Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
Encyclopedia
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" is a sonnet
by William Wordsworth
describing London
and the River Thames
, viewed from Westminster Bridge
in the early morning. It was first published in the collection Poems in Two Volumes
in 1807
.
describes a group of people who threw off the rigid scientific world created by Isaac Newton
and his other followers. Wordsworth was one of the most well known romantic poets – along with his close friend and collaborator Samuel Taylor Coleridge
– beginning a revolution in thought and expression. He believed that through nature and communion with nature, we find happiness. He chose "rustic" people because:
"in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language" (Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, second edition).
when Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy
, were going to Calais
, to meet with his former French mistress Annette Vallon and Caroline, his illegitimate daughter by her. Wordsworth had not seen her since 1791 when he had expressed to her a wish to marry but had been forced to return to Great Britain because of the increasing likelihood of war between Britain and France
. In 1802 the Treaty of Amiens
once again allowed travel to France. Wordsworth now wished to marry his childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson. The purpose of their journey was to arrive at a mutually agreeable settlement regarding Wordsworth's obligations to Annette and Caroline and free his conscience to marry Mary.
A coach they were travelling on paused on Westminster Bridge
, and the view of the city somewhat surprised Wordsworth. Despite the city being made totally of man, and not nature, Wordsworth was surprised at its beauty in the early sunlight.
Wordsworth's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" can be closely compared with Blake's "London
". "London" gives an impression of contempt for the city and what it has become, whilst "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" is a looser, friendlier approach to a poem about London.
) and the next six (sestet
). Between these two is a break called a volta
which emphasises the traditional change in mood or subject between the octave and sestet. In the first eight, he describes early morning London in detail, and then goes on in the final six to compare the city in that moment to natural wonders. The rhyme scheme is ABBAABBA CDCDCD, as is fairly common for a Petrarchan sonnet.("Majesty" in the third line of this poem is changed to sound like "by" in the second line, by the poet himself in order to fulfill the ABBAABBA, rhyme scheme of a Petrarchan sonnet.)
In Wordsworth's view, the air is clean and only the light of the sun illuminates the city. The poet transmits to the readers the calm and the tranquillity described in his poem. There are neither sounds or noises, there is only silence. In Blake's poem, hearing is the prevailing sense. In Wordsworth's one, it is the sight that emerges, while the hearing is absent. On the one hand in Blake's composition, the town is presented through the smoke that pervades the walls of the Churches. On the other hand, in Wordsworth's poem, London shows clean air and the sun illuminates the whole city.
In this poem, Wordsworth brings the scenery around him to life (an example of the Pathetic fallacy
). Wordsworth personifies the Earth by giving it a capital letter, and describing it as having the ability to "show". He also personifies the city, by describing it as wearing the morning beauty "like a garment". The image of the sun is powerful, as it is referred to as "he", with actions described by diction such as "steep". This diction creates the image of sunlight slowly submerging into the Earth's splits. The river is personified when it is described as having its "own sweet will", and the houses are personified by their description of being asleep. Lastly, the city itself is personified with the line "and all that mighty heart is lying still". These personifications again help us to draw the conclusion that Wordsworth is considering a sleeping city as part of nature. The compact description of London in lines six and seven emphasize the compactness of the city, and long vowel sounds such as "glideth" and "silent" emphasize the calm feeling of the occasion.
The description "bright and glittering in the smokeless air" creates a distinct image of the clarity of the morning. These images combine to create a breathtaking image of the morning. Despite this excitement created by the vivid descriptions, prevalent in this poem is a sense of calmness. The poem describes "a calm so deep" that "even the houses seem asleep".
The poem depicts a vivid scene that is yet another fond memory shared between Wordsworth and his sister. He uses beautiful language and clever literary devices, especially imagery, to make the city come alive before the reader's eyes. The passionate picture that the poem paints is a memory that calms and placates.
The spondaic
substitution or successive accented syllables lends emphasis to the emotional feeling that strikes the poet. Here is a romantic who spends most of his time in the Lake District
, in fields of daffodils, exulting in an urban morning cityscape, unconcerned with the getting and spending, buying and lending that he decries elsewhere.
