Compare London and Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Compare London by William Blake and Composed upon Westminster Bridge,

September 3rd 1802 by William Wordsworth.

As a part of my coursework for GCSE English, I will be comparing two

poems written about London in nineteenth century. The two poems I have

chosen to write about are: 'London' by William Blake and 'Composed

upon Westminster Bridge, September 3rd 1802' by William Wordsworth.

Both poems give their own, different accounts of London at around the

same period. One is written with a happy and joyous mood and the other

a completely opposite one - a dull and grim mood, which is given by

Blake.

Starting with William Blake's background as a poet, I researched that

he had a very eventful lifetime, which perhaps influenced his poems.

For example, Blake was very religious. He lived by the bible and based

some of his paintings (as Blake was also an artist) of the book of

Revelation, such as his work "The Red Dragon and the Woman of the

Sun". It is also said that he had been visited by angels at a point in

his life. Is this to prove that he was somewhat deranged or is it his

imagination? Blake's poem 'London' describes a London where everything

has rules or boundaries. We can see this where Blake tells us of the

'charter'd street' and the 'chartered Thames'. We can see the connection

of this stanza and the fact that rules were pinning every body down, with

the word chartered. Chartered means something is on the map, almost as if

it is owned, owned by the king, perhaps. Blake is communicating the

fact that there is a stamp of ownership on everything from a small

street to the constricted Thames, which being natural, makes the point

more forcefully. It affects the way people live, work and play -

people ...

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...). Not forgetting, finally the fact that there are

still prostitutes (Blake) in the city. Furthermore, London is

expanding out to the natural part of England, the rural area, where

all the fields that Wordsworth is talking about are being consumed by

the wave of concrete and tarmac of the modern city of London as we

know it today. Additionally, the smog that Blake describes in his poem

is not present anymore - of course there is the pollution from the

cars of today, so we could assume that to be a connection to Blake's

description. That is why I feel the London as we know it today fits in

with Blake's portrayal as well as Wordsworth's, but in the end, the

reason that London is such a beautiful city (in my point of view) is

because there is an effort to save some greenery in the city, to

balance the conurbation in aspects of both human and natural elements.