I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud Analysis

In “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” William Wordsworth writes of a lonely day while out for a walk; until he stumbles across a bed of beautiful golden daffodils dancing in the breeze.

“Mother to Son” develops a sense of happiness and determination. As Hughes explains that the mother endures trials and tribulations throughout the poem, we find that she continues to persevere, setting a wonderful example for her son. In contrast, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” uses a tone which is somewhat different to “Mother to Son.” Wordsworth takes a different approach in showing an individual’s feelings. Wordsworth’s character feels lonely and depressed. Suddenly, the tone changes to a more joyful and appreciative tone when he stumbles upon a field of daffodils. Clearly, the tones of each poem differ and resemble each other at the same

The poet orders his listener to behold a “solitary Highland lass” reaping and singing by herself in a field. He says that anyone passing by should either stop here, or “gently pass” so as not to disturb her. As she “cuts and binds the grain” she “sings a melancholy strain,” and the valley overflows with the beautiful, sad sound. The speaker says that the sound is more welcome than any chant of the nightingale to weary travelers in the desert, and that the cuckoo-bird in spring never sang with a voice so thrilling. Impatient, the poet asks, “Will no one tell me what she sings?” He speculates that her song might be about “old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago,” or that it might be humbler, a simple song about “matter of today.” Whatever she sings about, he says, he listened “motionless and still,” and as he traveled up the

The appreciation of nature is illustrated through imagery ‘and now the country bursts open on the sea-across a calico beach unfurling’. The use of personification in the phrase ‘and the water sways’ is symbolic for life and nature, giving that water has human qualities. In contrast, ‘silver basin’ is a representation of a material creation and blends in with natural world. The poem is dominated by light and pure images of ‘sunlight rotating’ which emphasizes the emotional concept of this journey. The use of first person ‘I see from where I’m bent one of those bright crockery days that belong to so much I remember’ shapes the diverse range of imagery and mood within the poem. The poet appears to be emotional about his past considering his thoughts are stimulated by different landscapes through physical journey.

This poem is full of beautiful energy of the natural world; from leaves and flowers to sunrises and sunsets, your head is full of golden images from beginning to end. Because he refers to nature as a her, you have an image of mother nature throughout the poem.

The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the

As evident by the title of this poem, imagery is a strong technique used in this poem as the author describes with great detail his journey through a sawmill town. This technique is used most in the following phrases: “...down a tilting road, into a distant valley.” And “The sawmill towns, bare hamlets built of boards with perhaps a store”. This has the effect of creating an image in the reader’s mind and making the poem even more real.

Wordsworth demonstrates his use of tone and syntax in the following stanza, “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 a sprightly dance.” The tone of the stanza is joyful because he is happy when he talks about how beautiful the daffodils are. This shows how his relationship with nature is positive since he is happy when watching the daffodils. Wordsworth uses traditional syntax in this stanza. He uses several phrases divided by commas to describe the daffodils and their movements. This gives the stanza a playful pace which again expresses that his relationship with nature is happy and

He sees the universe as a harmonious whole, in which every subject reflects and echoes the other. The daffodils became the speaker’s companions in the third stanza, and they were describing as “the jocund company” by the poet. He enjoys the company of the dancing daffodils, which brings him happiness and joy.

Wordsworth says that, wandering like a cloud floating above the hill and valleys, he encountered a field of daffodils beside a lake, in the poem. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” A poet could not help but to be happy in such a joyful company of flowers. William stared and watched but did not realize what wealth the scene would bring him. Whenever he feels “vacant” or “pensive” the picture would flash upon “that inward eye / That is the bliss of solitude. : and his heart fills with pleasure, “and dances with the daffodils.” (Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud). Wordsworth also created songs of innocence such as “Daffodils Song”. The Romantic poets, predominantly Wordsworth and Blake were spellbound by the natural world. The author used pastoral landscapes to evoke joy, to create peaceful scenes that were only darkened by the threat of urbanization and the Industrial Revolution. (William Wordsworth: Artistic Reaction to the Industrial Revolution, Fed 14, 2000)

The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.

Throughout “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” William Wordsworth shows his relationship with nature through his choice of diction, fantastic descriptions, and shifting mood of his poem. There are also many words and phrases that Wordsworth included into his poem that shows how he feels about nature. These phrases are well written, extremely descriptive, and show how Wordsworth is influenced by the wild: “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, “When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden 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 waves beside them danced; but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee”, “I gazed—and gazed—but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought”, and “For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye [...] and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.” Another phrase, which indicates that the flowers were so beautiful that no true poet could be sad in their presence, also builds upon Wordsworth’s relationship with nature. These particular lines in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” show how Wordsworth’s mood shifts from somber and lonely to joyous and content. The lines also show how the gorgeousness of nature sticks with

By analysing the structure (shift from external to internal landscape), language (tenses, pronoun), and presentation of the experience of seeing the daffodils, I seek to demonstrate that feelings of the sublime are only evoked when the narrator’s imagination participates in the scene he has internalized in his memory. While the first three stanzas exemplify a merely physical stimulus and response mechanism to nature, the last stanza shows how active poetic imagination enables man to recreate and amplify emotions encountered, thus resulting in feelings of the sublime. Why does the observer not recognise the ‘wealth’ the scene brings in that moment? How does poetic imagination connect the physical eye and the inner eye to allow for sublime, transcendental experience? Hess argues that the poem “depend[s] for [its] power on the narrator’s ability to fix a single, discrete, visually defined moment of experience in his mind, to which he can later return in acts of private memory and imagination” (298). An example of the recapturing of emotions is seen where “gay” (I. 15) is recaptured as “pleasure” (I. 23) at the end. Active imagination, which draws inspiration from memory of the initial encounter, is now a permanent possession that

In "Daffodils", we again see all the features that make this poem fit into the tradition of Romanticism and Romantic Poetry. Wordsworth describes nature and says how beautiful it is and the beauty he sees when he looks at the daffodils. "when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils".

Poets use many ways when they want to communicate something using poems. Poems are used as a means of passing ideas, information and expression of feelings. This has made the poets to use the natural things and images that people can relate with so that they can make these poems understandable. The most common forms of writing that are used by the poets are the figurative language for example imagery and metaphors. In addition, the poets use the natural landscape in their attempt to explore the philosophical questions. Therefore, this essay will explore the forms that have been used by the poets in writing poems using the natural landscape. The essay will be based on poems such as ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by