The poem, written in the Petrarchan sonnet form, describes the beauty of London in the early morning just when the sun rises. We perceive the beauty of the city not so much through the description of what can be seen as through a sense of the admiration of the speaker. It is as if he is looking at a wonder, at something that cannot be but is still there. This sense of admiration is communicated through the development of a strange paradox, which states the impossible unity of two contradictory things: the industrial city and the organic beauty of nature (cf. Cleanth Brooks
' analysis of this poem in his essay "The Language of Paradox"). This paradox is introduced through the image of dress, which the rhymes of the octave highlight: the city is fair (beautiful) because it wears "like a garment" the natural beauty of the morning; but wearing the beauty of the morning in fact means that the city is bare (naked): what it wears is just "the smokeless air".
The paradox is carried over and developed further in the sestet. The connection with the dress metaphor is established through the image of the city being steeped in the light of the sun and then the paradox is extended to the strange union of being dead (or asleep) and being alive. The city is now more beautiful and more alive than nature itself, but this is only so because it is steeped in the light of the sun and is thus deep asleep. The rhyming words steep – deep – asleep highlight these connections. As opposed to the city, which is "lying still", the natural parts of the landscape, the sunlight, the "valley, rock, or hill" as well as the river are now active, they dominate over the sleeping city, as is emphasized by the rhyming words hill – at their will – lying still. The city, represented in the last line by the metaphor of the heart, is thus alive because it is dead, because it is inactive and is dominated by its natural environment.
The thematic development of the poem is seconded by the rhythms. The enjambment
s (and the eye rhyme
) in the octave express the boundless admiration for this beautiful sight, the overflowing emotion of the poet. This is further emphasized by the fact that although the lines of the Petrarchan sonnet in English should be iambic pentameters, none of these lines are exactly iambic. Even where the rhythm gets very close to this (lines 3, 4, 5, and 12); the sentence structure or a caesura
disrupts the smooth iambic rhythm. This is true of all the lines except the very last one where the rhythms smoothes out and a perfect iambic pentameter ends the poem: "And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
One function of this metrical development is clearly to mark the end of the poem. Apart from this, however, the clear iambic rhythm also functions here on another level. By the sound effect it creates it contradicts the explicit verbal meaning of the line in which it appears. While the line says that the "mighty heart" of the city "is lying still", the iambic rhythm gives us a strong sense of the beating of a heart. Thus the paradox that is developed all through the poem reaches its final statement in this line. The city now is "lying still", it is dead, it is not itself, it is dominated by its natural environment; and it is precisely because of this that it can come to life: the mighty heart begins to beat only when it is lying still.
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
by William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
describing London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
, viewed from Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames between Westminster on the north side and Lambeth on the south side, in London, England....
in the early morning. It was first published in the collection Poems in Two Volumes
Poems in Two Volumes
Poems in Two Volumes was an 1807 publication by the poet William Wordsworth .It included many notable Wordsworth poems, including:* "Resolution and Independence"...
in 1807
1807 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Ireland:* Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom...
.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a Romantic poet. The Romantic MovementRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
describes a group of people who threw off the rigid scientific world created by Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
and his other followers. Wordsworth was one of the most well known romantic poets – along with his close friend and collaborator Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
– beginning a revolution in thought and expression. He believed that through nature and communion with nature, we find happiness. He chose "rustic" people because:
"in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language" (Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, second edition).
Context
The poem was written in 18021802 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* On April 15, William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy come across a "long belt" of daffodils, a circumstance which inspires "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", written in 1804, first published in 1807...
when Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives...
, were going to Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
, to meet with his former French mistress Annette Vallon and Caroline, his illegitimate daughter by her. Wordsworth had not seen her since 1791 when he had expressed to her a wish to marry but had been forced to return to Great Britain because of the increasing likelihood of war between Britain and France
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
. In 1802 the Treaty of Amiens
Treaty of Amiens
The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace"...
once again allowed travel to France. Wordsworth now wished to marry his childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson. The purpose of their journey was to arrive at a mutually agreeable settlement regarding Wordsworth's obligations to Annette and Caroline and free his conscience to marry Mary.
A coach they were travelling on paused on Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames between Westminster on the north side and Lambeth on the south side, in London, England....
