(This definitely would be me if I lived in the mid 19th century and was a part of the upper class who could afford to wear this kind of clothing and be photographed dramatically. Bring back parasols!! Link 1 below.)

I write to you of my preparations for London:

And the great trip abroad approaches! As promised, I am to accompany my father and brothers on their business trip conducting trading negotiations—for me, it will of course be my first time traveling farther than 40 miles outside of Nantucket, the home I have known all my life. It certainly will be my first trip outside of America’s borders, though by sharing a common language with my own country, England will prove, I hope, far less foreign than its other European counterparts.

To prepare for my departure logistically and to best enjoy my voyage, I have been reading selections from “Bradshaw’s Illustrated Hand Book to London and its Environs.” I’ve taken note of his best advice, and though some of his guide seems based in fundamental good sense, still other aspects seem to warn against the most absurd problems and situations that I’d never have dreamed I’d need to prepare myself for. My brother laughs at my growing anxieties, as I was decidedly more optimistic about the coming journey before reading about some of the cautions that Bradshaw has included.

Bradshaw writes of the magnitude of London’s dense population with specific statistics that have overwhelmed my mind but proven ultimately unhelpful in my preparations. Indeed, Bradshaw assures his readers that though London is “all bustle and confusion,” he also presents the case of an “impartial” French resource, whose impressions of London evolved from hatred to deep respect (Bradshaw 18-19). Upon reading this, I first thought that perhaps such an account would not persuade American readers to visit the city, but the very same resource writes on lovingly about the city, which he says “contains in detail much to interest and be admired” (Bradshaw 20).

Bradshaw writes admiringly of London’s newest technologies, including the drinking fountains, street railways, and expansive telegraph communication system. However, he also cautions  against several forms of unexpected evils that may befall the unsuspecting traveler. Nefarious individuals such as pickpockets, smugglers, and beggars plague the streets of London. For defense, Bradshaw recommends caution “in bestowing his indiscriminate charity” to beggars, as many merely pose and extort the position as a profession (19). Bradshaw also warns against the trouble caused by London’s infamous fog, the incessant noise of the streets, and the London mud that dirties the streets, endangering passers-by after rainfall occurs. We expect, from the guide, that the weather will be cool at worst, and hopefully more comfortable, although almost certainly rainy.

I have also supplemented this research by reading Charles Dickens’ “The Uncommercial Traveller,” a lovely collection of essays that deal with Dickens’ personal experiences and with the city of London at night. They feel very expository in nature, or at least make me feel as though I know a little more about London from the perspective of a true city-dweller. Dickens’ experiences in the essay titled “Night Walks,” deal with the working people of London, hidden away on out-of-sight streets at night, where no one, except our unsleeping narrator, might stumble upon them. Putting himself intentionally in their way, walking along the solitary path of “Houselessness,” Dickens sees what they see. He writes of disease, murder, and street crime, and finally of the scrappy children and sleepy shopkeepers that are only stirring when he finally begins to feel tired. When I first chose to read these essays, I did not expect them to affect me in the ways that they did—my heart broke upon reading this description of children living by their own means:

But one of the worst night sights I know in London, is to be found in the children who prowl about this place; who sleep in the baskets, fight for the offal, dart at any object they think they can lay their their thieving hands on, dive under the carts and barrows, dodge the constables, and are perpetually making a blunt pattering on the pavement of the Piazza with the rain of their naked feet (Dickens 10).

He laments that their growth is only possible because of the savage ways they secure their little lives. To be sure, reading these accounts gives me a proper appreciation for my station in life. I am honored to be visiting London, but saddened by the poverty that pervades such a wonderful city. Reading this passage has given me a heightened understanding of London’s lower class—one that I had not considered while planning our foreign excursion. What will be the hosting country of my holiday also houses these unfortunate souls that Dickens writes of. I thank him for this work of contemplative and almost journalistic thinking that has given me a greater context for my journey and a deeper gratitude for the privilege of my own life.

Finally, if I happen to survive the week’s journey across the Atlantic (despite living on an island, I have never enjoyed the practice of transport by boat and do not particularly await with joy the trip, which is sure to be long and tempestuous), I shall continue to document my travels beginning around the 25th of June, when we are expected to arrive in the docks of Liverpool(2). Dramatics aside—considering I arrive safely and with good humor intact, I fully intend to explore this beautiful and historical city that I have heard and read so much about.

