over there on the left, then what we would end up with is an overall impression of a poem. where Blake is saying the world has been messed up by the industrial revolution and people trying to seize power who shouldn't have power.

And the outcome is we've got a dirty city full of people who are being exploited and are miserable. And that's basically the overall thrust of his poem. OK, the overall thrust of his poem is that London, which represents the whole of England, has been damaged. by the Industrial Revolution, which has benefited those in power, such as the Church of England, such as the monarchy, such as the nobility, and it has ruined the lives of those who are lower down, okay? And that's kind of what he's saying in general in this poem.

Omar, Louis does English, what's a harlot? So a harlot, it's basically a euphemism for a prostitute. um harlot is a euphemism for a prostitute so it talks in that final stanza about how the youthful harlot's curse blasts the newborn infant's tear it's talking about um stis basically it's another way that the city has become like dirty um because of how how society has developed um the it's the um when it says the newborn infants it's talking about how uh certain sexually transmitted diseases can be passed on to the babies and be born blind.

That's kind of what it's referring to when it says the newborn infant's tear. So it's this whole kind of sense of like the world has become kind of corrupt and dirty and morally questionable. Now I'm not sure that most people these days would say that a harlot is inherently immoral or amoral but certainly in the late 18th century um prostitution was not something which was widely um uh kind of accepted i guess it was something that was highly criticized as morally unacceptable um yeah uh can you stop asking what anaphora is i either look it up or actually look at the um uh look at all of the responses that you've been given etta has answered your question about 1100 times um you political statement to raise awareness did it end up working what do you mean neon universe another word for immersive what's wrong with immersive immersive is a good word what do I mean by optimistic children did I talk about optimistic children Cheyenne How was the Industrial Revolution bad for poor people?

Yeah, excellent question, Cheyenne. So the reason that it was bad for poor people is basically what happened is... um is this if i just put it on a different different slide for a second so the industrial revolution meant a few things this is not a history lesson but i think it's worth noting okay so a few things happened as a result of the industrial revolution okay so production went up the need for laborers went down Why was that?

Because of automation. It meant that people in the working class no longer had a job because a machine could do that job for them. OK, so that's what happened as a result of the Industrial Revolution.

More factories were made, more production, which meant more money for the rich because they could invest in open factories. Whereas the poor who'd be working them would be receiving lower and lower wages because their jobs were less important. OK, lots of you are mentioning the relevance of an inspector calls to this.

Yeah, 100 percent. That kind of imbalance there. So that's why the Industrial Revolution created this this kind of it increased the gap between the rich and the poor. OK, hopefully that.

answers your question. I'm not answering the question what does anafora mean. Tamina what do I mean by production? I meant that I mean that factories opened.

Yeah so if loads of factories open, wealthy people open factories which meant that more things could be produced, more things could be produced more rapidly. So production went up. yeah production of anything any any particular um any commodity that people wanted um so it could be it could be it could be coal it could be clothing it could be furniture it could be food um anything like that okay um in your gcse can you say and spectacles i wouldn't link this to one inspector calls no i wouldn't link it to one inspector calls OK, lots of us are just quoting from An Inspector Calls now.

What I wanted to think about now is the two poems that we've looked at. I want you to think about what comparisons we might make between them. OK, because in the exam, you're welcome to me.

In the exam, you are basically going to be asked something like this. Compare X in a named poem, so they will give you the poem, and another poem of your choice. OK, that's what the question will look like. OK, so it's going to ask you to do comparison. It's going to ask you to explore a specific theme.

in two different poems at the same time, which is why we need to start thinking about the links that we could be making between these poems that we're studying. Okay, so thank you. Etta has answered that question for you, Arab, there.

You compare the anthology poem to another poem in the cluster. Okay, so we've studied two poems now. We studied two poems now, which means that we are now looking for links.

So CNRH679, that's a bit of a mouthful to say, has talked about, as mentioned, power. Yeah. So power is definitely in there and potentially it's misuse.

That would be an obvious link. Samuel, yes, they give you one poem and you have to. do the other one from memory.

Okay, so that's why I said named poems. It will say compare Ozymandias with another poem in the cluster or compare London with another poem in the cluster. So you choose the second one and you have to remember what happens in that poem. Yeah, absolutely. Will you get an anthology booklet during the exam, Madhavi?

No, you will not. The only thing you will get in the exam is a list of the poems in the cluster. and one of the poems, the poem that you're going to be comparing to.

Okay, hopefully that makes sense. Aki, what's the best poem to compare everything to? It depends on the question.

I don't like answering that question. Some teachers will say that, you know, checking out my history is great for comparing to all poems. I disagree.

It depends entirely upon the question. There isn't a hack, there isn't a cheat that we can get there. uh afia has made a nice uh comparison point uh the idea of the rich having the benefits and the poor suffering um yeah okay so inequality inequality definitely would be another link really nice uh richie do we get a random poem and from our anthology no you get one poem from the anthology is reproduced for you and you're asked a question about it and you have to compare it to another poem from the anthology that you remember.

