William
Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a lyric poem focusing on the poet's response to
the beauty of nature. (A lyric poem presents the deep feelings and emotions of
the poet rather than telling a story or presenting a witty observation.) The
final version of the poem was first published in Collected Poems in 1815. An
earlier version was published in Poems in Two Volumes in 1807 as a three-stanza
poem. The final version has four stanzas. Wordsworth wrote the earlier version
in 1804, two years after seeing the lakeside daffodils that inspired the poem.
Setting and Background Information
The poem
recaptures a moment on April 15, 1802, when Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy,
were walking near a lake at Grasmere, Cumbria County, England, and came upona
shore lined with daffodils. Grasmere is in northwestern England's Lake
District, between Morecambe Bay on the south and Solway Firth on the north. The
Lake District extends twenty-five miles east to west and thirty miles north to
south. Among its attractions are England's highest mountain, Scafell Pike
(3,210 feet), and Esthwaite Lake and other picturesque meres radiating outward,
like the points of a star, from the town of Grasmere. Wordsworth and his
sister, Dorothy, moved to a cottage at Grasmere in 1799. After Wordsworth married in 1802, his wife resided
there also. The family continued to live there until 1813. The Lake District
was the haunt of not only Wordsworth but also poets Robert Southey, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas De Quincey. Dorothy, who kept a diary, described what she and her brother
saw on that April day in 1802:
When we were in
the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side,
we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little
colony had so sprung up-- But as we went along there were more & yet more
& at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt
of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road . . .
[S]ome rested their heads on [mossy] stones as on a pillow for weariness &
the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily
laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay
ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them.
There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but
they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity & unity & life of
that one busy highway... --Rain came on, we were wet.
I Wandered
Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered
lonely as a cloud
That floats on
high o'er vales and hills,
When all at
once I saw a crowd,
A host, of
golden daffodils;
Beside the
lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and
dancing in the breeze.
While wandering
like a cloud, the speaker happens upon daffodils fluttering in a breeze on the
shore of a lake, beneath trees. Daffodils are plants in the lily family with yellow flowers and a crown shaped like a trumpet.
Click here to see images of daffodils.
Continuous as
the stars that shine
And twinkle on
the milky way,
They stretched
in never-ending line
Along the
margin of a bay:
Ten thousand
saw I at a glance,
Tossing their
heads in sprightly dance
The daffodils
stretch all along the shore. Because there are so many of them, they remind the
speaker of the Milky Way, the galaxy that scientists say contains about one
trillion stars, including the sun. The speaker humanizes the daffodils when he
says they are engaging in a dance.
The waves
beside them danced; but they
Out-did the
sparkling waves in glee:--
A poet could
not but be gay
In such a
jocund company:
I gazed--and
gazed--but little thought
What wealth the
show to me had brought:.....18
In their
gleeful fluttering and dancing, the daffodils outdo the rippling waves of the
lake. But the poet does not at this moment fully appreciate the happy sight
before him. In the last line of the stanza, Wordsworth uses anastrophe, writing
the show to me had brought instead of the show brought to me. Anastrophe is an
inversion of the normal word order.
For oft when on
my couch I lie
In vacant or in
pensive mood,
They flash upon
that inward eye
Which is the
bliss of solitude,
And then my
heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils
Not until the
poet later muses about what he saw does he fully appreciate the cheerful sight
of the dancing daffodils. Wordsworth again uses anastrophe, writing when on my
couch I lie and my heart with pleasure fills.
Examples of
Figures of Speech
Alliteration: lonely
as a cloud (line 1).
Simile:
Comparison (using as) of the speaker's solitariness to that of a cloud (line
1).
Personification:
Comparison of the cloud to a lonely human. (line 1)
Alliteration: high
o'er vales and Hills (line 2).
Alliteration: When
all at once (line 3). (Note that the w and o have the same consonant
sound.)
Personification/Metaphor:
Comparison of daffodils to a crowd of people (lines 3-4).
Alliteration: Beside
the Lake, beneath the trees,
Personification/Metaphor:
Comparison of daffodils to dancing humans (lines 4, 6).
Structure and Rhyme Scheme
The poem
contains four stanzas of six lines each. In each stanza, the first line rhymes
with the third and the second with the fourth. The stanza then ends with a
rhyming couplet. Wordsworth unifies the content of the
poem by focusing the first three stanzas on the experience at the lake and the
last stanza on the memory of that experience.
In the first
stanza, line 6 appears to veer from the metrical format. However, Wordsworth
likely intended fluttering to be read as two syllables (flut' 'RING) instead of
three so that the line maintains iambic tetrameter.
1. Nature' s
beauty uplifts the human spirit. Lines 15, 23, and 24 specifically refer to
this theme.
2. People
sometimes fail to appreciate nature's wonders as they go about their daily
routines. Lines 17 and 18 suggest this theme.
3. Nature
thrives unattended. The daffodils proliferate in splendor along the shore of
the lake without the need for human attention.
.
Wordsworth and Romanticism
In English
literature, Wordsworth and his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, were pioneers in the development of the Romantic Movement, or
romanticism, a movement that championed imagination and emotions as more
powerful than reason and systematic thinking. "What I feel about a person
or thing," a romantic poet might have said, "is more important than
what scientific investigation, observation, and experience would say about that
person or thing." Intuition-that voice within that makes judgments and
decisions without the aid of reason--was a guiding force to the romantic poet.
So was nature. Romanticism began in the mid-1700's as a rebellion against the
principles of classicism. Whereas classicism espoused the literary ideals of
ancient Greece and Rome--objectivity, emotional restraint, and formal rules of
composition that writers were expected to follow--romanticism promoted
subjectivity, emotional effusiveness, and freedom of expression . "I want
to write my way," the romantic poet might have said, "not the way
that writers in ancient times decreed that I should write."
Study Questions and Writing Topics
1. In the
preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), written by Wordsworth
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth presents his definition of poetry:
Poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of
reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to
that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and
does itself actually exist in the mind.
Write an essay
explaining whether "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" illustrates what
Wordsworth was saying in his definition.
2. Wordsworth
believed that nature and human intuition impart knowledge and wisdom not found
in books and formal education. Do you agree? Explain your answer.
3. Identify an
example of hyperbole in the poem.
4. If
Wordsworth had written walked instead of wandered in the first line, would he
have ruined the poem? Explain your answer.
5. Write a
short poem focusing on a natural wonder--a flower, a mountain, a waterfall, a
violent storm, an animal, or a solar or lunar eclipse--that impressed you.
Sources:cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/IWandered.html-27.09.2012
D.N. Aloysius
