I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (also commonly known as "Daffodils"^[2] or "The Daffodils") is a poem by William Wordsworth.

It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, came across a "long belt" of daffodils. Written in 1804, it was first published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes, and a revised version was released in 1815, which is more more commonly known.^[3] It consists of four six-line stanzas, in iambic tetrameter and an ABABCC rhyme scheme.

It is usually considered Wordsworth's most famous work.^[4] In the "Nation's Favourite Poems", a poll carried out by the BBC's Bookworm,^[5] "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" came fifth.^[6] Well known, and often anthologised, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is commonly seen as a classic of English romanticism within poetry, although the original version was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries.

Background

The inspiration for the poem may have been a walk he took with his sister Dorothy around Glendale, near their in the Lake District.^[7] It may also have been nearby Glencoyne Bay.^[8] Wordsworth would draw on this to compose "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804. Dorothy later wrote in reference to this walk:^[8]

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 seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and more and 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.

I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing.

This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea.

– Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal , Thursday, 15 April 1802

The Wordsworths' home, Dove Cottage.

The death of his brother, John, in 1805 had affected William strongly.^[9] However, the effect of his sister Dorothy was positive, and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is considered an example of the benefit of her presence. In this respect, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is like "Alice Fell", "The Beggars" and "The Butterfly".^[10] At the time of the poem, Wordsworth lived with his wife and sister at Dove Cottage, in Grasmere in England's Lake District.^[11] Life had returned to some normally for Wordsworth.

Lyrical Ballads, a series of poems by both himself and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, had been first published in 1798 and had started the romantic movement in England. It had brought Wordsworth and the other Lake poets into the poetic limelight. Wordsworth had published nothing new since the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, and a new publication was eagerly awaited.^[12] Wordsworth had, however, gained some financial security by the 1805 publication of the fourth edition of Lyrical Ballads; it was the first from which he enjoyed the profits of copyright ownership. He decided to turn away from The Recluse and turn more attention to the expedient publication of Poems in Two Volumes, in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" would appear.^[13]

Composition and themes

The poem is 24 lines long, consisting of four six-line stanzas. Each stanza is formed by a quatrain, then a couplet, to form a sestet and a ABABCC rhyme scheme.^[2]The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. The fourth- and third-last lines were not composed by Wordsworth, but by his wife, Mary. Wordsworth considered them the best lines of the whole poem.^[2][14] Like most works by Wordsworth, it is romantic in nature;^[7] the beauty of nature, unkempt by humanity, and a reconciliation of man with his environment, are two of the fundamental principles of the romantic movement within poetry.

The plot of the poem is simple. Wordsworth believed it "an elementary feeling and simple expression".^[15] The speaker is riding among the clouds, viewing a belt of daffodils, next to a lake whose beauty is overshadowed. In the last stanza, it is revealed that this scene is only a memory of the pensive speaker.^[14] This is marked by a change from a narrative past tense to the present tense. as a conclusion to a sense of movement within the poem: passive to active motion; from sadness to blissfulness.^[16] The scene of the last verse mirrors the readers' situation as they take in the poem.^[17] It is usually assumed that it is that the poet and the speaker are one and the same; this is clear with references in the poem to "A poet could not but be gay".^[18]

Like the maiden's song in "The Solitary Reaper," the memory of the daffodils is etched in the speaker's mind and soul to be cherished forever. When he's feeling lonely, dull or depressed, he thinks of the daffodils and cheers up. The full impact of the daffodils' beauty (symbolizing the beauty of nature) did not strike him at the moment of seeing them, when he stared blankly at them but much later when he sat alone, sad and lonely and remembered them.^[19]

Personification is used within the poem, particularly with regards to the flowers themselves. and the whole passage is intravisionary; that is, the images are appearing within the mind of the poet. The poem is littered with emotionally strong words, such as "golden", "dancing" and "bliss". The reversal of usual syntax in particularly phrases, particularly "Ten thousand saw I at a glance" is used as part of foregrounding (for emphasis).^[16] Loneliness, it seems, is only a human emotion, unlike the mere solitariness of the cloud.^[19] The the memory of the daffodils is given permanence (particularly through comparison the stars); this is in contrast to the transitory nature of life examined in other works.^[20]

Original version

The version published in the 1807 Poems in Two Volumes ran:^[1]

Wordsworth replaced "dancing" (4) with "golden"; "Along" (5) to "Beside"; and "Ten thousand" to "Fluttering and to create the 1815 revision. He then added a stanza between the first and second, and altered "laughing" (10) to "jocund". The last stanza was left untouched.

