In the poem “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802,” William Wordsworth creates a tableau of London from the Westminster Bridge upon the River Thames, describing the City’s beauty, in that moment, to being the equal of Nature. Tableau is the most apt description as Wordsworth seeks to re-create, with specific imagery, the scene of that morning, while aligning this image to his personal standards of beauty. Wordsworth is careful to maintain the perspective that the City’s beauty is only possible due to its temporary appearance of returning to nature, because of the momentary absence of man’s day-to-day presence marring nature’s beauty. This argument can be found when Wordsworth praises the beauty of existing non-actively detrimental structures, “ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples” (Line 6), and after, praises the City’s specific lack of man’s day-to-day activity: “The beauty of the morning; silent, bare” (Line 5) and the “smokeless air” (Line 8). The theme of the poem is a celebration of the momentary dominance of Nature, over a City, which is constructed outside of Nature and encroaches upon Nature’s beauty.

          The language of the poem works to convey this theme by exalting the momentary beauty of man-kind’s unnatural creation, by using language which reinforces nature’s dominance and draws the City closer to a natural state. In the opening and closing lines, Wordsworth uses the language of the poem to establish an authority and sense of scale, which both bolster the theme, which is explored in the body of the poem. The poem opens, establishing an authority by stating only a dull soul would be able to pass the tableau without appreciating it (Line 2). This establishes an authority by demanding a deeper of appreciation of beauty from the reader, that appeals to the soul, which would be beyond subjectivity or aesthetics of a particular era. The poem’s closing lines, in contrast, perform a very different task. Instead of creating a scale of depth from within the reader, Wordsworth plays upon the reader’s sense of physical sense to convey magnitude. Wordsworth does so with his language by first anchoring a human perspective into the constructed tableau by inserting himself into the scene with the word “I” (Line 11). Until this point, the tableau has been constructed like a painting. The “I” is a reminder of Wordsworth’s presence within the scene, which aids the reader in taking up Wordsworth’s position within the constructed tableau. Finally, after establishing an authority and appealing to the reader’s physical sense, the language of the poem shifts to an appeal to the spiritual sense. Wordsworth inserts an exaltation to the world’s creator with “Dear God!” (Line 13) further embedding the reader by placing the entire tableau into the hands of the original scene’s creator, God. Together, the language of the opening and closing lines of the poem provide a sense of scale, depth and meaning to the theme found in the body of the poem, while maintaining Wordsworth’s perspective and tone.

          The body of the poem requires two distinct usages of the language of the poem to convey the theme which reflects the natural beauty Wordsworth sees in the City, while maintaining a consist perspective of the dominant beauty of nature. The first distinct usage of language uses personification and praise for the City’s lack of City-like attributes to display that in this specific moment the City appears be embedded in, if not returning to, Nature. The personification of the City acts to attribute natural characteristics to the tableau Wordsworth constructs. This is found in the description of “The City now doth, like a garment, wear// The beauty of the morning; silent, bare” (Lines 4-5). This “garment” gives the city the appearance of natural morning, for being “silent,” devoid of the noises of a city, and “bare,” perhaps even devoid of the life of the city. Evidence of the latter can be found in the last lines of the poem, “Dear God! The very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!” (Lines 13-14). Though the literal personification of a City with its heart lying still would represent a dead city, it seems more apt to be a play on the notion that a City usually has a “heart of the City,” which usually refers to the existence of people that give the City life.  The heart of the City “lying still” would create a similar image that that of the “bare” City, both being devoid of people. The other way the City is moved closer to Nature is in the praise for the absence of City-like qualities. The praise of the structures of the City being “All bright and glimmering in the smokeless air” (line 8), implies that the quality of not having smoke is natural and beautiful, therefore unnatural City-smoke is not beautiful. Taken to the furthest extent, the opposite of the marring of nature by man-kind’s active presence, would be the retaking by Nature, a process which would begin whenever man-kind’s activities ceased, and continue until re-interrupted. Support for this is the imagery of the temporary “garment” (Line 4) of naturalness upon the City, which will undoubtably be removed upon the return of the City’s human noise and smoke, later that day. Together, the personification and praise for lack of City-like qualities displays Wordsworth’s belief in the beauty of Natural qualities over City-like qualities, which is further explored in the second distinct usage of language.

            The second distinct usage of language is to profess the beauty of the City in terms which uplift its status to that of the equal of Nature, the most beautiful things in the world, but never declaring that the City transcends Nature’s beauty. The opening line of the poem “Earth has not any thing to show more fair” (Line 1) immediately establishes the proceeding tableau as a view not surpassed by anything else in nature. Later, the line “Never did the sun more beautifully steep// In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill” (Line 9-10), compares man-made structures (Line 7) to features of nature and, again, states that these natural features cannot transcend the  tableau’s beauty. Finally, the line “Ne’er saw I, Never felt a calm so deep!” (Line 11) follows a similar pattern, but has two distinct departures. First, instead of the word “more” for comparison the word “so” is used. The difference being that the previous situations with “never” and “more” refers to situations that have not been transcended, whereas the combination of “never and “so” instead refers to a new situation, which reaches an unmatched experience. This leads to the second departure being that the statement does not refer to the beauty of the image of the city, but instead to the feeling which the tableau inspires. The inspiration for the emotions is not directly correlated to the beauty of the City and can, instead, be attributed to other revelations the tableau inspires. This opens up a possible re-contextualization for the previous statements, which better aligns with Wordsworth’s portrayal of Nature, and provides a consistent and nuanced perspective of Nature’s dominance.

