“Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
The sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play”
- "Prothalamion by Edmund Spenser
For any student of English literature, the word
‘city’ is certain to bring to mind the mighty metropolis of London, whose very
name is onomatopoeic, and rings a bell as loud as the Big Ben.
Right from light hearted nursery rhymes sung to
fair ladies, through popular and witty folklore of Dick Wittington and his cat,
to serious edifying classics, the capital city of England, with its rich
culture, diversity and changing fortunes, can be felt inseparably woven into
the milieu of English literature through the centuries.
Like the thirty pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales,
who meet at the Tabard Inn, before they begin their pilgrimage to the shrine of
Thomas Beckett, our journey through time begins in the fourteenth century with
the poetry of Chaucer, the father of English Poetry. It stops perhaps at the
Waste Land of T. S. Eliot, who promises to ‘show fear in a handful of dust’ in
this megalopolis and rests on the way, at the taverns and coaching inns of
Spencer, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, and other masters.
To parody that famous opening line of Dickens,
London has been the best of cities to some writers, and the worst of cities to
others. Standing by the Thames with Spenser, we can visualize nymphs collecting
flowers for two coy maidens about to get married.
Sailing before our eyes in her royal barge and
reminding us of the purple sails and silver oars of Cleopatra on the Nile, is
Elizabeth, the flirtatious but powerful Tudor Queen, in ‘maiden meditation,
fancy free’, and dreaming a midsummer night’s dream.
In rapt attention, we stand listening to the
narration of Sir Walter Scott, as his historical romances unfurl the amorous
tales of the earls and suitors of the Queen, and of the killings of innocent
wives who stand in the way.
While William Blake sees no joy in the life of
London, and the pamphleteer William Cobbett sees the city as a great wen,
Shelley goes a step ahead and declares, “Hell is a city much like London.”
But it is different for Charles Lamb, who loves the
city with all its idiosyncrasies. His journals speak of the “great good will
that I was destined to bear toward the city”. This friendliness was a precursor
to the Dickensian love for the ‘magic lantern’, as he called the city.
Dickens has been hailed as the quintessential
novelist of London. His “Oliver Twist”, “Little Dorrit” and “Bleak House”, to
mention a few, are a delight to the social historians. ‘A tale of two cities’
projects London as a safe haven, a symbol of peace and security, as opposed to
the Bastille and the deadly guillotine of Paris. “The Scarlet Pimpernel” by
Baroness Orczy endorses this aspect of London, as an escape from the reign of
terror of Paris.
The Globe theatre of Shakespeare, the Westminster
Abbey where the great writers of the land lie in rest, the first of the tribe
to be buried in the poets corner being Chaucer, the taverns and haunts of the
likes of Falstaff, the towers, castles, and the palaces, all contribute to the
milieu of the literature of the country, and the city is as inseparable from
its literature, as is its patron saint St. Paul from the Cathedral.
Towers may tumble, bridges may fall, prothalamions
and epithalamions may come to an end. But sweet Thames will still flow softly
forever, as majestic London stands on its bank, immortalised by the great
writers of the country.
Author’s note:
During the five years I
spent as a student of English literature, we were not sitting on benches inside
a classroom, poring over books. We were wandering along the streets of London and
sauntering on the banks of the Thames. Such was the ubiquity of the city, which
we find woven into the tapestry of literature.
Years after that, reminiscing
the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Scott, Lamb and Dickens and to
write about London in literature was like revisiting London once again.
