COMPARE THE WAYS IN WHICH WILLIAM BLAKE & WILLIAM WORDSWORTH DESCRIBLE LONDON AND ITS EFFECTS ON THEM IN THEIR POEMS "COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 3RD 1802" AND "LONDON"

30/05/08

COMPARE THE WAYS IN WHICH WILLIAM BLAKE & WILLIAM WORDSWORTH DESCRIBLE LONDON AND ITS EFFECTS ON THEM IN THEIR POEMS “COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 3RD 1802” AND “LONDON”

William Blake had a very eventful lifetime, which perhaps influenced his poems and to add to this Blake was very religious which could also have an effect on his poems. He was once an artist, a religious painter as well as a religious believer, but was also a phenomenal poet. He is known as the father of romantics as he is the one who took it off its feet and really explored into it. His book was called `Songs of Innocence and Experience` and `London` can be found in the `experience` part of the book as this was classed as an unnatural poem in his work, therefore it was not in the innocence part because it was a natural poem. Wordsworth spent most of his time in the Lake District and through hard work and determination, got involved with the romantics and wrote the poem `Composed Upon Westminster Bridge`. Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the in , and gained strength during the . It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the and a reaction against the scientific rationalisation of nature, and was employed most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.

Blake's poem `London` describes a London where everything has rules and there is no liberty. This is seen where Blake tells us of the 'chartered street' and the 'chartered Thames'. Chartered means something is on the map, almost as if it is owned. Blake is communicating the fact that there is a stamp of ownership on everything from a small street to the water of the Thames, and with this being natural, it makes the point a whole lot stronger. It affects the way people live, work and play. People are not free. The words used make it seem as though they are trapped in a prison, but not a normal prison, a prison of society and democracy, this is described by the line.

“The mind-forg'd manacles I hear“

This phrase tells us, in black and white, that people were not free to think. People were not free to think beyond the rules of society. The civilians of London had been almost brainwashed by society and they could not think for themselves ever again because of that. Imaginary chains, the manacles in the mind, were holding the thoughts and feelings of people down and they were struggling to break free, which were the cries that Blake could hear. This would have affected absolutely everybody in the city and clearly it had an adverse effect on Blake.

In the third stanza, Blake goes on to describe the sheer and bleak corruption of the Church of England and in fact the dirtiness of all the buildings. This stanza also emphasises that romanticism is not the major power anymore because the churches blacken and this would be very unnatural and unromantic at the time when Blake wrote.

“How the Chimney-sweeper's cry

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Every black'ning Church appalls”

Blake sets the tone here by mentioning the boys who cleaned the sooty chimneys of the houses of London at the time. It gives us an aura of filthiness in the streets of London and the fact that the job of the chimneysweepers was even more disgusting and more dangerous. The air of London was not clean because the smoke of fireplaces filled the air and this polluted to transform the white, grey or even colourful stone/brickwork of churches to black. When explored deeper, the blackening church can also be thought of as dirty or even corrupt. This means that Blake could be telling us the church is not a place of good but a place of supreme evil and immense darkness, which has cast a spell over London and turned everyone and everything into something it shouldn’t be.

Further on, Blake writes about the 'hapless' or luckless soldier. This could symbolize that nothing is going right and something within the hierarchy or democracy is very wrong.

“And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.”

The soldier’s sigh runs in blood, signifying death, down palace walls, meaning the palace or whoever lives there is to blame for his pain. This again, gives a thought of corruption. However, the corruption could be of royalty as the King or Queen would live in a palace and it could be that they have lost all control so that is why blood is running on their walls. On the other hand the blood could suggest that royalty is dead and that is why nothing is going right.

In the final stanza, Blake writes about harlots which are young prostitutes, who roam or even linger around the streets of London, and how they are cursed with the consequences of their job. Blake could be trying to show the reader that even young girls are in danger. In the line of:

“How the youthful Harlot's curse”

This quotation suggests that Blake seems to be playing a game with the reader. This quote could mean the curse of insufficient contraception measures, ending in the birth of a child, which itself would be quite painful and this is again linked to corruption because another person is dead because of a curse, which would have been associated to witchcraft at that period of time. The other idea is that a curse was put upon royalty and this is why everything is evil and not going the way it should be.

However, looking more deeply into the poem, into the structure, we can see further ways Blake emphasises his ideas. Firstly, the lines of the poem are short. This makes the poem more compressed and gets to the point quickly. The short lines also make the rhymes more noticeable and these make up a beat. The compression makes the poem more complex and crowded, with a sense of anger and disbelief. Secondly, the repetition of the words in the stanzas gives us the feeling that everything is the same, everything has to be kept in line, and everything is now nothing.

