Yahoo News London spots that have inspired great poets
London has been a source of inspiration to artists for hundreds of years, and poets have been no exception.
William Wordsworth may have been taken by the daffodils of the Lake District but he was just as fond of Westminster Bridge, and Chaucer may be most famously associated with Canterbury, but he was rather fond of London pubs too.
From world famous landmarks to tucked away beauty spots, these are the London places that have inspired some of Britain's greatest poets.
Borough High Street (The Tabard Inn) – Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
As with many journeys around London, a pub is a good place to start. Geoffrey Chaucer certainly thought so – he assembled the Miller, the Knight et al at The Tabard Inn in Southwark for the opening of The Canterbury Tales. This drinking spot endured on the east side of Borough High Street from the 14th century right up until 1873, when it was demolished. If you head to Talbot Yard, you can see the Blue Plaque commemorating where the famed pub once stood.
London Bridge – TS Eliot , The Waste Land
In one the most defining works of modernism, TS Eliot draws The Waste Land with the help of Arthurian legend, texts from the Indian subcontinent and observations of Edwardian London. London Bridge is the setting for Eliot’s less than chipper observations of the commuting masses: “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many.” He’s pretty much saying we all look like zombies on our way to work – little has changed.
Westminster Bridge – William Wordsworth, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge
William Wordsworth’s view from his chosen bridge is a little more life-affirming. The Romantic poet famed most often for his lyrical illuminations of Lake District landscapes, wasn’t as disheartened by city life as you might expect. On the morning of September 3 1802, Wordsworth wrote that “Earth has not anything to show as fair” as his view from Westminster Bridge, and that This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare”.
The Strand – Samuel Johnson, London
It was Samuel Johnson who wrote the immortal (and darn sensible) words, “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”. The more in-depth musings he makes on the city in his 263 line poem named after the capital are slightly less flattering. The poem follows a man who plans to leave London for Wales, escaping poverty and crime in London for the countryside: “For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's Land, Or change the Rocks of Scotland for the Strand?” We get his point, but still, The Strand has nice bits.
St Paul’s – William Blake, Holy Thursday
William Blake wrote a lot about London, largely responding to the city with biting political critique. In Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake presents two versions of a poem called Holy Thursday. In the Innocence version, a line of poor children – “their innocent faces clean, The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green” – being lead into St Paul’s Cathedral. In the second poem, Blake implies that this is all for show and the church actually does little to help the children.
Hampton Court – Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
Hampton Court has played host to many a high society squabble over the years – after all, Henry VIII made his mind up to chop off a head or two within its walls. Things are a little less serious but just as dramatic in Alexander Pope’s 18th century mock-epic poem, The Rape of the Lock. While playing cards at a party at the palace, pampered protagonist Belinda has a lock of her hair cut off by the scheming Baron. Belinda is humiliated and a fight ensues, attended by fairy-like creatures and a gnome or two.
Regent’s Park – George Eliot, In a London Drawingroom
George Eliot – born Mary Anne Evans – moved to London in pursuit of a career as a writer. Nineteen years later, looking out of the window of her Regent’s Park home, Eliot penned an atmospheric view of Victorian city suffocating in the smog. Quite unlike her green Nuneaton upbringing, Eliot describes how the air is “yellowed by the smoke” and how she sees “far as the eye can stretch Monotony of surface & of form”. This drab landscape is populated by figures who “All hurry on & look upon the ground” as “The world seems one huge prison-house & court”.
Keats House, Hampstead – John Keats, Ode to A Nightingale
John Keats poetic experience with London is somewhat rosier than Eliot’s. The Romantic poet lived at Wentworth Place – now known as Keats House – for two years towards the end of his short life. A leafy Regency Villa, the house was close to Hampstead Heath and the homes of his contemporaries. One of his most famous works, Ode to A Nightingale, is said to have been written by Keats under the Mulberry tree in the garden of the house, which is now open to visiting poetry fans.
London Underground – John Betjeman, Summoned by Bells
A famed slanderer of Slough, John Betjeman felt a little more positively about his native London. In his autobiographical work Summoned By Bells, the poet recalls the early years of his life, from his childhood in Hampstead to his premature departure from the University of Oxford. In one notable passage, Betjeman recalls the beginnings of his love of railways, writing of his comprehensive childhood travels on the London Underground: “There was no station, north to Finsbury Park, To Barking eastwards, Clapham Common south, No temporary platform in the west Among the Actons and Ealings, where We had not once alighted.”
Clapton Pond – Kate Tempest, On Clapton Pond at Dawn
The city may have changed somewhat since Chaucer wrote of it, but London is still inspiring poets to this day. Contemporary poet Kate Tempest writes largely about the modern day experience – and struggle – of living in the city. Her vivid works discuss happenings all across the city and often discuss the elements of city life. But in On Clapton Pond at Dawn, Tempest describes a pause for romance by the side of the Hackney beauty spot: “You kissed me. It was lighter fuel. It burnt the night away. And when I took my eyes off you I saw that it was day.”
