Composed Upon Westminster Bridge Summary

ইংরাজি – একাদশ শ্রেণি – Composed Upon Westminister Bridge

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge কবিতার কবি পরিচিতি

Celebrated poet William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) is considered to be a founding figure within the Romantic Movement and one of the best known English poets. He was one of the first English Romantic Poet, who along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge began the wave of Romanticism in English Literature with their joint publication “Lyrical Ballads”and The Prelude, a Romantic epic poem chronicling the “growth of a poet’s mind.” In 1843 Wordsworth was named Poet laureate of England.

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge Summary

Written in 1802, the sonnet Composed Upon Westminster Bridge was essayed to depict the beauty of London in early morning light. While standing on the Westminster Bridge, the poet appreciates the early morning serenity of his surroundings, which will eventually be vanquished by the industrial activities during daytime.

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London wears the morning beauty like a piece of clothing. The ships, towers, and other landscapes of London like skyline, The Tower of London are standing serene (the world hasn’t begun to stir yet) and ‘bare’. Here there is no gaudiness but plain and simple beauty, despite the man-made origins of these structures. The London Fog didn’t play spoil sport by enveloping the beauty of the city life. The city comes alive with the following lines:

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The sight of the sunrise has never gleamed so gleefully on natural objects (valley, rock) and this sight only generates peace calmness serenity in poet’s mind. The poet’s mind never ceases to appreciate ‘nature’s own grand spectacles’. He goes on to demonstrate the imagery of the nature —the way that the river (which he personifies) glides along at the slow pace it chooses.
The poem ends with an exclamation, saying that “the houses seem asleep” and the heart of the city is still.

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In his final three lines, the poet portrays vivid, even extravagant pictures of the beautiful city and the river. He exclaims to God that London’s “mighty heart” is alive and motionless in houses “seem asleep.” Here, the poet might sound confused by the almost deathly stillness and therefore he addresses rather questions god even the houses seem to have fallen asleep.

It must have been unreal, in other words incomprehensible, to see that London, which was the biggest city on earth at this time, was lying motionless without a hint of movement.

Structure of the poem

Rhyme and Metre

‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ has the traditional 14 lines split into an octave and a sestet. The rhyme scheme is abbaabba cdcdcd. All the rhymes are full except for lines 2 and 3: by/majesty. A traditional sonnet is made up of 14 lines with iambic pentameter. In Wordsworth’s sonnet, the iambic beat does dominate but only one line consists of five iambic feet, without caesura or obstacle to flow, and that is the last line.

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Lines 3, 4, 5 and 12 are iambic pentameter but the syntax and caesura interrupt the steady beat, reflecting the uncertainty and oddity of the scene. Wordsworth must have purposely constructed it this way to highlight the unusual nature of his subject.
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