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How can London be viewed in two radically different ways? a comparison of Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Hill" and Blake's "London"

In this essay I will be look at two different poems and what image they make of London, and their views.
Wordsworth has written his poem ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ in a sonnet form, which is usually only used for poems about love, this implies that Wordsworth’s poem will be about how much he likes London. Blake has written his poem in quatrain verse, which at the time was the most common type of style for writing poems.
Blake describes London as being controlled and restricted, we know this because in the first line of his poem he writes “I wander thro’ each charter’d street”. I believe that by describing the streets as charted he is saying that they are being controlled, like streets on maps are charted. He also describes nature (which to a romantic poet is very important) as being controlled. He says this in line two of his poem “Near where the chater’d Thames does flow”. Rivers are usually viewed as powerful, uncontrollable forces of nature.
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Posted by: Alyscia Yellowman

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