The aesthetic perception within the intellectual mind process in William Wordsworths Compound upon Westminster Bridge

To begin with, I would like to mention several features of Romantic literature, a few of the Romantic writers, and some Romantic characteristics of William Wordsworths poetry. Romantic literature diverged from the world of natural science, mathematics and logic, creating a new style of writing focused on human emotion and expression. The most notable Romantic writers include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Bront, Charlotte Bront, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. The Romantic writers were different from those before them because they opposed to rationalism and they had different interpretations of the world. William Wordsworth (April 7th 1770 April 23rd 1850) was born in Cockermouth of the Lake District of northern England. He is considered a founder of the Romantic Movement of English literature and one of the most important English poets. Along with Robert Southey and Samuel Coleridge,
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Wordsworth became to be known as a "Lakeland Poet" because of the area he lived in, an area renowned for its exquisite, wild landscapes, and countless lakes. These three Lakeland Poets were tremendously inspired by their surroundings. An important part in William Wordsworths poetic life was his encounter with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in 1795. They together published the remarkable Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The poems are some of the most influential in Western literature, but the preface to the second edition is the one of the most important testaments to a poet's views on both his work and his place in the world. In the preface, Wordsworth writes about the necessity for "common speech" in poems and brings arguments against the hierarchy of the period, hierarchy that appreciated epic poetry above the lyric. Some of the themes in Wordsworths poetry which should be mentioned are nature, religion, humanity, morality, Transcendence and Connectivity, mortality and memory. In William Wordsworths poetry the major theme is nature. Its connection to humanity occurs in the majority of Wordsworth's poetry, usually representing the center of a poem. Nature has become the foundation of the Romantic Movement due to Wordsworth. He sees nature to be a kind of religion in which he has the utmost faith.
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Although it is intensely beautiful and peaceful, nature causes Wordsworth to feel sadness and melancholy. Even if he enjoys his connection with nature, he feels worried about the rest of people, most living in cities far from nature. Wordsworth wonders if it is possible for people to revive their spirits. But, in the end, he decides that it would be wrong to be sad when being in nature. Nature gives Wordsworth a hope for the future. From his past experience, Wordsworth knows that spending time in nature is important for himself, because when he is alone and tired in the busy city, he will be able to look back at the wonderful lands he once spent time in and be happy again. To continue, I would like to make a brief analysis of his poem Compound upon Westminster Bridge, a poem which consists of a description of the city of London. William Wordsworth's Compound upon Westminster Bridge shows the appreciation of the poet toward the beauty of London and a demonstration of it as emotion recollected in tranquility. William Wordsworth completed the poem between July 31 and September 3, 1802. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme published the work in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes, a collection of

Wordworth's poems. The poem, written in iambic pentameter with ten syllables per line, is a Petrarchan sonnet. The coach on which Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were travelling to London paused on the Westminster Bridge across the Thames. That was when Wordsworth wrote this poem. He describes what he sees, thinks and feels on a particular day and moment. This poem is an example of Wordsworth's desire to create poetry using nature as inspiration. The speaker reflects upon a beautiful view of the city by using such literary devices as rhyme, personification, hyperbole, and imagery. The speaker manages to create a vision so vivid in the reader's mind, that one can picture oneself on that bridge. Earth is personified in the first line as a creature that has possessions that he can show off, for example, its cities. Throughout the poem, Wordsworth uses his well-known references to nature, painting the wonderful picture in the reader's mind. He uses beautiful language and clever literary devices, especially imagery, to make the city come alive before the reader's eyes. The picture the poem paints is a memory that comforts. The beginning of the poem could be seen as a rather shocking statement, especially for a Romantic poet: "Earth has not anything to show more fair." This
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statement is surprising because Wordsworth is not speaking of nature, but of the city. Nature's influence is described in the seventh line, when he sees that the city is "open to the fields, and to the sky." Maybe the city itself is not a part of nature, but it is certainly not in conflict with it. In order to continue to surprise his reader, Wordsworth says the sun has never shone more beautifully. He personifies the scene by giving life to the sun, the river, the houses, to the whole city, which has a symbolic heart. The reader imagines that the city's heart beats rapidly during the day, while everything and everyone in it is hastening, but now, in the early morning hours, the city's heart is "lying still." In Wordsworth's sonnet the tone is optimistic: "And all that mighty heart is lying still!". Wordsworth's sonnet is a beautiful description of the landmarks in the city of London at daybreak: "The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air." In lines one to eight, the speaker describes what he sees as he stands on Westminster Bridge looking at the city. There is a personification of the city in the fourth line, as a person wearing a fine robe: This City now doth, like a
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garment, wear. The imagery in line eight, All bright and glittering in the smokeless air, calls to mind the image of endless clearness and purity. He begins by saying that there is nothing "more fair" on Earth than the sight he sees. The poem takes place in the "beauty of the morning," which lies like a blanket over the silent city. He lists what he sees in the city and mentions that the city seems not to be poulluted and lies "Open unto the fields, and to the sky." In the lines nine to fourteen, the speaker tells the reader that the sun has never shone more beautifully, even on nature ("valley, rock, or hill"), and that he has never seen or felt such deep calm. The river is personified in line twelve: The river glideth at his own sweet will. The houses are asleep in line thirteen, a definite personification. The mighty Heart is lying still in the last line can be considered both a hyperbole as well as a personification: it shows that in the tranquility of the city, there can be only peace in the heart. He further describes the way that the river glides along at the slow pace it chooses. The end of the poem consists of an exclamation, which says that "the houses seem asleep" and the heart of the city is still.

To conclude, I would say that the Romantic writer William Wordsworth, by means of personification and references to nature, manages to bring a sort of spirit to the city, which is usually seen as a simple construction of rock and metal.

Nuc Amira, English-Romanian

Group L222

Faculty of Letters, 2nd year