—

Sources:

1. Image: https://chriskresser.com/what-mid-victorians-can-teach-us-about-nutrition-and-health/ 
2. Travel records: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23385/how-long-would-it-take-to-travel-from-the-united-kingdom-to-america-in-1890

Note: I cited from our edition of “Night Walks,” but I didn’t refer to it as that in the letter (I referred to it as “The Uncommon Traveller”), because I’m pretty sure it is a collection of essays put together more recently.

After Reading Malory’s “The Fair Maid of Astolat” so many things have changed in how I interpret and feel about Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot”. Since I clearly read the Lady of Shallot first, I originally felt that Lancelot was shallow in seeing only this dead woman’s beauty, but the story was more focused on the mystical place and how the Lady only saw the outside world through a reflection. Lancelot doesn’t even come into the story until a couple of stanzas in and the two never interact. The story by Tennyson is far more focused on the Lady, her escape from the bounds in her castle, and her yearning for a love she will never have as she remains (in Victorian times) the property of her father until wed.

While reading Malory’s poem I noticed the extreme influx in characters. There were so many knight names, real places referenced, more famous names from Arthurian Legend, and so much more backstory. During the first few pages I was overwhelmed with the listing of names and the immense amount of characters that I had no ties to and no way to know if they would remain important throughout the story. During this time, it felt more like a war story or poem in all of its listing of names and battles. The Maiden of Astolat isn’t even referenced until a couple of pages in. There is no mythological or magical interworking in Malory’s story and it is very focused on recounting the exact happenings in the locations, history, and often referenced the round table.

I got a new take on Lancelot throughout Malory’s piece. As much as I despised him in the “Lady of Shallot”, you can see how he only had her beauty to comment on since there was no relationship between them prior to her death. The truth is completely different within Malory’s telling. Lancelot is a cheating bastard. He had an affair with a woman before battle, wore a symbol of her during his fight, hid the fact that he was married from her, used her to nurse him back to health, and then when she revealed her love for him, he turned her down and said he could never be tied down. If you ask me it was karma that he got injured and that Gwenyvere found out, but it was his fault the Fair Maiden of Astolat died in this version. She told Lancelot that she was going to die without him and he still lead her on and lied to her. It was upsetting that the story ended with Lancelot coming out on top. Lancelot used the Maydyn’s dead corpse and note, twisted her telling of their affair, screwed over Lavayne, ruined Lavayne’s reputation, and he got back on good terms with Gwenyvere. This all only makes Lancelot more hated in Malory’s telling.

As far as the Maidens go in each work, my perspective is quite different in each telling of the tale. In Tennyson’s poem, the Lady is someone the reader feels sorry for, she is trapped in a tower, and in solitude. When reading Malory’s version, you realize how much is left unexplained in Tennyson’s tale that is essential to the poem. Is the Lady bound by force? Has she gotten herself stuck in her own weaving? Is their magic or a curse placed upon the Lady? It is never revealed. When I first read the “Lady of Shallot”, there was a work by William Holman Hunt that was placed next to the poem.It persuaded me into reading the poem as she was trapped, caught in her own weavings (art pictured on left). In Malory’s version we have all of the details we need on the Maydyn. She is not stuck in a tower, but gives herself to a man she just met, falls in love to fast, shows feelings he doesn’t seem to have, and commits suicide because she can’t live without this man. The Maydyn is someone you feel sorry for at first when she has been lied to and used, but not when she kills herself because she can’t have Lancelot. She appears weak and dependent whereas the Lady appears strong, rebellious, cursed, and held against her will.

