“In a London Drawingroom” Summary

• The sky is clouded over with yellow smog. The only view is that of the row of houses across the way, which slice across the sky like a wall of solid fog. Everything looks exactly the same as far as the eye can see, with no break in the pattern to allow for a little imagination or creativity. The birds don't cast shadows as they fly because everything is already cast in shadow. It's like the whole city has been covered with thick fabric, and even the sun's warm, yellow rays have been smothered by heavy cloth. Nobody takes a beat to simply take in their surroundings or to enjoy a quiet moment of existence. Everyone's in a rush, staring downwards, or glancing absently at people as they pass. Vehicles rush through the city too, the many cabs and carriages enclosing people in their own identical yet separate lives. The world is one big prison and court, in which people are punished for nothing, their sentence an existence without color, warmth, or joy.

“In a London Drawingroom” Themes

• 

  Nature vs. the City

  "In a London Drawing Room" presents 19th-century London as dull, isolating, and downright oppressive. Written in the midst of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, the speaker critiques urban life by describing the city as a bleak, gray, and uninspiring place that cuts people off from the life-affirming beauty and freedom of the natural world.

  The poem describes London in drab, depressing detail that illustrates the soul-crushing effects of both pollution and urban architecture. Yellow smoke from factories obscures the sky, casting the city in a sickly glow (one that perhaps evokes the figurative soul-sickness of the city's inhabitants). The only "view" the speaker has are other houses across the way, which "Cut[] the sky with one long line of wall / Like solid fog." Rows of houses and buildings further obscure—even metaphorically injure—the sky, denying the city’s inhabitants access to the bright, liberating power of nature.

  Even the sun's "golden rays" are muted by pollution, as if "clothed in hemp" (that is, covered with a cloth that dulls their glow). No birds "can make a shadow," because the whole city is already cast in shadow by its smog and its hulking buildings. The city seems draped with the "thickest canvass" that nature simply can't break through.

  All the speaker sees, then, is "Monotony of surface" and "shadow." Industrialization has sucked all the color and variety out of the city: everything looks and feels the same. The city, the poem thus insists, is in direct conflict with the natural world, and the lack of access to nature transforms the city into a dark, dreary, and suffocating world. Without fresh air and sunlight, life cannot thrive. Urban life isn't just unnatural, then; in the speaker’s estimation, it's not truly life at all.

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• 

  Alienation and Conformity in Urban Life

  "In a London Drawing Room" illustrates the damaging effects of living in an ever-expanding industrialized city. The London of the poem is a bleak, hectic, monotonous place that alienates people from each other and from their own humanity. The city thoroughly crushes the human spirit, the speaker argues, draining life of wonder, camaraderie, and individuality.

  The speaker presents city life as frantic and hectic rather than thrilling or inspiring. For example, Londoners "hurry on & look upon the ground." Their vehicles "are hurrying too," transporting them in "closed" little bubbles. It seems like Londoners constantly have somewhere to be and that their lives are hampered by relentless stress and anxiety. As a result, they're too busy to take note of their surroundings. No one stops "to feed the hunger of the eye / Or rest a little on the lap of life." That is, nobody takes a beat to appreciate the world around them or simply embrace the fact that they're alive. (Of course, the speaker also insists that their surroundings wouldn't really inspire them anyway; London's polluted skies and cramped buildings don't exactly encourage people to stop and smell the roses!)

  City life isolates people not just from the natural world, the poem insists, but also from each other. The endless stream of "cabs" and "carriages" add to the chaos and noise while also dividing people; everyone is wrapped up in their own "closed" little bubble. As they rush about their days, city dwellers only "glance unmarking" at their fellow Londoners, not truly acknowledging another's presence or identity. These people might be living in cramped quarters, but they're not a true community. The speaker adds that Londoners exist in a state of "multiplied identity"—that is, infinite uniformity. Essentially, everyone is experiencing the same thing in isolation. They're all alone in the same way, but this doesn't lead to any sort of comforting camaraderie.

