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2. PERSONIFICATION The poempersonififies both manmade and natural features of the view from Westminster Bridge. This personification challenges the notion that nature and the city cannot harmoniously coexist. As the sun rises over, and the river flows through, 19th-century London, the speaker observes not characters in competition, but a cooperative, integrated process of waking. In line 1, the poem personifies the Earth, which doesn’t have “any thing to show more fair.” As far as we know, the Earth does not “show” anything; it simply is. The act of showing off an attribute is something only a self-conscious human can do. This line suggests that the planet is proud of the city. This tells readers something about what the speaker is feeling. The speaker may be proud of what humans have managed to create, and may also see him/herself as a privileged observer whom the personified Earth has chosen to reveal itself to. Like the Earth (and later, the city, sun, river, and houses), the speaker is a character in the waking process. In lines 4 and 5, the city is described as wearing the morning sunlight like a “garment.” As with the act of showing off an attribute, wearing a piece of clothing is distinctly human. As a choice of how to present oneself, it implies self-consciousness. Furthermore, a garment is, by definition, manmade. It’s implied that the humans in the houses are waking, and that the city’s buildings will soon be filled with and surrounded by them. The city, first described as a slowly waking human, will mimic that activity. This permits the reader to interpret the city as a character throughout the rest of the poem, one that interacts with the personified features to come. Line 10 personifies the sun by using a possessive masculine pronoun. The “first splendour” is “his,” i.e. it belongs to the sun. By giving the sun possession over the beauty of its light, the speaker presents that light as a tool, something to be wielded according to a conscious, distinctly human choice. Here, the sun joins the Earth and the city as a character in the poem. From the center of the solar system, he recognizes the beauty in the urban landscape that his subordinate, the Earth, has to offer, and chooses to throw it under the spotlight. Another piece of this cosmic interaction, the River Thames, is personified in line 12. Like the sun, the river is given possession over one of its attributes: “at his own sweet will,” the river glides under the bridge and out to sea. Remember that in line 1, the Earth interacts with the speaker, who is just as much a character in the poem as the personified natural and urban features are. The image of a river with an unencumbered “will” implies the presence of the speaker, a representative of humankind, whose industrial activity was then in the process of obstructing and dirtying the river water. The speaker suggests that at this moment, with Earth as a home and the sun as energy, the natural river and the crowded city can operate sideby- side, in harmony. Where Personifification appears in the poem: • Line 1: “Earth has not any thing to show more fair:” • Lines 4-5: “This City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning;” • Lines 5-6: “silent, bare, / Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie” • Lines 9-10: “Never did sun more beautifully steep / In his first splendour,” • Line 12: “The river glideth at his own sweet will:” • Line 13: “the very houses seem asleep;”