After reading Malory’s poem I realized that Tennyson more or less took the easy way out. He referenced Camelot, Lancelot, and “The Lady of Shallot”, but he ignored Arthur, Gwenyvere, Lavayne, the round table, the injury of Lancelot, and pretty much removed the historical aspects of the Arthurian Legend. Truth be told, I realized that nothing in Tennyson’s story makes me think of the historical Arthur, Lancelot, or Gwenyvere (until I was told that is what Tennyson based his poem off of). There is not enough information in Tennyson’s poem to complete a story and the reader is left questioning so many aspects, but that may be just what Tennyson was going for to keep the reader coming back for more. The sing-song rhythm in his poem is much easier and more interesting to read. As much as I find is missing from Tennyson’s piece, I love his adaptation of the legend told solely from the Lady’s perspective where Lancelot is not such a bad guy and the Lady is someone we pity and come to love as a symbol of rebelling against the constraints of the world.

When considering the texts we read for this course and how each portrays London, the two that stand out the most to me are “London” by William Blake and “Night Walks” by Charles Dickens. Each work highlights a lot of the negative aspects of Victorian Life in London that invoke a lot of pathos in the reader, but each author completes this task in their own unique ways.

The poem “London” by William Blake is organized in 4, 4 line stanzas which constrains the topics and style, leaving Blake a relatively short space to work with. This being said, he gets right into life in London as uses his depictions of life to set the scene, a first-person point-of-view, and his diction to create a dismal tone. In stanza one, he uses diction such “weakness”, “woe”, and “charter’d”: “And mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe” (3-4). His word choice is quite interesting as he depicts the people as incapable of helping themselves. Dissimilarly with his use of “charter’d”, the city itself is presented as confined, mapped, and under government control (according to Google’s definition). This theme blaming the royalty/ government carries on within each stanza. In the second stanza, he uses words such as cry, fear, ban, and mind-forg’d manacles. Cry is repeated 3 times in the poem, and two of them are in this section; once time is found in “every man” and once referring to every infant. This stanza focuses a lot on the pain and suffering of the people in the streets. “In every voice: in every ban, / The mind-forg’d manacles I hear” (7-8). The use of “ban” again shows government or royal restriction, manacles refers to shackles or constraints (according to the google definition), and mind-forged implies that these men and children are constrained by the minds and beliefs of how others see them, as well as how they see themselves.

In stanzas 3 and 4 he moves away from broad generalizations of “every man” and “every face” to very specific encounters. In stanza 3, Blake refers to crying chimney-sweepers and blackened churches. Puling a little knowledge from Blake’s “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience” the chimney sweepers are often kids sent to work quite young, so again a child is crying. The blackened churches I read as possibly being covered in soot from the chimney, or blackening in sin and impurity as white is regularly associated with purity as well as in church ceremonies. Stanza 3 also refers to “And the hapless Soldiers sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls” (11-12). These lines lead me to believe that Blake is blaming royalty and the government for the bloodshed and the deaths of its people as it stood back and watched. In stanza 4, “How the youthful Harlots curse / Blasts the new-born infants tear” brings a lot of emotion to some ordinarily overlooked individuals. Words such as tear, plagues, and hearse are all centered around a “new-born infant”. A harlot, being a prostitute, appears to be cursing at a newborn in the streets because the baby has plagued rapid and wide spread death on the importance and meaning of marriage. Marriage is often associated with government, conformity, and a way of life. It is symbolic that the birth of the infant is bringing an end to the prospects of marriage for the woman, as well as causing a widespread plague on marriage throughout the city. According to Blake, life is awful, dreadful, full of misery, and at the center of all of the sadness: royalty is to blame.

In Charles Dickens’ “Night Walks”. he has a lot more room to expand on his dismal outlook on London. He does so in a one-person point-of-view like Blake, but in the story-like fashion of a man walking through the city streets. He gives specific details of the roads he turns down, his surroundings, and of the locals he encounters with. He eases his way into the darker elements of London at night, starting off with a restless city at “half-past twelve”. It was filled with “houseless people” and he describes the drunkards, the taxis and “that specimen was dressed in soiled mourning”. He says different kinds of people and happenings late at night appear to band together with others of a similar state of mind. Throughout his story, Dickens writes from the persona of a homeless person, while contradictorily referring to the others like him as “specimen”, “it”, “savage”, “creature”, and “wild bears”. While Blake focused on who was to blame for the situations in London, Dickens seems to focus on the widespread homelessness and disease. He talks a lot of the high rate of suicides, dry-rot developing in men, and how there are more dead than there are living. He describes dry-rot in such a way that is seems as if the working class that have it all, are working themselves to both physical and mental exhaustion. The results of this overworked nature of life causes depression and loss of will to live so that they quite literally rot away and die.

