Composed Upon Westminster Bridge Critical Analysis

Composed upon Westminster Bridge is an Italian sonnet written by William Wordsworth. The theme of this poem is that you can find beauty in anything; you may just have to look a little harder to find it. Wordsworth develops theme by using figures of speech, imagery, and tone. Firstly, Wordsworth develops theme by using figures of speech. “And all the mighty heart is lying still” (metonymy) is one of the lines he uses to develop theme. What Wordsworth is saying in the quote is that even though London is a big industrial city during the day, at night it sleeps. Wordsworth fins this site beautiful which is odd, because he is a romantic poet, and he should only find nature to be beautiful; not a city. However, Wordsworth looked really hard throughout this poem, and was able to find some beauty in London. “Never did sun more beautifully steep” (metaphor) is another example of theme being developed using figures of speech. He is comparing the sun to tea in this quote. In the sense that the longer you steep tea the stronger it gets and the longer the day goes on the stronger the sun gets. This is a perfect example of theme being developed because someone would have to look insanely hard to make that comparison, and notice the true beauty. “Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;” (personification) is the final example of figure of speech. This quote helps develop theme because during the day everyone in London would be out, and about, but this early in the morning everyone is still asleep. So Wordsworth had to take the time to notice this, otherwise he would have never found the other side of London. The second way Wordsworth develops theme is with imagery. One of the lines he uses imagery in is: “Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep” (organic) this quote is used to show emotion, and how at peace that he really is. “This city now doth, like a garment wear” (visual) is the second quote in which Wordsworth uses imagery to develop theme. In this quote he is saying that