  Finally, the speaker argues that there's no mystery or imagination in this London. Everything's so monotonous that there's nowhere to "hang a guess upon." That is, there's no room for originality, curiosity, or creativity—in short, the things that make people unique individuals. Modern industrial life, then, has built one "huge prison-house" in which everyone gets punished for simply living, their sentence a lack of "colour, warmth, and joy." In other words, these people have lost some of their most important human qualities: creativity, solidarity, and plain old happiness.

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “In a London Drawingroom”

• Lines 1-4

  The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
  For view there are the houses opposite
  Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
  Like solid fog:

  The title establishes the poem's setting: the speaker is in London, looking out at the city from inside a "drawingroom" (a space for entertaining guests, a.k.a. a living room or lounge). The poem was written in the mid-19th century, when London was the crowded heart of industrialized Britain. Everywhere the speaker looks, then, they see the effects of industry and modern urban life.

  The speaker clearly doesn't like what they see. First, the speaker notes that the "sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke." There might be real clouds in the sky, but the fact that the sky is "yellowed" implies that much of what the speaker sees is the result of pollution. Note too that the speaker doesn't refer to just any smoke but "the smoke": presumably the noxious smoke and smog from factories and coal fires, which cast the city in this predictable, sickly glow. Already, then, the reader senses the relentlessly unsettling effects of industry on the natural world.

  The hissing, threatening sibilance and spiky /k/consonance of these lines further convey the speaker's distaste for the scene at hand:

  The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.

  The speaker then notes that there's very little "view" to speak of. Instead, looking out from the window reveals only "the houses opposite"—that is, the row of houses on the other side of the street. These houses reflect the cramped, crowded conditions of the city. They're so packed together that they become "one line long of wall," which slice across the sky "like solid fog."

  This metaphorical "wall" foreshadows the speaker's later comparison of the city to a "prison." Urban life, the image implies, traps people. The simile comparing this wall to "solid fog" further links the city's buildings with its pollution and gloom. Everything seems to blend together in this place, turning London into a dreary, monotonous mass.

  These houses are "Cutting the sky" in the sense that they deny the observer a proper view. They have, in essense, chopped part of the sky off from this landscape. Less literally, the violent word "cutting" reflects the speaker's insistence that industrialization and urbanization are actively harming the natural world.

  Finally, note how the enjambment of lines 3-4 evokes the drudgery of the scene at hand. The lines "stretch" across the white space of the page, reflecting the monotonous, unbroken string of houses that create that "long line of wall":

  For view there are the houses opposite
  Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
  Like solid fog: [...]

  The caesura after "fog" then brings the sentence to a halt, mimicking the sensation of suddenly butting up against that "solid fog" that traps people in the city.

• Lines 4-6

  far as the eye can stretch
  Monotony of surface & of form
  Without a break to hang a guess upon.

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-10

  No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
  For all is shadow, as in ways o'erhung
  By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
  Are clothed in hemp.

  

  

  

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• Lines 10-14

  No figure lingering
  Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye
  Or rest a little on the lap of life.
  All hurry on & look upon the ground,
  Or glance unmarking at the passers by

  

  

  

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• Lines 15-19

  The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages
  All closed, in multiplied identity.
  The world seems one huge prison-house & court
  Where men are punished at the slightest cost,
  With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy.

  

  

  

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“In a London Drawingroom” Symbols

• 

  The Birds

  With their ability to soar far above the earth below, birds typically symbolize freedom. In this poem, however, the presence of birds emphasizes the city-dwellers' lack of freedom. "No bird can make a shadow as it flies," the speaker says, "For all is shadow." In other words, the city is already so gloomy, so cloaked in fog, that the passing birds don't cast any shadows below them. Their presence doesn't affect the cityscape at all, and the people down below, their eyes turned "upon the ground," certainly don't notice them. These shadow-less birds thus seem to represent the impossibility of genuine freedom—of the body, spirit, mind, etc.—within the confines of industrial London.

