William Wordsworth

“I wandered lonely as a Cloud”/ “Daffodils”

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.

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:-
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:

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.

Questions:

1. What themes and motifs enable us to classify Wordsworth's “Daffodils” as a romantic poem?

2. What picture of the world does the poem present - is the world dynamic or static (consider the use of verbs)? open or closed? natural or cultured/civilized? real or imaginary?

3. Do you agree that the poem “Daffodils” may be defined as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” arising from "emotion recollected in tranquillity"? Consider the situation in which the speaker/the poet recollects his past experience. Which of the four stanzas depict the recollection from past? Which stanza describes the present situation?

4. How must the poet have felt when he wandered “lonely as a cloud” (consider the meaning of this comparison!)? How did the poet's mood change when he looked down at a crowd of golden daffodils? What other “crowds” (“hosts”) did he start to perceive in nature? How do you understand the following lines: “I gazed-and gazed-but little thought/ What wealth the show to me had brought”?

5. The poet describes his present mood as pensive. What method does he use to cheer himself up (explain the role of “the inward eye”)? What meanings can we attach to the metaphor used in the two closing lines (“And then my heart with pleasure fills,/And dances with the Daffodils”)?

6. Where does the poet belong to? To the dancing, jocund world of daffodils or the world of lonely, pensive individuals?

---