Romantic period poetry refers to poetry written within ‘an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world’ . By critically dissecting Blake’s ‘London’ (1794) and Wordsworth’s ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ (1802) , this essay will explore the ways in which the romantic poets employ formal devices to shape the meaning of their poems. Although both poets are describing London, Blake uses poetic devices to depict the city at its busiest time, compared to Wordsworth who employs them to focus on the stillness of the London morning.
Unlike Wordsworth, Blake makes use of visually structured stanzas, repetitively made up of …show more content…
Wordsworth does this to separate the description of London’s buildings and the exquisiteness of the sunshine. The first eight lines portray ‘the city in the morning light present[ing] a picture which is majestic and touching to all but the most dull of soul’ . However, in the last six lines, the poet focuses on the ‘glorious beauty of the sunshine’ as if the ‘heart of the big city has stopped beating to see the beauty of the calm and quiet of the Natural objects’ . It is clear that Wordsworth organises his sonnet in this way for different purposes to Blake. Wordsworth aims to accentuate the beauty of London when it is still and relaxed, rather than creating a protest which emphasises societal criticism. This idea is reiterated in the loose iambic pentameter which is exemplified in the quote ‘dear God! The very houses seem a-sleep’. The quote contains five pairs of stressed and unstressed vowels, and the word sleep connotes a relaxed, peaceful tone to the poem. Furthermore, and similar to Blake, Wordsworth includes variations to the meter as the first two lines begin with two stressed beats, ‘earth’ and ‘dull’ . This allows the poet to capture his own subjective perceptions as he ‘reminisces on the beauty of London in the early morning’
Unlike Wordsworth, Blake makes use of visually structured stanzas, repetitively made up of …show more content…
Wordsworth does this to separate the description of London’s buildings and the exquisiteness of the sunshine. The first eight lines portray ‘the city in the morning light present[ing] a picture which is majestic and touching to all but the most dull of soul’ . However, in the last six lines, the poet focuses on the ‘glorious beauty of the sunshine’ as if the ‘heart of the big city has stopped beating to see the beauty of the calm and quiet of the Natural objects’ . It is clear that Wordsworth organises his sonnet in this way for different purposes to Blake. Wordsworth aims to accentuate the beauty of London when it is still and relaxed, rather than creating a protest which emphasises societal criticism. This idea is reiterated in the loose iambic pentameter which is exemplified in the quote ‘dear God! The very houses seem a-sleep’. The quote contains five pairs of stressed and unstressed vowels, and the word sleep connotes a relaxed, peaceful tone to the poem. Furthermore, and similar to Blake, Wordsworth includes variations to the meter as the first two lines begin with two stressed beats, ‘earth’ and ‘dull’ . This allows the poet to capture his own subjective perceptions as he ‘reminisces on the beauty of London in the early morning’