Compare Upon Westminster Bridge and London

Authors Avatar

Mieke Gadd

English Literature

Compare Upon Westminster Bridge and London, by William Wordswoth, and William Blake.

London and Upon Westminster Bridge are two poems composed in the British industrial era. The two poems look at London from two very different places and states of mind. Blake, who wrote London, is taking a walk through the underprivileged fraction of London and documenting what he sees. His blunt delivery of the city was new and controversial for its time and his dislike of how the city is laid out is particularly intriguing and obviously broadcasted.

 

Conversely Wordsworth has a much more optimistic view upon the capital, and his sightings are documented in a much brighter and less confrontational manor. His opinions were acknowledged when he was on a buggy ride through the city in the early morning. He ordered his driver to stop, as the view was too good for him not to write. His version of the city upholds his romantic reputation and his rose coloured glasses have almost dictated his writing of Upon Westminster Bridge.

Wordsworth played a major role in the Romantic Movement and his writing was written to please, this could explain why his poem is so light hearted. Wordsworth wrote about nature, and upholding a relationship with nature. Upon Westminster Bridge is describing a rural setting and Wordsworth manages to successfully describe thus metropolis as a serene and naturalistic setting.

Blake, on the other hand, was a much more controversial poet, and instead of aiming to please, he aimed to change people’s minds and fully convey his true emotions. Normally Blake’s poems were revolved around religion, this was due to Blake’s disgust that the church never managed to aid the children that had to work in London, as they had visibly guaranteed. William Blake was a citizen of London and therefore his writing was influenced emotion, and established feeling more than first glance judgement. He, arguably, had a much clearer sense of how people lived and survived.

In 1794 Blake published a book, hand illustrated and printed by himself. The book was a collection of his poems, on of which being London. The book aimed to try and show the two sides of human life and was called songs of innocence and experience. One side of the book, songs of innocence, has a light and positive tone looking at childhood and love. Contrastingly the songs of experience expresses the effects of modern life on love and nature, having a much more negative tone.

Also the poem London is highly influenced by the French revolution in 1789. In the revolution the French fought against the British monarchy and aristocracy. The lines, “and the hapless soldiers sigh, runs in blood down palace walls” are the most obvious to the eye of how the French revolution has predisposed his message. By referring to the soldier as “hapless” he is showing that the strongest and toughest citizens of London were under strain, indicating that the normal man would be under indescribable pressure. What's more Blake writes that “blood runs down palace walls”, showing that the royals were under pressure and it also insinuates the fact that living in London is so terrible that there may be a revolution on the streets of the conurbation.

Join now!

Upon Westminster Bridge is a sonnet meaning that it is made up of 14 lines, and there is a regular rhyme format, Wordsworth chose the structure of a sonnet as they are normally used to write love poems, and by using a sonnet it exaggerated his love of the city.

 In the first three lines of the sonnet Wordsworth doesn’t reveal that he is talking about the city. “Earth has not anything to show more fair, Dull would he be of soul who could pass by, A sight so touching in its majesty...” In these lines Wordswoth is ...

This is a preview of the whole essay