I wandered lonely as a cloud
By: William Wordsworth
By: Marisol Chavez,
Marisela Abundis,
Maryam Sayadian,
Hafsa Khan
and Jose Reyes
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
Outdid 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.
Definitions
1. O’er: mean over. "O'er" is pronounced as one syllable,
not two as in "over".
2. Daffodils: a bulbous plant that typically bears bright
yellow flowers with a long trumpet-shaped center
3. Vales: a valley
4. Jocund: cheerful and lighthearted
5. Oft: archaic, poetic/literary, or jocular form of often.
6. Pensive: reflecting deep or serious thought.
7. Solitude: the state or situation of being alone.
● This is an English Romantic poem.
● Back then, everyones idea was very religious and their
notion was that God is through nature. They believed
that when we are born, we are from God, babies still
have clouds, which is the consciousness of God.
● As we get older, we move away from God like the chart
of life. When death comes along, you are back to God’s
consciousness. They also said that in the city we are
lost and nature is where you find yourself where you
are free. Nature in the city is basically trapped.
Structure
● consist of four stanzas each with a sestet
● total of 24 lines
● Meter of the poem is in Iambic Tetrameter : each line
has four iambs (unaccented syllable /accented syllable)
● This has an end rhyme
● the rhyme scheme :
1st stanza-ABABCC
2nd stanza-DEDEFF
3rd stanza-EGEGHH
4th stanza-IJIJBB
Diction and Tone
● diction can be assumed as indifferent or
melancholy in the first two lines
“ I wondered lonely as a cloud” also known as
“The Daffodils’” the speaker is comparing himself
to a cloud that floats carelessly and yet feels distant
or seperated from the world beneath him
● By the third line
“when all at once I saw a crowd” the poem
shifts into a blithe/joyful attitude, an interest
towards the gorgeous scene which he describes and
keeps throughout the poem
-Fluttering/dancing/shine/twinkle/sprightly
dance/glee/gay/jocund/wealth/bliss/pleasure fills
Literary Devices
● Simile- a comparison using the word like or as
● Metaphor-an unusual substitution
● Personification-giving human qualities to something nonhuman
● Imagery: the use of words to represent things, actions, or ideas
by sensory description.
Authors
connection to
the poem
William Wordsworth was born on April 7th, 1770 in Cockermouth,
Cumberland in the Lake District. The beautiful landscape inspired
him to write poems about nature. In 1804, he wrote the poem " I
Wandered
Lonely as a Cloud", a poem also known as "The Daffodils". His sister
Dorothy, played an important part in his life and she also influenced
him with her love of nature. The inspiration to write this poem came
while he was out walking with Dorothy near Lake Ullswater in
Grasmere and they came
upon some daffodils growing near the river. When he saw so many
daffodils, he loved the scene very much and enjoyed the time he
spent with his sister.
At the time he wrote the poem, Wordsworth was living with his wife,
Mary, and sister, Dorothy. Mary contributed what Wordsworth said
were the two best lines in the poem, recalling the "tranquil
restoration."
:They flash upon that inward eye
William Wordsworth Biography
● English Romantic poet
● Wordsworth attended St. John's College at Cambridge University where
he published his first piece of writing, a sonnet in The European
Magazine
● He was known for writing Lyrical Ballads with Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
considered by many to have launched the English Romantic movement.
●
In 1791 Wordsworth went on a walking tour to Europe, which
influenced much of his poetry.
● During his stay in France, he fell in love with a french woman named
Annette Vallon.
● She bore his first child, a girl born 1792, which was named Caroline.
● Because of the lack of money and British’s tension with
France,Wordsworth returned to england alone.
● Wordsworth eventually married Mary Hutchinson,(a childhood friend)
and had five additional children.
● In 1802, Wordsworth returned to france with his sister Dorothy, to visit
Annette and Caroline
●
In 1839 William Wordsworth receives an honorary degree from
Oxford University, to "thunders of applause, repeated over and over."
● Wordsworth is named Poet Laureate ( poet who holds honorary
position) of England in 1843
●
Wordsworth died in 1850 of pleurisy, an inflammation of the lining
around the lungs. Leaving his wife, Mary Wordsworth to publish final
work, The Prelude,an autobiographical poem, considered to be his
masterpiece.
Analysis
● In the first stanza, the poem is full of imagery and Wordsworth describes
the scene when we wanders "as lonely as a cloud". He compares himself to
a single cloud that is floating over the valleys and the hills. The speaker
feels distant and seperated from the world below. The poet says that he is
like a cloud. That's a simile.
● Then he sees a "crowd" of golden daffodils which are under the trees and
beside a lake and are "fluttering and dancing in the breeze". He uses calm
and soft words.
● He uses personification when he says that the daffodils are fluttering and
dancing. He loves the beauty around him and it makes him feel complete
and happy. He makes the daffodils come alive just for him and have a
human like quality in the way they are behaving.