“Chartered, chartered,

Every, every, every”

This quote shows the repetition of the two key words. Chartered, this is important because the repetition emphasises that everything is controlled. Every, this one is important because he makes sure that the reader knows that it isn’t just the odd one or most of them, it is every single one. There is also a build up of emotion throughout the poem, strongly growing in intensity. This then develops into a more ferocious form, to give the reader a shock element.

Blake’s poem consists of four stanzas that has 4 lines that per stanza. The poem itself has a very basic structure with an even simpler rhyme scheme. Blake uses short, sharp lines giving it no space to breathe and to keep up the pulse. There is a very little punctuation in the middle of lines in the poem because he wants the poem to be rushed, over and done with.

“How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black’ning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.”

This quote is a whole stanza from London and it shows that no punctuation is used because the poem needs to flow quickly to make it work. You can also see that the lines are not very long and this is because, again, it makes the poem flow quicker.

The second poem `Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3rd 1802` by William Wordsworth, is a complete contrast of opinion towards London. He has written the poem with an awareness of the beauty of London, maybe even the inner beauty that only he can see. He is an awe of all the architecture, air and surroundings of the great capital. What is really interesting is that he in some ways contradicts what Blake is saying in “London”. For example, the phrase `smokeless air` does not support Blake in any way, shape or form. One of Blake's lines from `London` is:

“Every black'ning Church appalls”

Blake's line tells us that the air in London was so polluted with the smoke from the coal fires in the homes of the residents, that it blackened the walls of the buildings. Whereas Wordsworth can see clearly through `smokeless air` so this is a big difference and an unexplained one. This quote is just the beginning of a number of different views of London at the same period of time. A line from composed would be:

“The river glideth at its own sweet will”

Here we see that Wordsworth says the opposite of Blake by saying the Thames is free, it has its liberty and flows at its own accord. Blake is giving the impression that the river is owned by calling it `chartered`. Additionally, the mood of the poem is more 'bright' which helps to visualise the glittering ships, towers and domes which, again, is a complete opposite to Blake's mood.

“Open unto the fields and to the sky”

Wordsworth illustrates the city of London as they relate to the natural surroundings, the fields and the sky, and other elements of nature. He portrays the poem as though he is in the countryside and this is why he could just be looking at the inner beauty and not what is actually there. Blake however, in his poem tells the reader what London is like and he claims that it is ugly and like a city you would expect but with problems and corruption.

Wordsworth's poem consists of one stanza that has 14 lines that contains near to 10 syllables per line. This makes the poem a sonnet. The poem itself is also an Iambic Pentameter. Wordsworth uses longer lines than Blake giving it a more relaxed, calm tone. There is a wide range of punctuation in the poem such as exclamation marks, commas, colons and semi-colons. These are used to slow the poem down but still allow the poem to run smoothly.

“The beauty of the morning, silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie”

This quotation shows each line includes 10 syllables and that each line is long in comparison to `London`. The commas used in the selected quotation separate each item in the list and the way in which he lists them, shows no particular importance for anything because he is trying to say that they are all important and beautiful.

Another difference that has not yet been mentioned is the time of day that the poem was written at. Wordsworth composed his in the early hours of the morning but Blake wrote his about midnight.

“But most thro' the midnight streets I hear” - London

“The beauty of the morning; silent, bare” - Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Midnight is a time when everyone is sleeping, all is dark, and the air is saturated with the smoke from people's fireplaces that have been turned on for warmth during the night. In the dark, there wander mysterious figures, prostitutes, and the sound of the city. This is why Blake's London has a 'dark' side to it - it is written to describe London at night.

Looking at Wordsworth's poem, morning is a time when again everyone is asleep (very early morning) and the sun is rising, saturating the wonderful view in an almost illuminating sunlight, reflecting off the dew to create a shimmering effect. The air is clean as all the smoke has been lifted over night and is fresh, swept away by the wind, clean and gleaming in the sun. This gives me a sense of pride for the city at its best - organic yet urbanised. Wordsworth is describing a 'London morning'.

To conclude, we can see that Wordsworth’s poem has given us a contrasting view of London in the nineteenth century to that of Blake's. Blake claims that London is a rule-based society, filled with corruption, dirtiness, and prostitutes, whereas Wordsworth comes across with the idea of a greater London that is natural, pure and always bright, just as if it should belong in a better place than earth.