“Poetry,” said Robert Frost, “is a way of grabbing life by the throat.” Not having been equipped with today's media and technology, poets of the post-1770 era often approached their poetry in this way. They took advantage of the freedom of words and used poetry to express their views and opinions on social and personal issues, which was most effective through the use of vivid language. Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay “London” by William Blake is an example of a poet using aggressive language to express displeasure with oppression and the alienation evident in his days. Blake responds to these societal inequalities by representing what many have called a form of "social protest" against the political and economic gloom that Blake believes was gripping London at this time. Blake wishes to use the poem to show his contempt for the "charter" city of London, and he does this effectively through the use of subtle word choices, which leave an impact on the reader. He uses repetition and double meanings to explain the terrible conditions in the city of London. An example would be the repetitive use of "charter'd" in the poem, which highlights how Blake felt the city had been forced to submit to an organized structure. Even the River Thames and the streets had not been exempt from this oppression, having been diverted from their natural course to conform to an oppressive administration. According to William Blake, the city of London had been, as one critic put it, "mapped, licensed, controlled, and choked with commerce." As he describes the plight of the common man, evident in the "marks of weakness, of misfortune" that mark their faces, Blake again employs the repetition of the words "mark" and "each", effectively representing the atmosphere of despair and misery. . The repetition of “each” may also suggest that Londoners are not the only ones suffering, that the struggle against submission to oppression is universal. Similarly, Blake's use of the condemnable word "black'ning" to describe the Church can also be seen as having a double meaning. Written at the time of the Industrial Revolution, as London was transitioning from an agrarian to an urbanized society, it can be assumed that the Church was physically covered in soot from the spread of industry. However, it is also difficult to miss the figurative meaning: Blake claims that the Church took responsibility for the deaths of young chimney sweeps who comfortably climbed up chimneys but rarely came out. Blake's disgust at the economically exploited life of a young chimney sweep is further evidenced in his poem "The Chimney Sweeper." In addition to demonstrating Blake's condemnation of the exploited lives of the poor and young in the name of a prosperous economy, his choice of "black'ning" is also used to express the corruption he perceived in the institutionalized Church. What is interesting to note in this stanza is how Blake transformed the oppressors (religion and the monarchy) into inanimate, cold, dark buildings (the church and the palace), while the oppressed are real people , breathing their last breath in the form of an “unhappy sigh” and a “cry”. Blake sympathizes with the cruel plight of the soldiers, and the mention of "blood on the palace walls" implies that the palace has blood on its hands, the result of being responsible for the deaths of too many..”