● When he sees a "crowd" of golden daffodils that are under the trees and
beside a lake, he makes it seems like the daffodils are people. Every time
he is lonely, he will remember when he saw the beautiful daffodils that
make him feel less lonely and his heart will be happily dancing, too.
● In lines 3-4, the connotations come when he says a "crowd" thats is
associated with groups of people, while "host" is associated with angels,
because people often refer to a "host of angels."
● In the second stanza, the speaker makes a connection with the daffodils
and the stars. This stanza is still full of imagery. He compares the daffodils
to the shining stars that sparkle in the Milky Way as the number of
daffodils are near the river seem to be thousands in number.
● He also says that the flowers and the stars were “never-ending” and
“continuous” meaning that there were so many that he assumed their were
more than thousands. This is an hyperbole or an exaggeration. It reminds
him of the Milky Way, because their were so many bright flowers grouped
together that they seemed to be never ending. He describes them dancing
while they toss their heads which is another personification. The second
stanza begins with a simile comparing the shape and number of the
daffodils to the numbers of stars that we call the Milky Way galaxy.
● In the third stanza, he again compares the waves of the lake to the waves of
daffodils. He decides that even though the lake is "sparkling," the daffodils
win because they have more "glee." He felt so happy and expressed his
feeling as gay in such a jocund company. He looked at the scene for a long
time, but while he was there, he couldn’t understand what he had gained
from his experience. The repetition of "gaze" tells us that he kept looking
at the flowers for a long time.
● Although, he can see the waves of the river move like its dancing, it doesn’t
compare to the way the daffodils are making him feel. The final line of the
stanza is his thanks to nature for providing him with "wealth" by putting
up a show like this. He really enjoyed nature and felt like he belonged
there.
● We know that the speaker is a poet because he tells us so in line 15. He
speaks in the third person, but we know he’s talking about himself.
•
•
•
In the last stanza, he describes how that scene affected him because
whenever he is at home and on his own "in the bliss of solitude," he
remembers the flowers that fills him with pleasure and his heart "dances
with the daffodils". Again the use of words like "bliss"show his happiness
each time the memory of those flowers and the way they danced that day
comes back to him.
First, he sets the scene when he sits on his couch, feeling worthless in life,
with no great thoughts. Sometimes his mind is empty and "vacant," like a
bored teenager sitting on the sofa after school. At other times he feels
"pensive," which means he thinks kind of sad thoughts. You can’t be both
"vacant" and "pensive" because one means "not thinking," and the other
means "thinking while feeling blue."
the phrase inward eye means the most inner personal thoughts of one.
Lines 21-24, Wordsworth imagines the daffodils in his spiritual vision,so he
uses the metaphor of an "inward eye."
This is a beautiful but simple poem about the beauty of nature and how
inspiring it can be. This poem was written so that you can visualize
and imagine how it would look in your perspective. In most of this
poem, he gave the flowers a human quality, like dancing. There are
rhyming words at the end of every alternate line of the poem giving
it both continuity and a sense of rhythm.
Wordsworth is relating the flowers with angelic or heavenly
beings. He was most likely thinking of Dante’s Paradiso
from The Divine Comedy, where all the angels and blessed
souls of heaven form a big flower. In line 4, the speaker
adds the word "host" to offer a connection. Also, the color
of the flowers is golden like a halo. In line 10, stars are
associated with angels, so the simile comparing the
flowers to "twinkling" stars is another connection. In line
12, the word "sprightly" is derived from the word "sprite,"
meaning local spirit, almost like a fairy.
"I wandered lonely as a Cloud" is like a simpler version of
"Tintern Abbey," one of Wordsworth’s other most famous
works. In both poems, the memory of beautiful things
provides a comfort to the speaker even after the
experience of viewing them has ended. He can always
count on his imagination to redo the joy of the event and
to remember the spiritual wisdom that it provided. In the
case of "I wandered lonely as a Cloud," we do not realize
how far in the future the speaker’s perspective is found
until the fourth stanza, when he describes just how often
the daffodils have comforted him.
Camparison to the poem “London”
● The poem is describing how he hears and
sees so much commotion and the city is
always packed and busy that he can’t find
himself. That every time he reaches a corner
he sees new things, and there isn’t a
peaceful day.
● Completely opposite from nature, where its
quiet and beautiful. He believed that in
nature you can find who you truly are and
that nature will always put a smile to your
face. In the city, there isn’t really enough
time for God since God is through nature.
They felt that nature is a way to
Quiz!
1) Definition of jocund:
2) What type of poem is
this?
3)What is the meter of the
poem?
4) What’s the difference
between vacant and
pensive?
5) Who played an important
part in Wordsworth life?
6) Why did Wordsworth go
back to france?
7)Why does the speaker
compare himself to a
cloud?
8) What kind of attitude
does the tone shift?
9) Why does he compare
the daffodils with the
Milky way?
10) True or false: the
speaker feels angry and
hates nature