Comparative essay on London and the Prelude on the theme ‘Pride’:
In both Wordsworth’s ‘The Prelude’ and Blake's ‘London’, each poem
tells of how pride is taken away or destroyed. However, whilst
Wordsworth explores his own human struggle Blake tells us about the
destruction of London’s pride as the greatest city of the world.
The Prelude is fundamentally an autobiography, whereby in this extract
we see a young adult version of Wordsworth going through a traumatic
event “A huge black peak, black and huge” which not only took away his
innocents but also his pride and power.
This is firstly demonstrated in the text by Wordsworth use of form. At the
start of the poem Wordsworth writes in clear, ten syllable line, iambic
pentameter however, when he sees the “huge...black…peak” he loses
the iambic pentameter with the line stretched to eleven syllables.
This loss of Wordsworth’s structure could be seen as losing his
confidence, almost his power over language and the pride in himself.
This is also shown in the sudden flip in language. At the start of the
poem on the first line it’s a “Summers evening” which instantly suggests
that he is positive, that everything is perfect and happy.
Further this by Wordsworth’ s power over language using beautiful
imagery such as “glittered idly in the moon” which not only fits into this
picturesque summery field but also further reflects Wordsworth’s
confidence and power both as a young man and a writer.
On the contrary, the overwhelmingly negative language at the end of the
poem “there hung a huge darkness” shows that Wordsworth through the
course of the extract has lost all of the power and pride he had.
On the other hand, Blake shows London’s pride as the greatest city in
the world being ruined by the tyranny of the Monarch.
