Differences between Blake and Wordsworth’s
Londons
There are many diffrences between Blake’s description of London
and Wordsworth’s one. In fact Blake give a negative description of
London, while Wordsworth give a positive one.
First of all, we can clearly see that in Wordsworth’ sonnet ther are
many personifaction: the city, the sun, the river, the houses, they
are all personified, as we can see in the lines 4 and five where it
says that the city “ wear the beauty of the morning”, in lines 9 and
10 when the autor talk about the sun and he says “his first
splendor” , same as when he talk about the river in line 11 and the
houses in the two last lines where he says that they seems asleep
and they have a “mighty heart”. While in Blake’s poem there aren’t
any personifactions, but we have a mix of realism and symbolism.
In the second place, Blake’s London is full of people, as we can see
in the first and second stanza where he describes the marks of
weakneess, sorrow, sadness and fear in the face of every person he
meets, the screams and weeping of people shouts he hear, and the
fact taht he feels indignant of what he sees. While Wordsworth’s
London is silent, there are no people around, the author is completly
alone, and he feels calm.
Also the time in which the "two Londons" are described is different,
Blake's is in fact described at night, more precisely at midnight, and
Wordsworth's is in the early morning, probably at dawn.
Plus Blake's London is also described as dark, black, polluted and
gloomy. This "blackening" of the city has both a realistic meaning
due to the smoke and ashes, but also a symbolic one, because it
represents the corruption and oppression of the whole city caused
by the various institutions, who limit people’s freedom by giving