Nice, yeah, so a link here, someone has said exploitation slash tyranny, someone else just said. Yep, lovely. I read online examiners give you mark for swearing with meaning and context on the paper.

What? What are you talking about? I wouldn't recommend swearing in the exam.

It's not that you'll necessarily be docked marks. It's just that it's almost never going to be relevant. So no, it's like in the nine years that I spent marking exams like actual GCSE exams, never did I see someone effectively using swearing as a point that they did.

So just no, ignore that. Yeah, people making a link there with power and kind of monarchs. Good. Tamina, will I be doing an example of comparing attitudes to war photographer and remains?

Potentially. Potentially. Depends which order they come up in. Subplex.

Have I seen people swear in exams? Yeah, of course I have. But it's usually people just getting annoyed at the exam.

They'll be like, oh, I don't bleep get this. And that will be like the whole answer. It's not usually beneficial.

So forget about swearing. OK, so if we are making links here between power in these two poems, we would need to start picking out some quotations that we would link. OK, so let's look at power here, particularly tyranny.

Let's try and find some examples of. tyranny um how about king of kings look on my works ye mighty and despair okay so the focus there is um obviously tyranny and oppression 100% there and then we can link that straight away to um runs in blood down palace walls because that's suggesting that those in power are causing suffering to those without power you And the key word to do with suffering would be despair and blood. And that would be that could be our first link there. OK, Afia has mentioned the rich gaining benefits, the where where those benefits go.

Yeah. OK, let's have a look at that then. So the where the benefits go in London, you have. each chartered street and chartered Thames does flow. OK, so that's obviously the ownership of these places.

Whereas in in Ozymandias, you have the benefits being used selfishly. OK, so you've got selfish, selfishness slash. exploitation people taking what they want so cold command just telling people what to do uh chartered street these things belong to us not you okay so there's a very very clear link there um aki made a nice point maybe compare the contrast between two poems since ozymandias now has an inherent lack of power since he's forgotten about and compare it to the authoritarianism in london yeah lovely point because that power remains so you can talk about what's going on with the power now um Nothing beside remains in this one.

So the power has gone. However, you could talk about the every blackening church of Paul's suggests that that is still ongoing. OK, so ongoing.

Slash faded power. Yeah, fabulous link there. That'd be a really, really nice one.

Remember, if you look at the way that I'm doing this, I started with just some general ideas of what I might explore between the two poems. And from then I went straight into the poems and I linked in terms of evidence. OK, the important thing to do and the thing that people often forget to do in the exam is they don't think about. the um they don't think about the the the evidence they just go well this poem has this in common with this poem and they don't have anything to say because they've not thought about the quotations which is why i like to draw these lines in the exam you won't have both poems next to each other however it's just a nice visual to show that you always need to be linking by evidence not just a general idea um it's charlie has made a lovely point saying there's a clear disparity in the rights between aristocracy and the institution of the government which the speaker has used as a construct for the deprived working class. So that clear disparity in terms of rights would be kind of an issue of contrast, wouldn't it?

So if you wanted to make the link of contrast there, you've got the you've got the charted in contrast with the weakness and woe. So you've got that kind of inequality there. Yeah.

And then in the what we're looking at, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. Again, you've got that sense of inequality there. Lovely. OK. When you do compare, Jason Mentor said, when you do compare, is it similarities and differences?

It's entirely up to you. I've awarded full marks before for things that have only done similarities and also full marks for things that have only done differences. Unless it ever specifies, if it just asks you to compare or explore two things, then there's no set rule where you have to do similarities and differences. In fact, something that will really kind of, something that kind of upsets me about the way that the exam is put together. is you don't actually get marks for comparison.

There isn't an assessment objective of comparison. There's only AO1 for essay structure and writing in a formal way, AO2 being analysis, AO3 being context, and AO4 being SPAC. So yeah, that's all you get. Fatima, yes I did.

Asma, do I still mark for GCSE? I'm not marking for GCSE this year, no. I won't have time.

Yeah, Zaini, why is it a comparison question? Well, they try and put comparison in there by saying that if you construct an essay, A01, around two poems, then you are doing comparison. Okay, that's how they kind of get away with it.

I think it's nonsense, but I don't control it, sadly. Naham, how hard is it trying to memorize a whole poem? Well, I wouldn't recommend doing it because there are 15 poems So if you only memorized one of them, it's not going to be very useful even if you know it inside out. It's much more worth Memorizing a few things from each poem so you'd be able to talk about all of them Fatima, have any of my students I've taught ever gone from a grade five to a nine?

