Further on, Blake writes about the ‘hapless’ or luckless soldier.
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
His sigh runs in blood, signifying death, down palace walls, meaning the palace, or whoever lives in it, is to blame for his death. Which again, gives a thought of corruption.
In the final stanza, Blake writes about the young prostitutes (harlots), who roam the streets of London, and how they are cursed with the consequences of their job. In the line of :
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Once again, Blake is playing a meaning game with the reader. This line,
like the one about the blackening church could have two meanings. One meaning could be the curse on the Harlot of catching a deadly sexually transmitted infection. However the line could mean the curse of insufficient
contraception measures, ending in the birth of a child, which itself would be quite painful and dangerous (as in those times childbirth could be so dangerous that the mother could die). Blake also makes a more ‘shocking’ comment in his remark about the marriage hearse and death. The way they have been written simply intertwines their meanings and become one shocking connotation of the start of a new life (marriage) and the end of a life (death).
From the content alone, we can see what Blake is trying to depict here. London is a city where everything is owned, from the streets and buildings to the river and the inhabitants’ minds. This prevents them to break beyond the social rules and convention to make their own minds up. The people of London are brainwashed by society. Their minds are chained and controlled (quite like Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ where the people’s futures, careers and social class are determined by how much oxygen is given to them during their IVF, and the drug soma is given out in church, rather than bread). At the same time, prostitutes ‘infest’ the streets of London and are cursed by S.T.I.s and the pains of childbirth. Swept over like a blanket, hangs the dank black cloud of pollution and corruption of the church and of the palace. Blake is describing a London where no one would want to live. The people of London were having their lives lived for them, where rules decided what people did everyday and they could not feel alive. Everything was stamped with ownership, and London was a dull and grim city.
After looking at the content of the poem, we can see clear definitions of Blake’s description. 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 compact and gets to the point quickly. The short lines also make the rhymes more noticeable – they are just a line apart. This makes up a beat, which drives the message home. The compression makes the poem more complex and crowded, with a sense of anger and shock. The name of this line-type in poems is called an Iambic Tetrameter.
Secondly, The repetition of the words in the first and second stanzas gives us the notion that everything is the same, has an order and a rule, (which is also derived form the content).
Chartered, chartered, mark, marks → STANZA 1
Every, every, every → STANZA 2
There is also a build up of emotion throughout the poem, slowly growing in intensity, stronger and stronger, to finally thrust the message home. It develops into a more dense and furious form, to give the reader a shock element.
In the end, this poem gives us a view of controlled actions and motions via the content and the construction.
As for the second poem, ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3rd 1802’ by William Wordsworth, we see an instantaneous difference of opinion to the City of London from Wordsworth. He has composed a poem with an awareness of the beauty of the conurbation. Wordsworth praises all the architecture, air and surroundings of the capital wonderfully. However, what is really interesting is that he is actually contradicting what Blake is saying in the previous poem (or vice versa). For example, the phrase ‘smokeless air’ does not support the account Blake gives the reader.
Every black’ning Church apalls
Blake’s line, here, tells us that the air of London was so polluted with the smoke from the coal fires of the homes of the Londoners that it blackened the walls of the buildings. Why is it that two different poets, seeing and describing the city at roughly the same period have two different views?
The river glideth at its own sweet will
Furthermore, we see that Wordsworth says the opposite to Blake by saying the Thames is free and flows at its own accord, not owned as Blake is saying. Blake portrays the Thames as branded with a stamp of ownership, ‘chartered’.
Additionally, the mood of the poem is more ‘bright’ which helps picture the glittering ships, towers and domes – a complete opposite to
Blake’s mood. The dank and dirtiness of the buildings and the air creates a mysterious and eerie picture – like a dark alleyway, where a prostitute may loiter at night, whose mind was brainwashed by society.
One final quality, as by the content, comes from the line
Open unto the fields and to the sky
Wordsworth illustrates the City of London as connected to the natural surroundings – the fields and the sky, and other elements of nature.
After looking at the content of the poem, we can see clear definitions of Wordsworth’s description. However, looking deeper into the poem, into the structure, we can see further ways Wordsworth accentuates his ideas.
