The Use of the Word "westward" in Wordsworth's "stepping Westward" and Donne's "good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward"

The reason for comparing the two poems is obvious from the titles, and the similarities become more obvious as a person reads the poems. Both employ "westward as the direction in which the speakers are moving. As they move, they become aware of mortality, since the west--where the sun sets and the day dies--is the traditional direction symbolizing death. The reality of this situation causes the speakers to meditate on religion and philosophy. There is a difference in the ways in which the speakers move. William Wordsworth's speaker is stepping westward, while John Donne's is riding (i.e., being carried). If these actions are interpreted symbolically, Wordsworth suggests that his speaker is guided primarily by will, whereas Donne suggests that his speaker's will is guided by elements of greater complexity. The poems bear out this distinction. The differences are more noteworthy that the similarities, and Donne's poem emerges as more forceful and realistic than Wordsworth's. This difference can be seen clearly in the ideas that both poets have about the forces the govern life. (Central Idea/Thesis Sentence)

The idea of moving westward, away from the east, prompts both poets to be concerned with the nature of life once death has been taken into account. It appears that Wordsworth is raising a question that Donne has already answered. Wordsworth's speaker asks whether we are governed by chance--the "wildish destiny" (line 2)--or whether we are controlled by "heavenly" forces (11). He opts for the "heavenly" destiny to guide him on his "endless way" (26). Donne's speaker does not raise this question, however, for to him the heavenly destiny indeed exists; his idea, instead, is that his speaker is riding away from his destiny, since God is in the East, and "pleasure" and "business" are whirling his "soul," like a "sphere" westward away from God (7-10). Thus Donne uses the opposition of East and West to bring out a conflict between faith, on the one hand, and both pleasures and business activities, on the other--a conflict that is far different from the greater calm in Wordsworth's poem. (Method: point by point)

Donne's poem is not only more agitated than Wordsworth's, but it contains images demonstrating that Donne's view of life is more complex and difficult that Wordsworth's. Donne's first image is, "Let man's soul be a sphere" (line 1). The individual soul, from this image, is a world in itself over which the forces of good and evil contend, and the loss of any individual is of cosmic significance. Donne's other image, since he is deeply concerned with religious topic matter, is that of "Christ on this Cross" (13). In Donne's paradoxical view, it is Christ who by dying made death an entry way into life. The westward direction of travel therefore becomes not only the direction of death but also, paradoxically, of east, of life--heavenly life--since it is the direction in which one must travel to see God (lines 9-14):

Hence is it, that I am carried towards the west

This day, when my soul's form bends towards the east.

There I should see a sun, by rising set,

And by that setting endless day beget;

But

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