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Time and Place: cities and seasons
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Three Romantic poems present places and seasons in very different moods: peaceful, beautiful and oppressive.
To Autumn (Keats, 1819)
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun".
Autumn is personified. The three stanzas move from ripeness to harvest to the end of the day, and from morning to evening.
Keats asks "Where are the songs of Spring?" and answers that autumn has its own music: "And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."
Autumn is personified. The three stanzas move from ripeness to harvest to the end of the day, and from morning to evening.
Keats asks "Where are the songs of Spring?" and answers that autumn has its own music: "And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."
Composed upon Westminster Bridge (Wordsworth, 1802)
"Earth has not any thing to show more fair".
The city at dawn is peaceful: "This City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning".
"Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie / Open unto the fields, and to the sky". The sonnet ends: "And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
The city at dawn is peaceful: "This City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning".
"Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie / Open unto the fields, and to the sky". The sonnet ends: "And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
London (Blake, 1794)
"I wander thro' each charter'd street": everything, even the river, is owned and controlled.
He sees "Marks of weakness, marks of woe" in every face and hears the "mind-forg'd manacles".
He attacks institutions: "the hapless Soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls".
He sees "Marks of weakness, marks of woe" in every face and hears the "mind-forg'd manacles".
He attacks institutions: "the hapless Soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls".
Compare how London is presented by Wordsworth and Blake.
- Wordsworth sees London at dawn, calm and beautiful, "like a garment".
- Blake walks through London and sees suffering, control and "woe".
- Wordsworth sees the surface at a still moment; Blake sees deep social injustice.
Answer: Wordsworth presents London as peaceful and beautiful, while Blake presents it as a place of suffering and oppression.
To Autumn: personified, ripe, peaceful acceptance of change. Westminster Bridge: London calm and beautiful at dawn. London: Blake's angry view of suffering and control.
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