Blake expresses disgust at the monarchy in the third verse, in his mind he describes the monarchy as shutting out the people in London and the monarchy doesn’t what to know or get involved with the towns people, whilst demanding loyalty and compliance sending young people (young men) to war to fix the mistake he/she has made. He is disgusted by the apathy of the local people by the fact they don’t take care of their local church. He sees people as evil, corrupted and dirty totally changing his frame of mind. Blake is annoyed with the idea of child labour, he feels it wrong to send children up chimneys to clean them out as they can get stuck and possibly lead to the ultimatum of death.
To finish his poem he talks about the night life. He writes of the prostitution and expresses his abhorrence to the idea of prostitution which he sees as the sacred institution of marriage in the eyes of God and shows his disgust of the men that visit them. Blake ends the poem by making a contradiction ‘the Marriage Hearse’. The death of marriage sums up the total image he has in his mind of the state of London and the area he’s in. By simply, using a happy and upsetting frame of mind, in two words to end his poem of which is blunt making Blake’s point get across to the reader.
Composed on Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth (1802):-
Wordsworth’s poem is a complete opposite of Blake’s the main difference is the fact that Wordsworth describes the scenery and the buildings where as Blake describes the people. Wordsworth’ poem has a sonnet structure to it with a set rhyming scheme in the last four lines of A B A B.
His poem expresses his bewilderment and amazement of the sights of London. I think where Wordsworth is writing this poem is a vantage point because he’s high up taking in the entire scenery just lovely this totally new experience of the city for he was a country born man. The fact that it is morning when he is writing this poem gives people more security in London there’s no darkness like in Blake’ poem it’s totally different everything almost glistens like the way he describes London in the 6th, 7th and 8th lines.
He is so impressed with the architecture it fascinates him, is basically his perfect heaven. The personification in the last but one sentence tells me as the reader he feels so comfortable where he is situated that he describes the buildings in physical human form.
Wordsworth hasn’t looked for the bad in London he’s looked for the good by using the buildings as great examples. Where Wordsworth states that London has smokeless air ironic as London has always had smoke filled air in its history but he sees past this and points out that it’s smokeless.
His ending sentence is very powerful in getting his view across because London used to be known as the Heart of the King of Beasts- the Lion symbolizing how great he believes London really is.
By
Charlotte Bull 10c
