 Hello and welcome to our video summarising all you need to know about the poem composed upon Westminster Bridge, September the 3rd 1802 by William Wordsworth. My name is Barbara and in this video we'll examine William Wordsworth himself, a little bit about his background as a poet before we examine and analyse this poem in depth. So let's get started. Now William Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April 1770 at Cockham Mouth in Cumbria. His father was a lawyer and both his parents died before he was 15, so he and his four siblings were left in the care of different relatives. As a young man, Wordsworth developed a love of nature and this is a theme that's reflected in many of his poems. Whilst studying at Cambridge University, Wordsworth spent summer holiday on a walking tour in Switzerland and France. He then became an enthusiast for the ideals of the French Revolution. He began to write poetry whilst he was at school, but none were published until 1793. He remains one of England's most influential romantic era poets. Now to go into depth on composed upon Westminster Bridge. Now the first thing that's notable is the poem's punctuation. At regular intervals, the poet intersperses commas, semicolons and exclamation points seemingly at random, thus giving this poem a forced method of reading. However, as the reader progresses through the poem, he's made to slow down and reflect upon what he is reading. Punctuation itself acts as a limitation on how quickly the reader can rush through the poem, thus lending aid towards imagining what is being stated in the poem itself. The imagery itself is hardly complicated, but it's richly flourished, such as, and to quote from the poem, it's a city now doth like a garment where the beauty of the morning. Moreover, note the repetitive rhyme scheme which gives a flowing sense of time. Its beats, as the city beats, is sluggish and slow. The emphasis that's placed on the lines due to the stressing of the syllables is what provides much of this poem's nuance and beauty. For instance, in the first line, earth has not anything to show more fear. Now the emphasis of this phrase would be upon the word earth and anything as well as fair. It has a regular flowing heartbeat in this sentence, particularly lending the idea that the city itself is alive, and of course the city that's been referred to here is London. London therefore thrives and slumbers and sleeps as the poet walks upon Westminster Bridge and watches it doze. In the second part of the poem, when he's closer to the city, the stanzas become more and more emphatic through the use of exclamation mark, thus forcing a warped emphasis upon the ends of the phrase and thus changing the flowing nature of the poem, mimicking the bodily excitement that the poet himself must have felt. The imagery of the poem is very quiet. It's peaceful, providing the reader with an idea of slumber and quiet, and very few bright flashes of colour illuminated enough to give it a nearly divine air. And this is, for instance, evidenced in the phrase and to quote, bright and glittering, as well as the description of the sun as fully steeping the city in its light. Now, in contemporary times, London was hardly considered to be a place of beauty. It was at the time an ugly, smoke choked, overcrowded city filled with too many people trying to survive the onset of large-scale unemployment. Therefore, Wordsworth's attempts at beautifying London seem almost at odds with the nature of London, especially at the time. In fact, do note that he makes no reference throughout the poem of there being people. London is beautiful, the poet seems to imply, when people are taken out of the equation, when it's quiet and still and it's really early in the morning. Also, note the lack of life throughout the poem, aiming towards an almost alien landscape, a familiar icon, turned completely unfamiliar due to the way it's completely silenced. The London that Victorian Londoners knew would not have been silent. In fact, London, even today, is not silent, and so a side effect of Wordsworth's attempts to beautify it is to err too much on the side of the completely unfamiliar. This seems to be an almost threatening emptiness to Wordsworth's London. Also, the city in the poem itself seems to be alive. Make note of the use of the capital letter to refer to London and the use of the word Majesty. Therefore, not only is London empty and devoid of people, but it's alive, it's higher ranked than anything else in God's creation as Wordsworth states, and it has a really peculiar Majesty to it. Now, the simplified beauty of London in the early morning is stating that London itself is a regal entity, but only when it's empty of the people that sully and stain it. In this way, Wordsworth is treating London much like one of his regular landscape poems, which is really interesting in providing her with attributes that hinge upon the total absence of man and people. Now, the beauty of the morning references natural beauty, thus showing in a rather roundabout way that London herself is still connected to nature and is built on the bones of nature and thus beautiful in a secondary light. This has been created through the marriage of nature and man and producing its infamy to stand there upon the Thames. Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie, writes Wordsworth, ironically filling the city not with people, but with attributes which have been personified in this quote. And by listing these creations, Wordsworth appears to be making the argument that, because they exist, they are enough and thus the beauty of London is this in multiple forms. In the end, Wordsworth appears to be really stunned into complete silence by the beauty of London. To quote from the poem, it states, Dear God, the very houses seem asleep and all that is mighty heart is lying still. He writes, using the exclamation mark, to bring home to the point, the beauty of London in the early morning is a stunning sight, one that needs to be seen to be believed.