Reception

Contemporary

The title page of Poems in Two Volumes

Poems in Two Volumes (1807), in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" originally appeared, has been considered to be the peak of Wordsworth's power, and of his popularity.^[9] However, it was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries, including Lord Byron,^[21] whom Wordsworth would come to despise. Byron said of the volume, in one of its first reviews, "Mr. W[ordsworth] ceases to please, ... clothing [his ideas] in language not simple, but puerile".^[22] Wordsworth himself wrote ahead to soften the thoughts of The Critical Review, hoping his friend Wrangham would push a softer approach. He succeeded in preventing a known enemy from writing the review, but it didn't help; as Wordsworth himself said, it was a case of "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". Of any positives within Poems in two volumes, perceived masculinity in "The Happy Warrior" was one. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" couldn't have been father from it. Wordsworth took the reviews stoically.^[12]

Even Wordsworth's close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that the poem contained "mental bombast". Two years later, however, and many were more positive about the collection. Samuel Rogers said that he had "dwelt particularly on the beautiful idea of the 'Dancing Daffodils'", and this was echoed by Henry Crabb Robinson. Critics were rebutted by public opinion, and the work gained in popularity and recognition, as did Wordsworth.^[17]

The poem came in for criticism in the Edinburgh Review, but the publication was well-known for its criticism of the Lake poets. As Sir Walter Scott put it, at the time of the poem's publication, "Wordsworth is harshly treated in the Edinburgh Review, but Jeffrey [the editor] gives ... as much praise as he usually does".^[23] Upon the author's death in 1850, the Westminster Review called the poem "very exquisite".^[24]

Modern usage

The poem is covered and taught in many schools in the English-speaking world: these include in the 7th grade of most schools of the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), India; the English Literature GCSE course in some examination boards in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; and in the current HSC syllabus topic, Inner Journeys, New South Wales, Australia.

Because it is one of the best known poems in the English language and is also unabashedly romantic and sentimental, it has frequently been the subject of parody and satire. Some recent parody examples can be found here, here, here, and here. A satire was done on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

A reference to this poem can be heard on the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis (1974) at the beginning of part of the suite "The Colony of Slippermen" called "The Arrival".^[25] Portions are also spoken in Dan Ireland's 2005 British film, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. In Anastasia Krupnik, by Lois Lowry, there is a scene in which a college poetry class discusses the poem.^[26] The poem is extensively referenced in Jamaica Kincaid's novel Lucy.^[27]

In 2004, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the writing of the poem, it was also read aloud by 150,000 British schoolchildren, aimed both at improving recognition of poetry, and in support of Marie Curie Cancer Care.^[28]

In 2007, Cumbria Tourism released a rap version of the poem, featuring features MC Nuts, a Lake District Red squirrel, in an attempt to capture the "YouTube generation" and attract tourists to the Lake District. Published on the two-hundredth anniversary of the original, it attracted wide media attention.^[29] It was welcomed by the Wordsworth Trust,^[30] but attracted the disapproval of some commentators.^[31]

References

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

• The Wordsworth Trust
• Information about William Wordsworth

v • d • e William Wordsworth Topics Early life People Samuel Taylor Coleridge · Robert Southey · Dorothy Wordsworth Lyrical Ballads Preface to the Lyrical Ballads · "Anecdote for Fathers" · "Lucy Gray" · The Lucy poems ("She dwelt among the untrodden ways", "A slumber did my spirit seal", "Strange fits of passion have I known", "Three years she grew in sun and shower") · The Matthew poems · "Michael, a Pastoral" · "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" · Tintern Abbey · We are Seven Later poetry "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" · "Elegiac Stanzas" · "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" · The Lucy poems ("I travelled among unknown men") · "London, 1802" · Ode: Intimations of Immortality · Resolution and Independence · "The Solitary Reaper" · "The World Is Too Much with Us" The Recluse The Excursion · The Prelude ·