Wordsworth’s poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, this means the poem is divided into two sections. Wordsworth flows his poem and tries to keep a romantic rhythm going, on the other hand Blake's poem is more joint and follows a rhyme scheme.
, Blake’s poem has four quatrains, with alternate lines rhyming, ABAB words such as ‘fear…hear’, ‘man…ban’ and ‘curse…hearse', this illustrates the destruction of life in the city, including poverty, disease and particularly the ‘marks of weakness, marks of woe’. Blake creates a well-structured effect by making each line of each verse having the same number of syllables. Blake attacks different aspects of London in each verse of the poem.
The most effective feature of the poem is Blake’s use of repetition, for instance Blake displays a large emphasis onto the despair affecting everyone by the repetition of ‘every’. Blake assumes that the people in London are living in misery and fear. For instance, ‘every cry of every man’. This emphasises that everyone is disturbed and as a result of this they are crying because they know they cannot do anything about it.
By Blake using repetition of ‘every’ really emphasises everyone of London.
Blake describes the horrors of London by emphasising a negative tone by the repetition of the term ‘cry’, which emphasises the horrors. In the first stanza, Blake describes the ‘chartered streets’ on how the streets of London were controlled by the rich. In the second stanza, Blake uses aural imagery ‘the mind-forged manacles I hear’ to emphasise that he hears the clinking of the chains. In the third stanza, Blake puts the blame onto the church; he symbolically describes the church as ‘blackening’, black suggests to us that it represents both evil and death, also this emphasises the guilt. Blake links the church with the chimney-sweepers because the chimney-sweepers usually needed the church’s help for somewhere to stay or at least food, but were continuously rejected. The quote ‘blackening church’ shows us that why it was represented as smoke. In the final stanza, it mainly focuses on marriage and new-life, both of these should bring happiness, but instead Blake sees this as a cycle of corruption, and he criticises the reasons for marriage. The quote ‘And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.’ This shows us he believes that instead of people marrying for love, they marry for convenience. From these two poems, you can instantly figure out which poem is calmer and which is the more violent.
In ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’, published in 1802 by William Wordsworth, he reflects on a beautiful view of the city. He uses poetic techniques such as rhyme, personification, hyperbole, and imagery. The central metaphor of ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’, is the ‘mighty heart’, whereas ‘London’s’, is ‘mind-forged manacles’. These two metaphors contradict each other because on one hand ‘mighty heart’ is a positive point and describes the Thames and the city as if it was alive. Whereas ‘mind-forged manacles’ is a negative point and describes the chains as if they have imprisoned people’s thoughts. Wordsworth creates an image in the reader's mind that is so vivid, that the reader can picture oneself on that very bridge. The Earth is personified and Wordsworth uses hyperbole ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’, this tells us he has never seen anything so amazing. In the fourth line, the city is personified by the quote ‘This City now doth, like a garment wear’, a garment is any article of clothing, and this describes the city as if it was wearing fine clothing. In the fifth line, ‘The beauty of the morning; silent, bare…’ this displays a breathtaking imagery of the morning sky of how it’s completely clear. In the eighth line the imagery quote, ‘All bright and glittering in the smokeless air’, shows us the image of purity and clearness. By Wordsworth using his unique references to nature all through the poem, he paints a vision in the reader’s mind. In the twelveth line, the river is being personified by ‘The river glideth at his own sweet will’, this shows us a relevant view of London. In the last line, ‘mighty heart’ is hyperbole as well as personification because it shows the heart is always active as well as the tranquility of the city. By this, Wordsworth give us a positive tone about London. Also, London is the heart of Britain and the British empire, so now the London heart beats peacefully. Wordsworth uses extremely beautiful language, such as hyperbole, personification, rhyme and especially imagery because the picture he paints makes the city come alive right before the reader's very eyes.
At this point Blake felt strong hatred against these charters because he saw it as a restriction against other people’s lives. Firstly, ‘I wander through each chartered street’ and ‘Near where the chartered Thames does flow’,
this shows us that Blake is criticising these laws. In the first line, Blake shows the streets restricted from other people. In the second line, he describes how the Thames is being forced through man-made channels, by doing this Blake describes the Thames metaphorically. This is very different to Wordsworth’s river because the quote ‘The river glideth at his own sweet will’, this tells us that he is basically saying the river has it’s own life and flows freely, this contradicts with Blake’s word ‘mind-forged manacles’, as Blake talks about not being free. The quote ‘mind-forged manacles’ sums up the theme of restriction of the way people are forced to live in these appalling conditions. Blake’s alliteration of “m’s”, gives this line more emphasis because when the reader sees it, it will create an important image in their head. Blake clearly states the manacles are something unnatural, which are a human creation. He makes it seem as if the manacles are placed mentally on people. Blake talks about how the manacles are controlling people’s lives and restricting people from allowing them to do things. Throughout the poem, Blake describes the people’s lives in desperate poverty.
Blake strongly believes that this social system was a corrupt system, where the government was against the poor citizens, Blake was against this because he believed it was unequal to the poor and saw it more as a favour to the rich. ‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe.’ ‘In every cry of every man.’ In these lines, he is showing the seriousness and the difficult living condition on people’s faces.
In each of these poems, it’s written in a distinct narrative voice; thus, a resident and a tourist of London. It is obvious to figure out which poem is written in the lifestyle of each narrative. We can tell in the first poem, Wordsworth has the narrative voice of a tourist because during the time he wrote the poem, he was on his way to France passing through London on top of a carriage. Also, Wordsworth does not mention any negative points and by expressing his opinions of London positively, he gives an image to the reader showing the city is calm and beautiful.
In the second poem, Blake uses a depressing and negative tone about London in his poem. We can tell Blake has the narrative voice of a resident by the quote ‘I wander’ and because he uses negative description on the whole poem. ‘How the chimney-sweepers cry, every blackening church appalls’, this line is very effective because it has two different definitions, for example ‘Blackening church’. He thinks London is a dirty place to live in, therefore he does not like London, however it can also mean that the church is being darkened due to the cause of pollution.
Overall, ‘London’ and ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ have a variety of similarities and differences. For instance, the differences are that the poem ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ is a positive point of view where he talks about the beauty of the morning of London, whereas ‘London’ has a negative point of view where Blake describes the misery of the poor people in London. Both of them contrast with each other because ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ affects the reader with a sense of astonishment at the beauty that Wordsworth creates with the sunrise. The city of London appears to be the most beautiful place on earth during the morning. The sun lights up the city in light and gives the reader a sense of purity and cleanliness.
The quote ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’, illustrates to us Wordsworth claims that London is much better than God’s natural creations.
However, ‘London’ affects the reader with an opposite feeling, as the reader sees the city of London which cannot be saved.
These two poems reflect the poets’ perspectives because firstly, Blake was a Londoner, so as he lived his life in London he probably saw the real image of London and secondly, as Wordsworth was passing through in the morning , he would of just seen the beauty of the morning not the pollution later on.
On the other hand, both poems have similarities, such as they both talk about London as well as using the same context, they were both written around the early 19th Century and they both personified the Thames because both poets see the river Thames as a very important part of London. Blake describes the Thames as ‘Chartered Thames’, which shows us that it is controlled by the rich, whereas Wordsworth describes the Thames as the ‘Mighty heart’, which gives us the impression that the Thames is a living thing.