“Night Walks” also has sections where children and the government palaces are referred to, though the government is referred to more sarcastically and less direct in nature than Blake. Dickens walks past the Courts of Law and he writes that they were “hinting in low whispers what numbers of people they were keeping awake, and how intensely wretched and horrible they were rendering the small hours to unfortunate suitors”. Yet, just before he calls Parliament a stupendous institution in the eyes of other nations. This quote is symbolic in that in the eyes of its own people, the government appears to be failing. Yet, while this is such an important and central cause of dismal life, this section takes up only a small paragraph in Dickens’ work. In a contrasting manor, Blake’s whole poem alludes to the situation of everyday life being the fault of parliament and royalty. The children are also not used in Dickens’ story to draw more sympathy, but describes them as hunted and uncared for savages who fight and allude police in Covent Garden: “But one of the worst sights I know in London, is to be found in the children who prowl about this place; who sleep in the baskets, fight for the offal, dart at any object they think they can lay their thieving hands on, dive under the carts and barrows, dodge the constables, and are perpetually making a blunt pattering on the pavement in the Piazza with the rain of their naked feet”.

Dickens describes how hard these men work and how tough life is, but in a different way than Blake. Blake’s poem is representing these men as consumed with sorrow and feeling sorry for themselves rather than the tough and nasty conditions of working. Blake’s poem is more effective in drawing immediate pathos through large generalizations, but Dickens’ story captures the reality of life that can only be seen at night by presenting real places, real people, and very specific scenarios. Each author carries a different tone in their approach to the topic; Blake’s is dismal and sorrow, where Dickens is shameful and disgust. Both authors are attempting to draw awareness and pathos to their depiction of life through the connection and trust offered through a first person point-of-view, but in vastly different ways of telling their story and drawing the attention of the public to their cause.

Of course, one of the largest themes surrounding Pride and Prejudice is marriage. Marriage is tied to social class, reputation for the families involved, and it appears to be more of something akin to a business transaction rather than a decision made for love and companionship. When Lydia marries Wickham, for example, it was a decision that came about as a result of a mistake. She had to take ownership of it, though, and marry him so as not to damage her family’s reputation. Marriages are often seen as an opportunity to raise a family’s reputation, or to take advantage of the spouse’s money.

One passage that seems to go against all of these presuppositions about marriage’s role in society occurs near the end of the novel, when Elizabeth and her father discuss the prospect of her marriage to Mr. Darcy. Her father wants to ensure that Elizabeth is truly marrying Darcy because she wants to, and not because she feels like she has to. Her father points out that Elizabeth had detested Darcy before. He is sure to outline the positive things that would come with her marrying him, but he then asks, “But will they make you happy?” (Austen 349). Elizabeth then asks him if he has any other objection to their marriage other than her “indifference;” Mr. Bennet replies that he does not. Once she assures him of her love, Mr. Bennet approves their marriage by saying, “If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy” (Austen 350).

This scene is one of my favorites because there’s a whole lot of love in it. Mr. Bennet’s love for Elizabeth; Elizabeth’s love for Darcy. It’s a beautiful scene because it focuses on such love rather than the reputation the family would benefit from. While Mr. Bennet does take note of it, it’s not his concern; rather, Elizabeth’s happiness is what he concerns himself with. The line “He deserves you” speaks volumes. Throughout the majority of the novel, a lot of emphasis is put on whether the Bennets deserve the men (and the families) they are trying to marry into. By putting the emphasis on whether Elizabeth deserves Darcy, Mr. Bennet flips that expectation on its head. Even with how important marriage is in maintaining a social reputation, Mr. Bennet would not let Elizabeth go for someone she didn’t deserve. Such reasoning is precisely why he doesn’t force her hand in marrying Mr. Collins, even going so far as to say he wouldn’t speak to her again if she married him. While Mrs. Bennet, and many others, buy into marrying for reputation, Mr. Bennet appears to want the best his daughters’, and Elizabeth’s in particular, happiness rather than their place in society. He seems to be a very progressive character, which would explain why he and Elizabeth get on so well.

