Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

In “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads,” Wordsworth wrote,

For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor...To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves (Lyrical Ballads).

One of the great challenges brought on by the Industrial Revolution was the fact that many people were losing touch with nature. People moved from farms into cities, and instead of working in the field they worked in factories. The assembly line system raised fears of the working classes becoming mechanized in their actions and in their thinking. People, the Romantics alleged, were becoming more and more like the machines they depended upon for a living.

“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” is set in a location that is at the center of Industrialization in England. It is also at the center of both religion and events of state in one of the busiest cities in the world. Presumably, many important politicians and members of the clergy would ride over this bridge without noticing the grandeur of the natural view here, too busy thinking about worldly and material concerns.