Firstly we can obviously see that the poem ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3rd 1802’ is a sonnet consisting of 14 lines, but is also a special kind of sonnet, a Petrarchan Sonnet, where the rhyming couplets are closer in places than in others…
Secondly, by being a sonnet, the poem has a controlled but free form, showing emancipation and freedom. I think Wordsworth’s writing style has a relaxed form. In contrast to Blake, Wordsworth uses longer lines, making the rhymes less closer together and so less obvious. This makes the sonnet sound continuous and relaxed. The poem itself is also an Iambic Pentameter, unlike Blake’s Iambic Tetrameter.
Blake’s style was more rhythmic and culminated in an ending with a shock element after an accumulation of emotion. We can see this too, in Wordsworth’s poem. First there is the change in punctuation. There are more exclamation marks towards the end than in the start, which vociferates the implication of the poem, taking pride in the City of London, its great architecture, skyline, and, its free and open connection to nature. There is also another way Wordsworth makes a build up of emotion in the rhythm of the rhymes. I think that the message here is that London is a magnificent and glimmering city, in balance with human, natural and urban elements. To communicate this balance, Wordsworth personifies various objects to do with nature, making them more human. This includes: the river Thames, which does as it pleases, and the houses, which seem ‘asleep’. Wordsworth does not usually write about cities, or about people, so he personifies them to talk about what nature teaches us.
In the end, we can see that this poem has given us a contrasting view of London in the nineteenth century to that of Blake’s. Blake reveals that London is a rule-based society, teeming with uncleanliness, corruption, and prostitutes, whereas Wordsworth communicates the idea of a superior metropolis coupled with nature, pure, and bathed in sunlight, just as if a piece of heaven had slipped off a cloud and landed on the earth.
By comparing these two poems, I have gained and understanding of how the writing styles of two different poets help describe a view of London. Blake used a short line and rhyming technique to create a beat, which was repetitive, controlled and inexorable, much like the portrayal of
the capital being a place where everything was controlled and owned. Wordsworth used a long line and long word style to create a free yet controlled tune, much like the representation of the city open to the elements. However, there is still a throbbing question unanswered. Why are they so different? Why is one saying everyone and everything is ensnared in a dirty and dark urbanisation, while the other is saying everyone and everything is free in a sun-bathed metropolis on the edge of fusing with nature? One of my ideas as to why they are so reverse is that the poets may be seeing London at different points of time in the day. And this is why Blake’s London is ‘dull’ and Wordsworth’s, ‘bright’. To support my idea, I have chosen a line from each.
‘London’ By William Blake
But most thro’ the midnight streets I hear
‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3rd 1802’ By William Wordsworth
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare
Here, we have clear proof that Blake’s poem is narrating a view of London at night, from the excerpt above, including the word midnight. We also have clear proof that Wordsworth’s poem is expressing a view of London in the morning, from the excerpt above, including the word morning.
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 wonder 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 over the skyline, saturating the metropolis in 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, 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’.
In question of which version is most like our London as we know it today, I would say a bit of both poems, but mostly Blake’s. The reason being that the City of London in 2004 is a retro, beautiful city with towering skyscrapers, touching the sky (Wordsworth), however, the Thames is still controlled (Blake) by the Thames Barrier, St Paul’s is a blackening church (physically - Blake) and the air of London is polluted (Blake). Not forgetting, finally the fact that there are still prostitutes (Blake) in the city. Furthermore, London is expanding out to the natural part of England, the rural area, where all the fields that Wordsworth is talking about are being consumed by the wave of concrete and tarmac of the modern city of London as we know it today. Additionally, the smog that Blake describes in his poem is not present anymore – of course there is the pollution from the cars of today, so we could assume that to be a connection to Blake’s description. That is why I feel the London as we know it today fits in with Blake’s portrayal as well as Wordsworth’s, but in the end, the reason that London is such a beautiful city (in my point of view) is because there is an effort to save some greenery in the city, to balance the conurbation in aspects of both human and natural elements.
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