Work Cited: Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003.

As we briefly discussed in our library session in Winchester, both Thomas Malory’s “Fair Maid of Astolat” and Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” are at least partly based on the figure of Elaine from Arthurian legend. Both stories depict the tragedy of Elaine’s life: she is doomed to love Lancelot, who either cannot or will not reciprocate her love in the same way.

I noticed that even though both works tell a version of the same story, their respective focuses differ greatly. Malory is concerned with telling the whole story, complete with plot details that include all of the involved parties. Tennyson’s poem, however, focuses entirely on the condition of the cursed Lady of Shalott. Though Tennyson does not tell the complete story, he brings new life to the story through the perspective of Elaine’s captivity, curse, and fate.

After reading Malory’s “Fair Maid of Astolat,” I can place Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” in a greater context. I now understand what is happening to Guinevere, Arthur, Lavine, and Lancelot, while Tennyson’s Elaine is trapped in her tower. The plots vary slightly here, as Malory does not afflict Elaine with a physical entrapment like Tennyson does. Instead, he places her in the middle of a mess of affairs: she is doomed to love Lancelot, whose lover is Guinevere, whose husband is Arthur. When she discovers that she cannot be with Lancelot, she sails off and pronounces that she must die, defending her love as such:

Why sholde I leve such thoughtes? Am I nat an erthely woman? And all the whyle the brethe ys in my body I may complayne me, for my belyve ys that I do none offence, though I love an erthely man, unto God; for He fourmed me thereto – and all manner of good love comyth of God, and othir than good love loved I never Sir Launcelot du Lake. And I take God to recorde, I loved never none but hym, nor never shall, of erthely creature; and a clene maydyn I am for hym and for all othir (Malory 641).

Knowing the full story of Malory’s version of the legend of Elaine, I can better understand the much more romantic, ballad-style poem by Tennyson. As we discussed, the Victorians had an obsession with all things medieval and took inspiration from medieval art and literature, admiring the beauty, simplicity, and idyllic themes of the Medieval era. (The Medieval period and Arthurian legends also became a source of political legitimacy for the monarchs, so medieval themes were important for many reasons).

In part one of “The Lady of Shalott,” Tennyson sets the scene of beautiful Camelot and the island of Shalott. It is briefly hinted at that the Lady of Shalott lives here in her tower, unseen by many that pass through. In part two, her curse is revealed, though not fully explained:

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

      To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

      The Lady of Shalott (Tennyson 37-54).

The reader soon finds that Elaine is cursed to remain in the tower, weaving on her loom to create a picture of the world below. The only glimpses she has of this world, however, are limited to what she can see reflected in her mirror—she calls these glimpses “shadows.”

Elaine’s restricted access to the world around her acts as her main source of conflict, whereas for Malory, this conflict comes from the mess of love affairs that I described earlier. I interpreted this to be Tennyson’s way of depicting Elaine’s internal struggle with her isolation from Lancelot and a free life. Elaine’s isolation and struggle are further highlighted with lines such as “She hath no loyal knight and true” and “‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said/The Lady of Shalott” (Tennyson 62, 71-72).

In part three of the poem, Elaine breaks the curse when she sees a reflection of Lancelot in her mirror, and turns around to see him, the real him, out of the window. It is the first time she has looked out of her window, and not viewed a mere reflection of it. Elaine immediately recognizes her mistake, as her weaving falls apart and her reflecting mirror shatters. She has lost her protection at the cost of her freedom. She finally has reality, which she has always wanted (just like Malory’s Elaine, who is at last reunited with Lancelot, only to learn that she cannot be with him). Both stories are beautiful, haunting, and adhere to medieval values of chastity, purity, honor, and pride, and as a result, in both, when Elaine finally gets what she wanted, she realizes it is not what she wanted after all, and knows she must die.

In his novel Oliver Twist, Dickens creates the idea of children of unfortunate circumstance as from the time that he was born, Oliver has been forced to endure terrible things not for what he has done but for just being in the place. Since his mother died, Oliver was sent to live at the baby farm becoming a child of circumstance as he was unable to do anything yet for himself so someone else made the choices for him. Oliver was later sent back to the workhouse because he was old enough to go but also because no one had anywhere else for him to go. His mother gave birth to him while he was living in the workhouse and thus, Oliver was ultimately destined to return though not by choice.

