Intro
Wordsworth's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" gets some major attention from the New Critics—especially from Cleanth Brooks in The Well Wrought Urn. Everyone admits that Wordsworth's sonnet is a good poem. But these scholars wanted to know why it's so powerful.
It's not like this poem had some totally new and brilliant idea behind it. In the piece, Wordsworth basically says, "Wow, London is beautiful this morning." We don't even get a painstakingly detailed picture of the city.
Or any fresh comparisons of the city to other things. "Where, then," Brooks asks, "does the poem get its power?"
Luckily, the guy's got an answer for us: it's the paradoxical situation behind the poem. Wordsworth's poem traces the paradox of a city that seems naturally beautiful. See, usually we think of the city and the country as being pretty much polar opposites. But here, the famous city of London is portrayed as beautifully alive, and in tune with nature outside of man's influences.
Quote
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
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.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still! (4-14)
Analysis
In these lines, Wordsworth really develops the whole "natural city" idea. So let's zoom in on its literary devices, New Criticism-style.
Hm, city and nature. We know those things are supposed to be polar opposites, but in this poem, Wordsworth is juxtaposing the two. The speaker claims that this city-scape is so amazing, the sun hasn't hit on a more beautiful scene ever. Not even when it was all shiny on a "valley, rock, or hill."
Plus, all the stuff of the city—"ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples"—is open to "the fields, and to the sky." It's almost like the city and the natural world are bleeding into one another here. The city is becoming a kind of natural world environment.
And speaking of bleeding, the city seems alive here. This is no man-made mechanical heap of doo-dads. London is "wearing" the morning like a garment. The river glides "at his own sweet will." The houses "seem asleep." The city's even got a "mighty heart."
See, even though the city is dormant at night, it's totally just resting, kiddos. And not in that euphemistic way that your dead childhood rabbit was "just resting." It's snoozing away like any other live creature. (Remember your old poetry technique buddy, personification? Yup. That one.)
It's this paradox of the "natural city"—constructed through techniques like personification, simile, and so on—that make this poem so powerful. As Brooks puts it (in the chapter "The Language of Paradox"): the city "has earned its right to be considered organic, not merely mechanical." Because cities, and us peeps who make them, have been around on this earth a long time. And we're "of the earth" as much as any deer and lions are.
And that's how you do a close reading. Huzzah.