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• 

  The Sun

  The speaker looks out from the drawing room, observing how the sun struggles to break through the sickly yellow of the smog-filled sky. Sunshine typically represents warmth, joy, harmony, and so on. Here, though, the sun can't deliver its "golden rays" to the people below. The inability of the sun's rays to pierce through the gloom that cloaks the city, then, symbolizes the way the city dampens the brightness and splendor of life—or, as the speaker puts it, punishes humanity "With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy."

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“In a London Drawingroom” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  "In a London Drawingroom" uses subtle alliteration to capture the stifling atmosphere of 19th-century London. In the first line, for example, alliteration links the "sky" with the "smoke" that fills it:

  The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.

  The shared sounds here create a kind of bond between the words, reflecting the idea that, within the polluted city, the sky is nothing but smoke. This sibilance /s/ sounds also add a sinister hiss to the poem's opening line. Combine that with the sharp, spiky /k/ consonance of this line ("sky," "cloudy," "smoke") and the city simply sounds like an unpleasant place to be.

  The speaker then describes how London's houses form "one long line of wall / Like solid fog." The smooth /l/ alliteration here chimes with the consonance of "wall" and "solid," slowing the poem down and evoking the unbroken "Monotony" of the speaker's view. The sleepy, drawling assonance of "long," "wall," and "solid fog" adds to the general sense of drudgery; reading the line aloud feels a bit like trudging through thick molasses.

  There's more /l/ alliteration later in the phrase "little on the lap of life." Here, the device has a somewhat different effect. The smooth, lilting alliteration again feels sleepy and slow, but this time those sounds highlight what the city's residents lack: time to rest.

  Finally, note the hard /c/ alliteration as the speaker observes the city dwellers' frantic lifestyle:

  The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages
  All closed, in multiplied identity.

  These sharp, biting sounds convey the harsh nature of city life. The poem's final lines then add in some plosive /p/ alliteration as well as crisp /t/ consonance and more hissing sibilance:

  The world seems one huge prison-house & court
  Where men are punished at the slightest cost,
  With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy.

  Readers can hear the speaker's biting, spitting disdain for the city.

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

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“In a London Drawingroom” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Monotony
• To hang a guess upon
• O'erhung
• Canvass
• Hemp
• Lingering
• Unmarking
• Lowest rate

• By this, the speaker means that the city's structures (buildings, houses, roads, etc.) all look the same.

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “In a London Drawingroom”

• Form

  "In a London Drawingroom" consists of a single stanza of 19 lines. With its long, unbroken block of text, the poem's form evokes the city's cramped, crowded, relentlessly oppressive atmosphere. The long stanza might even mimic that "wall" of houses the speaker describes in lines 3 and 4. There's no "break" in the poem's text just as there's no "break" in the cityscape "to hang a guess upon."

• Meter

  "In a London Drawingroom" uses blank verse: lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter. An iamb is a metrical foot with two syllables arranged in an unstressed-stressed pattern (da-DUM), and pentameter means there are five iambs per line. Here's line 6 as an example of the meter at work:

  Without | a break | to hang | a guess | upon.

  For the most part, the meter predictably trudges along, evoking the dull atmosphere of the city and the constant, repetitive motions of London life.

  There are some variations here and there, however. Take line 3, for example:

  Cutting | the sky | with one | long line | of wall

  The first foot here swaps in a trochee (stressed-unstressed; DUM-da) for an iamb, emphasizing the violent way that the line of houses blocks out the sky.

• Rhyme Scheme

  "In a London Drawingroom" is written in blank verse and doesn't use rhyme. This choice helps to capture the dull, lifeless feel of the city. A steady rhyme scheme would, perhaps, be too pleasant on the ear and too appetizing for "the hunger of the eye." Instead, the lack of rhyme contributes to the poem's joyless atmosphere.

“In a London Drawingroom” Speaker

• The speaker of "In a London Drawingroom" is, as the title reveals, someone looking out at the city from within a living room. It's not clear if the speaker actually lives in London or is just visiting (drawing rooms historically were meant to entertain guests). What is clear, however, is that the speaker disapproves of what they see. They lament the effects of industrialization on both the city and its inhabitants, noting the pollution, the monotonous architecture, the gloomy smog casting a shadow over everything, and the anxious, unfriendly manner of the Londoners themselves.