          The purpose of the second usage of the language of the poem can be found in the departure in the third repetition of this pattern of praise. Until this point, Wordsworth has expressed praise for the scene in language which has not explicitly displayed his affirmation in the dominance of nature. This departure opens up the possibility that the “calm” could be provided by the feeling Wordsworth has seeing the tableau, as described so far. The City is beautiful because it is closer to nature. It takes on the beauty of nature, which makes it the equal of nature. The beauty of the City, caused by its return to Nature, cannot surpass the beauty of Nature, because they are the same beauty. The calm would be provided by the feeling that this scene reinforces Wordsworth’s beliefs in the dominant beauty of Nature. Support from this interpretation can be found in the title of the poem. “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802,” which is meant to anchor the tableau to a very specific moment in time, in which the City, unlike most moments of time, appears to be returning to nature. If the first distinct usage of language praises the tableau for its momentary natural qualities, the second distinct usage of language sets the specific conditions for Wordsworth’s expression of exaltation. These two usages of language convey the nuanced theme of the City only being capable of being the equal of Nature, and only in very specific and very brief moments.

          While Wordsworth’s perspective and argument are almost entirely consistent with using the verbal devices to “express” the poems meaning, there is one way disharmony can be found in the “expression” of the theme. The poem is fundamentally against the encroachment upon nature, by humans, specifically in regards to the growing effects of urbanization, represented by city-smoke and city-noise (Lines 5-8). The implication of this is that the noise and direct actions of humans represents something not beautiful, however, when devoid of human-life images such as “Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples” (Lines 6) can hold the beauty of nature. Because of this, Wordsworth creates a hierarchy of beauty and in effect condemns man’s direct day-to-day encroachments on nature as not natural. Previously, I have defined the differences of the these two man-made creations being that the man-made structures are in the process of being returned to nature in their inactive use, while, in contrast, smoke and noise would represent active use which would be a moving the City away from nature. However, in the poem, Wordsworth intentionally uses language that references active human activity to express his belief in the dominant beauty of nature, to create an intentional dissonance.

          The moment of dissonance is when Wordsworth describes London as, “The City now doth, like a garment, wear// The beauty of morning; silent, bare.” The issue arises in the personification of the City as a human, as humans are the only creature on earth that wears garments. The specific usage of personification to express the dominance of Nature creates a dissonance in which a man-made creation is used to argue against the inherent lack of beauty in man’s creations, in comparison to nature. Further, the garment aligns itself closer to the “smoke” and “noise” of a City, as a worn garment represents an active day-to-day human activity, which, is the opposite of a return to nature. The dissonance is the subtle realization that Wordsworth’s consistent perspective on the dominance of Nature’s beauty, relies on a literary device, which necessitates the existence of man and man’s activities to praise the dominant beauty of Nature. One counter argument could be a biblical justification that, after the Fall of Man, shame became a natural facet of humanity, and by extension, garments are natural. While this argument can be made, I believe that the verbal device of City personified as human wearing garments is an intentional disruption from Wordsworth’s consistent perspective, in order to account for the inconsistency of the existence of the poem, itself.

          Wordsworth praises the City for displaying dominance of Nature by, paradoxically, personifying it as “man,” who built the City. The condemnation of the City’s active existence is in conflict with the use of manmade object to express praise for Nature. The constructed tableau breaks without the personification of the City wearing Nature, because without the personification, the poem has no clear theme. Therefore, the question is asked as to why does the City have to “wear” (Line 4) a “garment” (Line 4)? The City could just as easily be dressed in Nature in a “natural” way, for example blanketed by snow or bathed in sunlight. The necessity of the personification is the following contradiction: Poetry is a man-made creation which moves away from what is Natural. Therefore, why mar perfectly beautiful Nature, with poetry? Wordsworth needs the garment to build his argument. To avoid the inconsistency of the existence of the poem in opposition to nature, Wordsworth builds in the necessity of a man-made creation, the garment, to express Nature’s beauty. Similarly, his man-made creation, poetry, serves to express Nature’s beauty. Wordsworth mollifies a blatant contradiction of his theme, by instead creating a small dissonance, which acts as a precedent read before his theme is fully interpreted by the reader. The small dissonance serves to set a precedent for unnatural man-made creations which support Nature, to allow for the contradiction of the poem’s existence. This dissonance of personification to express the dominance of Nature’s beauty is a small discrepancy, but is necessary for Wordsworth to maintain a consistent, and more importantly, truthful, argument. Wordsworth is able to simultaneously uphold the dominance of Nature’s beauty, while validating the existence of his man-made poem. In strange and beautiful fashion, Wordsworth weaves in intentional dissonance to create a theme with a perspective that is even more consistent for its discrepancies.