Yes, I've taken on students who have come from kind of like a middle set into a top set and they've ended up with nines for sure um ritchie am i going to be writing an essay comparison no i'm going to be doing that next uh next lesson we're going to do like full comparisons um do i get paid to mark for yeah so if if you are a teacher and you mark for an exam board you do get paid for the time that you spend marking them yeah um afia nice nice link there about the uh the timing um and the best way to compare this would be looking at the tense wouldn't it? So this is all past tense because this is ancient and forgotten about, compared with the present tense of I wonder versus present, and then you can link that more broadly to ideas of the lone, nothing beside remains, like it's forgotten, whereas this is obviously ongoing with the church and the palace. So yeah, you would make that link as well. So Hasbro, can you do both similarities and differences or just one?

You can do a mix. Absolutely. Up to you.

Aki, how many marks this question would be? 30. Satoru, they both show humanity's unwillingness to change. There is a huge time difference, but no change in the type of ruler.

Absolutely. Yeah. That's kind of the key thing to make the connection with is that in terms of tyranny and oppression, the rulers themselves are going to be doing the same thing. regardless of the time constraints and that's a really nice comparison where you go here's a similarity however the contexts are different and then you would start expanding it out to the different contexts um uh pranav uh what poems came up in last year's paper um i can't remember off the top of my head i'm really sorry uh i can't remember off the top of my head um i will i will check because i always keep a copy of the uh exams um you and I'll check and let you know next lesson.

Mason, would I also be comparing tone in my papers? What do you mean by that? Sorry.

As Matt has just asked for tips for English language, paper one. Not really. Not really. Are we going to revise off past papers? No, we're going to revise off papers that I've made up myself and 1V, just quite simply because due to copyright restrictions, I wouldn't be able to use past papers.

So, yeah. Sir, has anyone ever compared a poem to tissue and got a nine? Yeah. Yeah. Loads of people.

In fact, quite often the harder poems are the ones that. lead the best students to get the top grades if that makes sense so yes i've definitely marked grade nine responses fatima you go ahead and lock up your goats and chickens we are we're coming to a close now uh we are coming to a close now um i think it was kamikaze last yeah i think kamikaze did come up last year i actually yeah yeah that rings a bell actually i think it was kamikaze Is poetry English lang? No, it's English lit. No, I need to monetize this YouTube channel.

Yeah, maybe. How many paragraphs for this question as an approximation? Realistically, like three or four paragraphs, if they're like really thorough, detailed ones. I'll show you how to write the perfect comparative paragraph next lesson. What languages do I speak?

English, Spanish, pretty much it. Nice one Tamina, that's a great attitude. Can I predict what poem may come up this year?

No, it's literally impossible. When it's a 1 in 15 chance, even if it's come up several times before, it could come up again. Even if it's never come up, it doesn't mean it's going to come up this year.

So no. Will I make you do practice questions next lesson? We're going to be doing it together.

We're going to explore how to put one of those comparative paragraphs together. JC, have I had students, more students with grade one or grade nine? Grade nine. Grade nine. It's very rare for a student to get a grade one, whereas every year you'll have like a handful of students getting nine in most schools.

Gosh. couple of questions that I've missed I think um Omar I thought you weren't allowed to say you're an examiner um yeah absolutely yeah well I mean the papers are anonymized anyway so there'd be no way that like I would mark your paper and know that it's yours or anything like that um Dex does only one poem come up and you have to compare it to another poem out of your memory yes exactly that exactly that Gavin, will the same poem come twice as in last year's? Will it be the same or always different?

There's no way of predicting it. They can do the same poem again. It's rare, but they can do.

Michelle, is the London poem about nature or conflict? Do you mean power or conflict? As in from the anthology title, it's about power.

Amro has said, would this help me if I'm doing Edexcel? Well, the anthology is slightly different, so we won't cover the same poems, but in terms of unseen poetry and how to approach unseen poetry, which is what we do before we add the context, absolutely it would be helpful. um okay guys um dynamite do you cover worlds and lives uh two for aqa unfortunately not we only have two teachers um so at the moment we're doing uh just power and conflict with me and loving relationships with alex in future we might have more teachers and more time um but yeah um hopefully that answers all the questions uh near edge what other questions will you get in english literature that's quite a big question remind me uh answer ask that one next lesson i'll let you know um ikra how hard is it to get into oxford um it was quite hard i had to have um had to have certain grades certain predicted grades had to do an entrance exam had to do an interview um uh had to send off some previous work had to write a personal statement had to have a good reference it's it's a big big picture uh but yeah it's quite quite tricky um Hema, how can I access my homework?

It says it's not accessible. It should be accessible after the lesson finishes. Satoru, yes, I went to Oxford and then I did a master's at Cambridge. What did I get for my GCSEs?

I got 13 A stars and an A. Lorenzo, love Oxford. That's awesome. Nice.

Guys, I'm going to have to run along because I have to finally have my dinner. So I'm going to I'm going to catch you guys. it on friday friday i'll catch you guys on friday uh looking forward to it guys peace out have a lovely evening if you've got any questions by the way save them for next lesson be more than happy to answer them there excellent efforts today guys really proud of you excellent work top geezers have a nice evening see you later

Transcript for:Analysis of Blake's London Poem

Transcript for:
Analysis of Blake's London Poem