Key facts on “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” by William Wordsworth

• Date of composition:  September 3, 1802 ( July 31, 1802 in another opinion)
• Year of publication:  1807 in “Poems in Two volumes”
• Westminster Bridge:  It is a bridge in England crossing the river Thames near Westminster Abbey and leading to the road to Dover.
• Occasion of composition: While going to Calais, France to pay a visit to Annette Vallon, (a French woman whom Wordsworth met in 1791 in France fell in love  and in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, visited Annette and Caroline in Calais. The purpose of the visit was to pave the way for his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson) on his way from London to Dover, Wordsworth looked at    the city of London from Westminster Bridge. It was early morning (31^st July 1802) and he was moved by the beauty of the city. He stopped his horse carriage on the bridge and wrote the poem.
• Poet’s companion: Dorothy, the poet’s sister.
• Type of the poem: It is a Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet having 14 lines divided into Octave (first eight lines) and Sestet (last six lines). The Octave follows the rhyme scheme abba-abba while the sestet keeps to cdcdcd.
• Use of Personification: The city of London wears a new garment. The river Thames is gliding on his own free will. The houses of London are fast asleep.
• This city:  The city of London.
• Garment:  The beauty of the morning covers the city just as a dress covers the body.
• Domes : The dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral(built c.604 A.D. and it was designed by the architect Christopher Wren in1708)
• Towers: Tower of London,situated at the North bank of the Thames,built up towards the end of 1066
• The river: The Thames, a river of Southern England flowing from the Costworlds in Gloucestershire through London to the North Sea.
• Steep:  to submerge or cover; to radiate; to immerse.
• Bare ...clothed : The city of London has been described as both ‘bare’ and ‘clothed’. This is a case of paradox.
• Dear God ! : The poet addresses God out of joy and wonder. It is an exclamation.
• Mighty heart : Huge heart [Here, the city has been compared to a giant with a huge heart. When the city is full of commercial activity, it assumes an ugly shape like that of a giant. It is an example of a metaphor.
• The city now doth like a garment wear: The city of London here is imagined as a fair lady. The poet imagines that the city wears a garment. It is a grand example of simile.
• The very houses seem asleep:  Here, houses are personified as ‘asleep’. The houses are asleep for the members are sleeping. So the houses are calm and tranquill.
• The river glideth at his own sweet will:  Here, the river Thames is personified, for as if he is in charge of his own movement.
• In his first splendor:  Here, the sun is personified. The sun is shining in its full radiance.
• Never did the sun more beautifully steep : It is an example of metaphor to emphasise how attractive the sunlight is. He wants to show how everything in the city is immersed in sunlight. As a result, the city of London is glowing in its radiating beauty.
• Earth has not anything to show more fair: It is an example of hyperbole. Here we find Wordsworth exault in ecstasy.

·          N.B: London during the workday was rude and dirty. A walk across a bridge or through streets and alleyways confronted the pedestrian with smoke, dust, grimy urchins, clacking carts, ringing hammers, barking dogs, jostling shoppers, smelly fish, rotting fruit. But at dawn on a cloudless morning, when London was still asleep and the fires of factories had yet to be stoked, the city joined with nature to present the early riser a tableau of glistening waters, majestic towers, unpeopled boats on the River Thames--bobbing and swaying--and the glory of empty, silent streets. The message here is that even an ugly, quacking duckling can become a lovely, soundless swan.