At each stage of his life, the people Oliver encountered were cruel to him and attempted to use him for their own gain or reasons. Instead of having a parent to care for him or being old enough to choose what situations he wanted to be in, Oliver is shoved around from place to place being treated as worthless and a product of his environment. Oliver becomes a child of unfortunate circumstance as he is forced to accept the life that those in power over him have given him.

Dickens presents the idea of nature versus nurture as he presents Oliver as being raised in different negative environments yet remaining seemingly innocent. When he is treated cruelly as an apprentice he runs to get away from that situation and also runs when he learns of the pickpockets as to not be a part of that life. However, due to the “nurture” side of his life being a collection of misfortunes, Oliver is still faced with false accusations and treated as a criminal. No matter how hard Oliver tries to stay out of negative situations, unfortunate circumstances and terrible people pull him back down.

Oliver is forced to be a child of circumstance in Oliver Twist as he is denied agency from the time he is a child and raised in cruelty. Although he tried to escape many of the situations that he encountered, Oliver ultimately was always pulled back into the unfortunate lives of those around him. Through Oliver Twist, Dickens essentially depicts the effects of being a child of circumstance but the potential to overcome the problems that are forced upon you if you have the ambition and innocence.

An aspect of the novel that seems important to examine in Pride and Prejudice is the dynamic of the relationships between members of the Bennet family. It seems that the difference in character among the Bennet sisters seems to be due to who they are closer to whether their father or mother. From early on in the novel, it is presented that Mr. Bennet seemed to favor his second daughter, Elizabeth, more than the rest. Elizabeth and her father due to his favor seem to be closer in understanding as Mrs. Bennet and her other sisters seem to be in understanding. I think it can be argued that family dynamic and the connection to one parent or the other can create differing character traits.

Although her sisters are all women and not too separated by age difference, they seem to have a different character as women and how to be a proper woman than Elizabeth. Since Elizabeth spends so much time listening to her father and has grown in understanding being his favorite, she has appeared to develop character traits of her own that reflect Mr. Bennet’s. Unlike her sisters, Elizabeth is more independent and strong willed when it comes to accepting the ideals of womanhood and marriage that are placed on her from the society. Elizabeth places more importance on family and love than the idea of position and marital status just for the sake of prestige. These character traits expressed through Elizabeth seem to me as a product of being close with her father. As a father Mr. Bennet is expected to place importance on his daughters finding proper matches yet as a man he values independence and respect which is often expressed when he stands up for Elizabeth not wanting to choose just any man to marry.

On the opposing side to Elizabeth’s relationship with her father is her sisters’ relationships with their mother. While Mr. Bennet influences Elizabeth’s character through his cynical ideas of society, Mrs. Bennet influences her other daughters into believing that marriage and societal status are the most important things. The sisters being closer to their mother take guidance from her as to how they should act and what they should be. For example, the oldest sister Jane is closer with her mother and thus her character portrays the ideals of a woman in the society as being innocent, beautiful, and polite as that is what is believed will win her a husband. Due to the sisters being closer to their mother than Elizabeth, each of them were more adapted to societal dynamics of womanhood and much more submissive than she was in being closer with their father.

Ultimately, the character of a person is influenced greatly by who they are more closely affiliated with or raised by as seen in Pride and Prejudice. If a daughter is closer with their father as Elizabeth was, often they grow up to be more rough or independent as a father does not have the same understanding of what it is to be a woman. On the other side, if a daughter is closer to their mother they also can learn to be independent but they will also be raised in understanding what it means to be a woman and how they will be looked at by being a woman as a mother would have experienced those things herself. The family dynamic in Pride and Prejudice depicts the way that a person’s character can be affected due to who raised or cared more for them.

