How Do Blake And Wordswords Respond To Nature And What Other Influences Are There In Their Poetry?

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How Do Blake And Wordswords Respond To Nature And What Other Influences Are There In Their Poetry?

This essay will examine how Blake and Wordsworth respond to nature and other influences in their poetry. The poems that shall be analysed are A Poison Tree, Holy Thursday, London, Daffodils, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge and The World Is Too Much With Us. Each poem will be analysed individually then compared to other poems.

William Blake and William Wordsworth are both Romantic poets. The Romantic era was a dramatic change in literature. Before the Romantic era there were the Augustans. The Augustans wrote about the aristocrats. The Romantic poets chose to write about the wild untamed nature and "simple unrefined folk". The purpose of their poetry was to celebrate the imagination and freedom of the common person. During the Romantic era there were many revolutions taking place. In England the industrial revolution was taking place. There was also the French Revolution and the American Revolution. In both Blake's and Wordsworth's poetry there is an unmistakeable influence form these revolutions. 1.

In "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" Wordsworth is describing how beautiful London is when viewed from Westminster Bridge. Wordsworth never lived in London and was not familiar with the bustling city that he was passing through. The sonnet describes the tranquillity of the city before everyone wakes up and goes about their usual daily routine. He writes how calming it is to look over London in the morning. "The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,". It emphasizes the beauty of the city. Wordsworth sees London as a beautiful and amazing city. Through out the poem he continually describes it as if it is the most incredible place on earth. "All bright and glittering in the smokeless air". By the use of 'glittering' it gives the effect that London is a famous and astonishing city. 'Smokeless air' implies that London is a very pure city that had not been infected by the smoke and pollution that so many other cities contaminated by. The sonnet is written mainly in the third person in the present tense. It is fourteen lines long and all of the lines share the same slightly irregular iambic pentameter. This creates a slow grand effect suitable for Wordsworths engagement. In this sonnet Wordsworth uses an array of imagery to convey the picturesque image of the city. The opening line, "Earth has not anything to show more fair" is effective as it makes it sound as if the view is the finest thing in the world, this is emphasised by the use of the negative "not" which emphasises the great power of the planet. On the fourth line, the subject of the poem is revealed and by using both personification and a simile. The City is personified and given the ability to wear "the beauty of the morning; silent, bare." This is compared this to the human ability to wear a garment., with a reference to "majesty" in the previous line, which suggests royal garments, and the worshipping of the city, like royalty was then worshipped. Another stylistic device that Wordsworth uses in this poem is the use of lists. The first list includes all the man-made features in the poem, "Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples." The second list contrasts the first by including the natural features in the landscape, "valley, rock or hill." These lists contrast each other.
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In the poem "London" Blake is trying to dispel the myth of grandeur and glory. At the time London was seen and portrayed as a powerful city where the wealthy lived and socialized. However Blake knew London for what it really was, a grimy, depressing and poverty-stricken city filled with slums, the homeless and chronic illness. To revile the truth about London Blake combines descriptions of people and places with the thoughts and emotions of people. In the poem London, Blake starts by combining the descriptions of the crying baby and man with the observation that people oppress ...

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