, and the view of the city somewhat surprised Wordsworth. Despite the city being made totally of man, and not nature, Wordsworth was surprised at its beauty in the early sunlight.
Wordsworth's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" can be closely compared with Blake's "London
London (poem)
London is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Experience in 1794. It is one of the few poems in Songs of Experience which does not have a corresponding poem in Songs of Innocence.-Analysis:...
". "London" gives an impression of contempt for the city and what it has become, whilst "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" is a looser, friendlier approach to a poem about London.
Structure
This poem is written in Petrarchan sonnet form. This scheme divides the poem into two- the first eight lines (octaveOctave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
) and the next six (sestet
Sestet
A sestet is the name given to the second division of an Italian sonnet , which must consist of an octave, of eight lines, succeeded by a sestet, of six lines. The first documented user of this poetical form was the Italian poet, Petrarch. In the usual course the rhymes are arranged abc abc, but...
). Between these two is a break called a volta
Volta (literature)
In literature, the volta, also referred to as the turn, is the shift or point of dramatic change. The term is most frequently used in discussion of sonnet form, in which the volta marks a shift in thought...
which emphasises the traditional change in mood or subject between the octave and sestet. In the first eight, he describes early morning London in detail, and then goes on in the final six to compare the city in that moment to natural wonders. The rhyme scheme is ABBAABBA CDCDCD, as is fairly common for a Petrarchan sonnet.("Majesty" in the third line of this poem is changed to sound like "by" in the second line, by the poet himself in order to fulfill the ABBAABBA, rhyme scheme of a Petrarchan sonnet.)
Summary
In the beginning of the poem, the poet is describing the beauty of the morning scene at Westminster Bridge. He says there is nothing more beautiful on earth – a scene which is "touching in its majesty". Wordsworth puts the beauty of such a scene down to the "smokeless air", an unusual thing for London in the 19th century, and part of the beauty that only the earliest morning can bring. He even goes so far as to suggest that no "valley, rock, or hill" has been so beautifully lit by the early morning, which, considering Wordsworth's preference for rustic figures and nature, would seem surprising until the penultimate line of the sonnet half-answers our questions. The beauty of the city is that it is sleeping. There are no people bustling about, there is no smoke... the sun (which note, is Nature) may only have such a deep effect on the city at this time, before the city becomes a city – whilst it is still just buildings.Themes, language and imagery
The dominating theme in the poem is Nature. London is not introduced in its negative aspect, but it is inserted in natural scenery. The author describes the beauty of the city as the towers, the cathedrals, the theatres and the temples. Wordsworth personifies the city along with the earth and the sun. This reiterates his conviction that the city, at this particular point of day, does not clash with nature but becomes a part of it.In Wordsworth's view, the air is clean and only the light of the sun illuminates the city. The poet transmits to the readers the calm and the tranquillity described in his poem. There are neither sounds or noises, there is only silence. In Blake's poem, hearing is the prevailing sense. In Wordsworth's one, it is the sight that emerges, while the hearing is absent. On the one hand in Blake's composition, the town is presented through the smoke that pervades the walls of the Churches. On the other hand, in Wordsworth's poem, London shows clean air and the sun illuminates the whole city.
In this poem, Wordsworth brings the scenery around him to life (an example of the Pathetic fallacy
Pathetic fallacy
The pathetic fallacy, anthropomorphic fallacy or sentimental fallacy is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations. The pathetic fallacy is a special case of the fallacy of reification...
). Wordsworth personifies the Earth by giving it a capital letter, and describing it as having the ability to "show". He also personifies the city, by describing it as wearing the morning beauty "like a garment". The image of the sun is powerful, as it is referred to as "he", with actions described by diction such as "steep". This diction creates the image of sunlight slowly submerging into the Earth's splits. The river is personified when it is described as having its "own sweet will", and the houses are personified by their description of being asleep. Lastly, the city itself is personified with the line "and all that mighty heart is lying still". These personifications again help us to draw the conclusion that Wordsworth is considering a sleeping city as part of nature. The compact description of London in lines six and seven emphasize the compactness of the city, and long vowel sounds such as "glideth" and "silent" emphasize the calm feeling of the occasion.
