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English Literature / Unit 12   ENL 1125 short lesson, about 20 seconds

"Composed Upon Westminster Bridge"

Captions available

The idea

"Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" is a Petrarchan sonnet describing London and the Thames from the bridge in the early morning, the sleeping city calm and beautiful. Its true date of composition was the thirty-first of July, when Wordsworth and Dorothy were travelling to France.

In practice

The city at dawn, still and beautiful.

Where people slip

Wordsworth praises a city here, not nature.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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