          Wordsworth’s poem “Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” paints a picture of London much different than many of the other writers or artists we have read from for this class. Rather than depicting a dirty, poor, and overpopulated city, Wordsworth gives the impression that London is just another fixture part of England’s natural beauty. That said, he writes about London in this poem using very romantic language and imagery. The first line of the sonnet alone is enough to show the reader this romantic nature of the poem: “Earth has not anything to show more fair.” In this line, the reader is told to think of London as a part of the Earth; not just the world, which would take away form the natural imagery Wordsworth is so accustomed to invoking. The hyperbole of this line is also evident to me right away, and tells me that this poem is absolutely romanticizing London. Throughout the rest of the poem, Wordsworth using other words such as, “majesty, beauty, bright, glittering, and mighty” to promote this glamorized, romantic image. He compares it images from nature: “Never did sun more beautifully steep /
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill.” This stands out to me especially, given that romantic poetry valorizes nature. Here, Wordsworth is talking about the collections of “Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples,” which are obviously not natural objects or wonders. Perhaps most especially notable is line eight, where he states the city is, “All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.” The fact that he calls to attention the air quality as “smokeless” tells me that the rest of the poem is trying to make out London to be something that it is not; he is trying to prove that London is not what others make it out to be.

Having read and discussed Wordsworth’s optimism in “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” in a previous blog post, I was intrigued to find a much more realistic view in “The Prelude.” His tone is much more critical of London, and I think that stems from the extended time he had spent there by this point. He was no longer subject to the starry-eyed vision that comes with a traveler’s first visit, but he had been exposed to the reality of London and the secrets that it held.

One thing that was of particular note to me is the way Wordsworth describes London as a sort of paradox in saying that the city is so busy and full of life, yet full of secrets. He does so in lines 115-118, saying, “Above all, one thought Baffled my understanding: how men lived Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still Strangers, not knowing each the other’s name.” Wordsworth appears to take stock in the fact that Londoners do not seem as concerned with acquainting themselves with others, but rather they are more focused on their own lives. The paradox of London becomes even more clear when he takes note of just how busy the city is in line 151, saying, “Thou endless stream of men and moving things!” It’s almost as if everything around him is moving, yet he is unable to make any sense of it. He notes the diversity of the city by pointing out how many people are there from varying countries, and he goes on to discuss London’s history and what he expects (and what others expect) the city should be. It seems to me, however, that he is having a difficult time arriving at a conclusive and cohesive view of the city. The poem itself is muddling through a lot of chaos; he uses words like “roar” and “monstrous” to describe the city and the people in it. London, then, appears to be a sort of beast which cannot be tamed. More than that, the city may not be able to be defined. Wordsworth, however, does not take on a pessimistic tone, rather I think he’s simply trying to make sense of it all and where he fits in in the chaos. Where Wordsworth seemed like a third party observer in “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,” in “The Prelude” he is very much in the scene. There’s a stark difference that comes about as a result of Wordsworth’s participation in the scene. Any city is going to become idealized when looked upon with fresh, eager eyes. When Wordsworth begins living in London long term, however, and becomes more exposed to the realities and the secrets of the city, I think he begins to question his role as a member of the society and how he fits in. His active participation no longer lets him sit in the blissful ignorance of visitation, but rather he is forced to confront the realities of his decision to become a citizen.

Reading Sherlock Holmes, you can really see the importance of London in each of the short stories. When I think of mystery I think of the novels and shows that are located in cities like New York and even London.   Cities have everything, the culture, the atmosphere, there is never a dull moment. In “The Red-Headed League”, it mentions many parts and aspects of London. He mentions the underground, tube stops and other parts around London like St. Paul that actually make you feel like you are there.

Having these crimes in a city won’t be as bizarre if it was located in the suburbs. Not a lot of crimes happen in suburbs, but in cities crime happens frequently and it makes sense that Holmes would be a detective in a city like London. Being in London you can see how busy the city actually is and how vibrant it is. Holmes’s mentions, “It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”  It kind of feels like no matter where you are their will be crimes happening, but you won’t get that many weird cases in the countryside like you would in the city.

A lot of characters stand out in Sherlock Holmes. They all have their different personalities that make them, them. In cities you get so many different cultures and personalities that there is never a dull moment and you can see that through these short stories. But the main character is Sherlock Holmes and I can’t picture him anywhere else rather than London. He is a quirky, intelligent, motivated guy and his personality wouldn’t fit in the countryside.