In his poem ‘London’, William Blake crafted a bleak vision of the city he loved

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In his early-Romantic artworks, William Blake (1757-1827) is known for conjuring dramatic, often apocalyptic images inspired by his deep Christian faith. However, as the US video essayist Evan Puschak (also known as the Nerdwriter) lays out in this short, his poem ‘London’ (1794) makes manifest a much more earthly vision of darkness and suffering, born of his everyday life in the metropolis. Placing the poem in the context of 18th-century London – a time when rapid industrialisation was transforming the city, the Church of England held immense power, and the bloody French Revolution was unfolding just across the English Channel – Puschak analyses how Blake’s distinctive and critical perspective on his home city left very little room for optimism.