“London 1802” is a sonnet written by William Wordsworth. Composed in 1802, the poem was first published in Wordsworth’s Poems, In Two Volumes in 1807. “London 1802” invokes and eulogizes one of the greatest English poets of the seventeenth century, John Milton, who is famous for having written Paradise Lost. The poem laments the fact that Milton isn’t around anymore, since as Wordsworth sees it, “England hath needs thee” for he believes that England has stagnated morally by comparison to Milton’s period where it was once a great place of happiness, religion, art, chivalry and literature. Wordsworth condemns the English for having lost sight of its past glories and virtues as the English can only be described as a stagnant swampland where people
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Signed in 1802, the Peace of Amiens treaty temporarily ended the war between the French Republic and England that had been waged for nine years. Throughout this period, England feared a French invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte and under this treaty, Britain agreed to restore many captured territories to France and its allies. The ‘peace’ proved merely to be an interlude, with plotting and preparations for a renewal of war continuing on both sides in 1803. In context, Wordsworth wrote this sonnet during a period of intense domestic and international crisis in the aftermath of a journey he made to France in 1802. There he had visited his illegitimate daughter and Annette Vallon, whom he had fell in love with during his earlier stay in the country. Due to the lack of money and England’s tensions with France, it prevented him from seeing Annette and his daughter again for several years. It was the Peace of Amiens that allowed Wordsworth to visit France again in 1802. Early Romantic poets, tended to be sympathizers of the French Revolution, hoping that it would bring about political change. Wordsworth was once a fervent supporter of the French Revolution and became enthralled with the Republican movement. However, by 1802, the democratic fervour that unleashed that revolt produced years of turmoil and violence from the rise of Napoleon and the Reign of Terror. This horrified them profoundly and the public opinion almost uniformly turned against France, which had once symbolized freedom, had now become an aggressive dictatorship with Napoleon corrupted on foreign conquest. England was an obstacle to his design, and although England’s political system, from the perspective of Wordsworth, was far from ideal, the English nation was now increasingly affiliated with liberty in opposition to Napoleonic tyranny. Hence, the sonnet partly
Signed in 1802, the Peace of Amiens treaty temporarily ended the war between the French Republic and England that had been waged for nine years. Throughout this period, England feared a French invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte and under this treaty, Britain agreed to restore many captured territories to France and its allies. The ‘peace’ proved merely to be an interlude, with plotting and preparations for a renewal of war continuing on both sides in 1803. In context, Wordsworth wrote this sonnet during a period of intense domestic and international crisis in the aftermath of a journey he made to France in 1802. There he had visited his illegitimate daughter and Annette Vallon, whom he had fell in love with during his earlier stay in the country. Due to the lack of money and England’s tensions with France, it prevented him from seeing Annette and his daughter again for several years. It was the Peace of Amiens that allowed Wordsworth to visit France again in 1802. Early Romantic poets, tended to be sympathizers of the French Revolution, hoping that it would bring about political change. Wordsworth was once a fervent supporter of the French Revolution and became enthralled with the Republican movement. However, by 1802, the democratic fervour that unleashed that revolt produced years of turmoil and violence from the rise of Napoleon and the Reign of Terror. This horrified them profoundly and the public opinion almost uniformly turned against France, which had once symbolized freedom, had now become an aggressive dictatorship with Napoleon corrupted on foreign conquest. England was an obstacle to his design, and although England’s political system, from the perspective of Wordsworth, was far from ideal, the English nation was now increasingly affiliated with liberty in opposition to Napoleonic tyranny. Hence, the sonnet partly