view from the westminster bridge

 

View From the Westminster Bridge
Wordsworth's Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 may be a pretty straightforward poem. It features a speaker sharing his impressions of the view from, you guessed it, Westminster Bridge. The poem takes shape because the speaker describes the sights and feeling of a quiet early morning before the town springs to life.
The speaker begins by asserting that the view before him just could be the simplest thing within the world. it might be a really 'dull' one that could undergo no end to understand the 'majesty' of what he sees. And what's this splendid sight? That of a mighty city, filled with the amazing accomplishments of man. 'Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples,' spread before the speaker.
But these man-made marvels have yet to return to life within the early morning. The buildings and ships are seen as a part of the greater setting: the natural landscape. The sun rises over the quiet scene, and therefore the river moves along on its natural path. For the brief time between sunrise and therefore the beginning of the workday, the speaker feels calm so deep.' For at this moment, civilization sleeps, and therefore the beating heart of artificial constructs is 'lying still.VideoQuizCourse
Form and Meter
Before we delve into the language and meaning of this poem, let's take a glance at its formal characteristics. This poem may be a Petrarchan sonnet . Wordsworth, like many of his Romantic English poet buddies, loved this type because it hearkened back to the Italian Renaissance . Petrarch was a famous poet from that period. The Romantics had a fascination with the classical civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome.
So what makes a sonnet Petrarchan? it's fourteen lines divided into two sections. the primary has eight lines and therefore the last has six. The ninth line of the poem introduces a 'turn' on the topic that has been introduced within the first section. during this case, Wordsworth uses the ninth line to subtly shift the main target from the man-made wonders of the scene before him to the natural wonders at play.
The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is simple . the primary section follows an ABBAABBA scheme (just consider everybody's favorite Swedish group if you would like help remembering) and therefore the second is CDCDCD. The meter, or rhythm, of this poem is loosely Iambic pentameter. Most lines follow a pattern of 5 pairs of unstressed and stressed beats. For example:
A sight | so touch | ing in| its ma | je sty.
However, we did qualify this as loose iambic pentameter, evidenced by the very fact that lines one and two begin with stressed syllables ('earth' and 'dull'). Wordsworth, being a contemporary guy, was beginning to experiment with the shape and to write down during a more conversational style.
Figurative Language
Now let's address poem's language. Composed Upon Westminster Bridge is filled with beautiful figurative language, which we'll break down more specifically below.
The technique of hyperbole, or exaggerating for effect, is clear within the poem. The speaker starts out with an enormous exaggeration: of the scene before him, 'Earth has nothing to point out more fair.' Basically, this is often the foremost amazing sight on the earth , right here, right now. This hyperbole is echoed in lines 9 and 11, when the speaker asserts that, 'Never did sun more beautifully steep' such a sight; and 'Ne'er saw I, never felt, a relaxed so deep!'