  The speaker would almost certainly be happier living closer to nature, where they could feel the warmth of the sun's "golden rays." They imply that humankind ought to embrace the beauty and variety of life, to "feed the hunger of the eye" and take a beat to "rest a little on the lap of life" every now and then. To them, life in London is akin to a prison sentence.

“In a London Drawingroom” Setting

• As promised by the title, the poem is set in London. The speaker looks out at the city from what might now be called a living room or a lounge. Though the poem doesn't specify when it's set, it's reasonable to assume this is Victorian Britain (not least because of the antiquated term "drawingroom"!). By this time, London had become the biggest city in the world. A hub of industry and global trade, it was also hectic, cramped, and notoriously filthy.

  Eliot's poem paints a very unflattering portrait of the city, depicting it as a dismal, claustrophobic, unwelcoming place. The speaker can't see much from the "drawingroom," and what little "view" they have consists simply of the monotonous row of houses that obstruct the sky. Smoke from factories and fires cloaks the city in a drab, yellowy haze, and people rush around in "cabs" and "carriages," avoiding each other's gaze. The sun struggles to break through the gloom, and there's nothing to spark an onlooker's curiosity, excitement, or wonder. To the speaker, this London seems more like a prison than a flourishing, thriving city.

Literary and Historical Context of “In a London Drawingroom”

Literary Context

George Eliot, real name Mary Ann Evans, lived from 1819 to 1880 and was one of the foremost writers of the Victorian era. Writing at a time when gatekeepers of literary society were overwhelmingly male, Eliot adopted her pen name to draw attention away from her gender. Though she is best known for her novels, including such classics as Middlemarch and Silas Marner, she also published two volumes of poetry.

"In a London Drawingroom" was written in 1865 but not published until 1959, well after Eliot's death. One critic, Bernard J. Paris, theorizes that Eliot held the poem back because of its bleakness. Of course, Eliot was hardly the only writer of her era to find fault with London. For example, her fellow Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning tackled the horror of child labor in industrial England with "The Cry of Children."

Eliot's critique of the city's pollution and squalor also takes up the mantle of earlier Romantic poets, who similarly decried the destructive effects of urban life on the human spirit. William Blake's famous poem "London" similarly uses images of imprisonment to describe life in the capital. William Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much With Us," meanwhile, laments the way industrialization has affected people's connection to nature and their sense of individuality.

Historical Context

The Victorian period in which Eliot wrote can be simultaneously described as a time of great advancement and great loss. London became the largest city in the world around the time Eliot was born and continued to grow rapidly throughout the rest of the 19th century. The population more than quadrupled between 1801 and 1891, the city limits expanding as more and more people moved in searching for a place to live and work.

Britain's way of life, once based on the ownership or cultivation of land, shifted to a modern urban economy based on trade and manufacturing. The invention of the steam engine resulted in new infrastructure like railroads, steamships, and factories. At the same time, social problems flourished as a result of rapid population growth and unregulated industrialization, and the Victorian world was one marked by deep divisions between the rich and the poor. The upper class became increasingly wealthy through trade, commerce, and manufacturing, while the lower class lived in terribly cramped, unsanitary conditions. It was against this backdrop that Eliot wrote "In a London Drawingroom," calling attention to the way industrialization created a frantic, anxious, and isolated existence for many of the lives it touched.

More “In a London Drawingroom” Resources

• External Resources

  • "Dirty Old London" — Learn more about what it was like to live in infamously filthy 19th-century London in this story from NPR.

  • George Eliot's Life and Work — Learn more about Eliot in this biography from the Poetry Foundation.

  • The Eliot Archive — Dive into more of Eliot's work, including all of her poetry.

  • A Scandalous Genius — Learn more about why Eliot was such a radical artist, dubbed by this BBC article a "genius who scandalised society."