The description "bright and glittering in the smokeless air" creates a distinct image of the clarity of the morning. These images combine to create a breathtaking image of the morning. Despite this excitement created by the vivid descriptions, prevalent in this poem is a sense of calmness. The poem describes "a calm so deep" that "even the houses seem asleep".
The poem depicts a vivid scene that is yet another fond memory shared between Wordsworth and his sister. He uses beautiful language and clever literary devices, especially imagery, to make the city come alive before the reader's eyes. The passionate picture that the poem paints is a memory that calms and placates.
The spondaic
Spondee
In poetry, a spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables, as determined by stress in modern meters...
substitution or successive accented syllables lends emphasis to the emotional feeling that strikes the poet. Here is a romantic who spends most of his time in the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
, in fields of daffodils, exulting in an urban morning cityscape, unconcerned with the getting and spending, buying and lending that he decries elsewhere.
The poem, written in the Petrarchan sonnet form, describes the beauty of London in the early morning just when the sun rises. We perceive the beauty of the city not so much through the description of what can be seen as through a sense of the admiration of the speaker. It is as if he is looking at a wonder, at something that cannot be but is still there. This sense of admiration is communicated through the development of a strange paradox, which states the impossible unity of two contradictory things: the industrial city and the organic beauty of nature (cf. Cleanth Brooks
Cleanth Brooks
Cleanth Brooks was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education...
' analysis of this poem in his essay "The Language of Paradox"). This paradox is introduced through the image of dress, which the rhymes of the octave highlight: the city is fair (beautiful) because it wears "like a garment" the natural beauty of the morning; but wearing the beauty of the morning in fact means that the city is bare (naked): what it wears is just "the smokeless air".
The paradox is carried over and developed further in the sestet. The connection with the dress metaphor is established through the image of the city being steeped in the light of the sun and then the paradox is extended to the strange union of being dead (or asleep) and being alive. The city is now more beautiful and more alive than nature itself, but this is only so because it is steeped in the light of the sun and is thus deep asleep. The rhyming words steep – deep – asleep highlight these connections. As opposed to the city, which is "lying still", the natural parts of the landscape, the sunlight, the "valley, rock, or hill" as well as the river are now active, they dominate over the sleeping city, as is emphasized by the rhyming words hill – at their will – lying still. The city, represented in the last line by the metaphor of the heart, is thus alive because it is dead, because it is inactive and is dominated by its natural environment.
The thematic development of the poem is seconded by the rhythms. The enjambment
Enjambment
Enjambment or enjambement is the breaking of a syntactic unit by the end of a line or between two verses. It is to be contrasted with end-stopping, where each linguistic unit corresponds with a single line, and caesura, in which the linguistic unit ends mid-line...
s (and the eye rhyme
Eye rhyme
Eye rhyme, also called visual rhyme and sight rhyme, is a similarity in spelling between words that are pronounced differently and hence, not an auditory rhyme...
) in the octave express the boundless admiration for this beautiful sight, the overflowing emotion of the poet. This is further emphasized by the fact that although the lines of the Petrarchan sonnet in English should be iambic pentameters, none of these lines are exactly iambic. Even where the rhythm gets very close to this (lines 3, 4, 5, and 12); the sentence structure or a caesura
Caesura
thumb|100px|An example of a caesura in modern western music notation.In meter, a caesura is a complete pause in a line of poetry or in a musical composition. The plural form of caesura is caesuras or caesurae...
disrupts the smooth iambic rhythm. This is true of all the lines except the very last one where the rhythms smoothes out and a perfect iambic pentameter ends the poem: "And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
One function of this metrical development is clearly to mark the end of the poem. Apart from this, however, the clear iambic rhythm also functions here on another level. By the sound effect it creates it contradicts the explicit verbal meaning of the line in which it appears. While the line says that the "mighty heart" of the city "is lying still", the iambic rhythm gives us a strong sense of the beating of a heart. Thus the paradox that is developed all through the poem reaches its final statement in this line. The city now is "lying still", it is dead, it is not itself, it is dominated by its natural environment; and it is precisely because of this that it can come to life: the mighty heart begins to beat only when it is lying still.
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Wordsworth, in her Journal July 31, 1802, described the scene seen by her and her brother thus:-"It was a beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul's, with the river, and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a fierce light; that there was something like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles."