19 pages • 38 minutes read
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
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Themes
Human Consciousness Versus “Savage Torpor”
In “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads,” Wordsworth wrote,
For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor...To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves (Lyrical Ballads).
One of the great challenges brought on by the Industrial Revolution was the fact that many people were losing touch with nature. People moved from farms into cities, and instead of working in the field they worked in factories. The assembly line system raised fears of the working classes becoming mechanized in their actions and in their thinking. People, the Romantics alleged, were becoming more and more like the machines they depended upon for a living.
“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” is set in a location that is at the center of Industrialization in England. It is also at the center of both religion and events of state in one of the busiest cities in the world. Presumably, many important politicians and members of the clergy would ride over this bridge without noticing the grandeur of the natural view here, too busy thinking about worldly and material concerns.
In the opening lines of the poem, Wordsworth writes, “Dull would he be of soul who could pass by / A sight so touching in its majesty” (Lines 2-3). The speaker is suggesting that there are souls who pass by these majestic views without being moved by them. Wordsworth advocates for the reader not to be one of them, but rather to preserve their feeling, their capacity for heightened states of emotion, and a heightened awareness of the beauty of the natural world even within an urban setting.
Another way in which Wordsworth not so subtly suggests his preference for strong emotions is through his continual use of exclamation points. Although the poem expresses “a calm so deep” (Line 11), even that feeling of calm is characterized by intense emotional shifts. The beginning of the poem comes suddenly, with a declaration of the speaker’s intense feelings, and it ends again with a conjecture: “Dear God! the very houses seem asleep” (Line 13). Wordsworth expresses the intensity of emotional responsiveness that he advocates people maintain, in spite of all the other demands upon their attention and the “forces” which might otherwise drive them towards becoming as mechanized as the machines they use.
Intellect Versus Emotion
One of the key tenets of Romanticism is the valuation of emotional capacity. After years of the Enlightenment Era, in which philosophers elevated “reason” as man’s greatest faculty, the Romantics wanted to remind their readers that feelings, emotions, and imagination were equally if not more important to happiness and human development.
It is therefore fitting that the last line references a “heart” (Line 14). A near-universal metaphor used to represent feelings and emotional faculties, in the context of the Romantic Movement it takes on more significance. In the case of “Composed upon Westminster Bridge,” the metaphor of the “heart” is being used to suggest that the city is not only a person, but that it is the person’s heart and not their head that holds preeminence over its metaphorical body. By personifying the city and giving it a “heart,” the poet is attempting to redeliver to the city something its citizens may miss or forget, which is a sense of their humanity—a belief that humans, not machines are important, and an awareness that it is humans, not machines, which do in fact make the city run.
The speaker clarifies his feelings by calling the heart a “mighty heart” (Line 14). This hearkens to the Sturm und Drang, or Storm and Stress Movement of Germany, which postulated that strength of emotion was equivalent to physical strength. The strongest people were not just the ones who had the greatest muscles or the most intelligence, but rather the ones who had the greatest capacity to feel and withstand strong emotions. The speaker therefore suggests that the emotional faculties are themselves a source of the city’s strength.
Yet, like all things in nature, even that mighty heart needs its rest and is not made any less mighty for its temporary stillness. Unlike the captains of industry, who were rising to power at this time, Wordsworth was less concerned with production and the glorification of productivity and more enamored with a balanced approach that centered around simple living. Hours of rest were just as good for the heart of the city as they were for the heart of any living creature.
Pastoral Versus Urbanization
In much of his work, Wordsworth looks to nature as a balm to counteract the effects of a complicated world. He suggests that nature is important not only as an antidote to urban living, but that nature is also an instructor to help man understand his own nature, the way his mind can and should work, and help him to understand his place in the universe. In “Tables Turned” (1798), he writes, “Let nature teach you.” This sentiment is reflected in much of Wordsworth’s poetry, which is often set in the pastoral and the idyllic settings of the English countryside.
In “Composed upon Westminster Bridge,” the poet instructs how to turn toward nature, even inside the confines of a city. The poem points toward a more hopeful way of being in the industrial world. Though it is too late to return to an idyllic lifestyle like the one conjured when thinking about life prior to the Industrial Revolution, it is still possible for people to maintain their connection to nature and to “open [themselves] to the world, as the city itself does at this moment” (The Saylor Foundation, Pg 3). This may be Wordsworth’s greatest legacy, not only to poetry but to a philosophy that gave rise to and influenced other important fields like Environmentalism and Psychology.
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By William Wordsworth
