a microcosm of william wordsworth
...eelings while reading the sonnet. This is largely due to the fact that Wordsworth does not simply describe what he sees in a literal sense but he tinges the aesthetic view of the city with emotion. Wordsworth opens the sonnet with a statement that “Earth has not any thing to show more fair” (1), this is the type of statement that pulls a reader in and evokes thought and question. The reader upon reading this line for the first time will likely question: what can Wordsworth possibly be writing about that is so beautiful? What can he be seeing? He continues by exclaiming that “Dull would he be of soul that could pass by/ A sight so touching in its majesty” (2-3). With this exclamation Wordsworth is essentially telling the reader something along the lines of “Hey buddy, if your soul is not dull and you can see the beauty in things then there is no way that you would be able to see what I am seeing and not be in utter awe”. This is a very clever way of making the reader try and feel the same emotions he felt on this early morning. Wordsworth continues the sonnet by personifying the city he is looking out upon when he says “This city now doth, like a garment, wear/ The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,” (4-5). This personification serves to enhance the emotional power of the poem as a whole by giving the city a life. However it isn’t the normal life that one associates with the city, not the hustle and bustle of people and factories, but a life that will evoke the human emotion of the serenity that one feels when wrapped in a warm blanket. This serves to enhance the beauty of the poem by creating and displaying the aspect of a city that one does not regularly notice. The use of personification continues when the Wordsworth says “Never did the sun more beautifully steep/ In his first splendor…” (9-10). This sort of personification is also visible in the closing lines of the poem, Wordsworth claims “The river glideth at his own sweet will:/Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;”(12-13). The use of personification at this point in the sonnet serves to allow the reader to feel the serenity of what will soon be alive and moving about. By giving human cha...