Compare and Contrast the ways in which Blake and Wordsworth
The two poets William Blake and William Wordsworth poets who lived roughly in the same time period give or take 10 years or so, but it is ironic how different their perception and portrayal of London is, Blake's poem is his view on London from most of his Life as he was a poor Londoner, Wordsworth's view is of London probably the only time he saw it on a coach journey with his sister. There are a few brief similarities in the two poems "London" by Blake and "Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"; such as they both discuss the river Thames. But there are great differences within these similarities. The main contrasts in the two poems that relate to each other are in fact the sentences about the river Thames that Blake and Wordsworth use, Blake describes it as '..where the chartered Thames does flow..' and Wordsworth illustrates it as 'the river glideth as his own sweet will'. The two poets have totally different views of this river, Blake's' as a negative man made feature that has had its course mapped out for it, whereas Wordsworth sees it as a positive feature of nature, smooth and flowing, with no human corruption. These two perceptions of the river sum up the poets outlook on the city; negative and positive.
Both poems are different in their own way, obviously because of the atmosphere portrayed in both being different, Blake doesn't like London at all, but may have a bias view because he grew up there, but Wordsworth did see the city of London only briefly in the morning when the full hustle and bustle of the day wasn't alive. This is very effective in creating a droning miserable sound to portray his view on London. By using these general semantic fields in their poems Blake and Wordsworth sustain their idea throughout the poem so the reader gets a clear idea of the poets view of the city and whether the poem is negative or positive! The poems are similar because they are both describing the city of London, but the actual content and what the poets are describing is not that similar. One of the only similarities combing the two poems are the tense in which the poems are written, the poets want to communicate the feeling of the reader actually being there so they use the effective present tense so that we can feel what they felt when they saw their view. But to conclude the poets are entitled to their own observation on the city of London. Repetition and rhyme are an important part of Blake's "London. William Blake describes the people of London mostly, he talks of the harlot, and how the sexual corruption in London strikes him most. While Blake has chosen a depressing negative semantic field into his prose, using such words as weakness, woe, cry, fear, blood and curse to present his view on London. any contrast between the two poems but perhaps the most obvious one is the form of the poems, "London" is formed in four neat stanzas, whereas Wordsworth presents his in his usual way of a sonnet, where there is a shift of focus in line 9 where he goes from describing what he sees to comparing London with the country side, however Blake's shifts the focus a little in each stanza. He also tells of the 'mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe'. The sound techniques in the poem play a big part in the whole view of the poem, Blake makes all syllable long open vowel sounds which are droning and dreary for example curse, appals, woe, blasts. Perhaps Blake can express this so well, because he is talking for past experience? The content of William Wordsworth poem is again contrasting, he focus' less on humanity and more on the beauty of the landscape, capturing the 'sight' of London, 'This City now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning'. On the other hand Wordsworth wants to do the complete opposite with his syllables, he wants them to be short sharp and jolly to convey his idea of the beauty he does this by using such words as glittering, bright, and sky. I wander through each chartered street, near where the chartered Thames does flow, and mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
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