Wordsworth however, has a very different approach to London. He sees it as the finest place on Earth, and that never before has he seen a place that really is so beautiful as London. He says that if you don’t see London as being like this, then you have no soul, no feelings. There is a very positive approach to the poem. “The beauty of the morning” and “majesty” used to build a picture of what he sees. “Like a garment” is a simile used to make it sound alive.
Here you see a complete contrast to the way Blake sees London. Blake's misery and dullness, now seen as happiness and beauty. Wordsworth describes the Thames as being very natural, as flowing at its own will. Blake describes it as chartered, and unnatural. A complete contrast. In Wordsworth’s poem, there is no dirt, just clean “smokeless” air. The buildings are alive in Wordsworth’s poem, but not in Blake's. It is as if the two poets, are writing about a completely different place, even though they are writing about the same place at around the same time, the 19th century.
However, and important factor we can take into account, is the time of day that the poems are describing. Wordsworth’s poem is written early in the morning, just as the sun is rising. This would mean that he would have a very different view of London to Blake, who is writing having been in London for some time. Early in the morning, London would almost be asleep still, and so no noise, or smoke, with the sunlight giving a very different view. This maybe begins to explain why these poems, of the same time, show contrasting views about London.
Johnson’s poem, “Inglan is a Bitch”, takes a very different approach to London. It is written from his own experiences of life in London. Like Blake, he greatly dislikes London. He says that the people wanted to hide him, because he was black, and so they made him work on the underground. He felt that he was treated badly, and unfairly no matter what he did, or how hard he tried. He was given all the jobs that other people didn’t want, for example, dishwasher in a hotel. He says how there was never any time for clock watching, as he was always made too do work. He dislikes it how people take money that he has rightly earned away by tax. There are many more examples of what he is made to do, for very little money.
To make the audience realise what has happened to him, he uses refrains. Each time, the last line changes, from saying that you can’t escape the fact that England is a bitch, to how he can’t sleep because he worries about how he is going to cope with so little money, to how he feels that people should just face up to the fact that it is like this, admit it and change it. Because he uses these refrains, what he trying to say gets into your mind, and you are made to think about it.
The poem ends with a rhetorical question,
“is whey wi a goh dhu ‘bout it?”
This end makes people think, that yes the way he was treated is wrong, and that something should be done about it. This is exactly what Johnson wanted people to do when he wrote it, as it is his way of ‘having a go’ at England.
This poem is different from both Blake's and Wordsworth’s poems in many ways. A major way, being that it is written in Johnson’s dialect. It is written exactly how he thought of it. It also shows that he is from Jamaica, and makes the reader think that maybe a lot of what went on was racial abuse, and people just didn’t accept him. He was made a minority. It also makes the simple task of reading the poem hard work. He does this as it is a way getting his own back. His life was made hard, and so he will make something simple on our lives difficult to. You are able to understand how bitter he felt about how he was treated.
It is also based on what is almost a completely different London. Both Blake and Wordsworth wrote in the 19th Century, however, Johnson wrote his poem in the 20th Century. No longer are there the fields that Wordsworth saw in his day, instead there are busy streets, hotels, and the underground. London would be completely unrecognisable to Blake or Wordsworth.
It is clear therefore, that the three poems here are all very different. They do all show the views of the poets writing them, but they all have a very different effect. Blake's poem is very critical of London, by saying that it is a dark, dirty and miserable place to be. Even the river is unnatural.
Wordsworth’s poem is very positive about London. He says that he has never seen somewhere that is as beautiful. There is not a hint of criticism in the poem.
Johnson’s poem is very negative, like Blake’s, but in a different way. He feels that London has treated him unfairly, that is why he does not like it. It is not what it looks like that bothers him.
Blake, and Wordsworth wrote in the 19th Century, looking at London from the outside. They write about the image that it left them with. Johnson, writing in the 20th Century, tells us about his personal experiences in London, and the effect that that had on him. This means that there is a very different approach to Johnson’s poem.
The poem that I find most effective is Johnson’s poem, as it is light hearted, with some humour, whilst still making you think about what he is saying, and understanding why he wrote the poem.
