20 pages • 40 minutes read
William WordsworthI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1807A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Merging of the Self with Nature
Although the speaker in the poem compares himself to a cloud, he does not consider himself to be at one with nature. However, a shift in perspective takes place in the poem when he sees a “crowd” (Line 3) of daffodils that are “dancing” (Line 6). This personification brings nature into the human plane, allowing the speaker to realize that he is, in fact, a part of what he sees, even when he seems to be at a remove from it.
This is reinforced by the fact that he is no longer lonely once he encounters the daffodils. Their very plurality suggests fellowship. The speaker is momentarily transported, no longer “I” but “A poet,” viewing himself objectively as one living being among others: “A poet could not but be gay, / In such a jocund company” (Lines 15-16).
The daffodils may seem like celestial bodies that “twinkle on the milky way” (Line 8), but they are embodied on “the margin of the bay” (Line 10) and are therefore within the speaker’s reach. Their vivid physicality at the end of the third stanza, expressed in the line “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance” (Line 12), shows that the speaker is close to them, emotionally if not physically.
By personifying the daffodils and the waves, all of which are dancing, the speaker allows himself to be equivalent to them—or they to him. His communion with nature becomes a blending, as his heart “dances with the daffodils” at the end of the poem (Line 24). They are a part of his imagination, living within him, even when he is far away from them.
The Power of the Imagination
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is as much a poem about the imagination as it is about nature, since the final stanza tells us the poet is remembering rather than living through the events described. It is language itself that animates the daffodils and the waves, causing the speaker’s heart to fill with pleasure. The act of writing is therefore a pleasurable act for him.
For Romantic poets, it was not just nature that proved important—it was the impression nature made on them, and what their minds subsequently made of those impressions.
The act of creation itself is therefore the subject of this poem, which exemplifies Wordsworth’s most well-known theory about poetry:
I have said that 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 (Wordsworth, William. Preface to Lyrical Ballads. 1801).
Mood Matters
The poet pays close attention to mood in the poem—Romantic poets were fond of expressing sentiment in their work, believing it led to an enlarged appreciation of the world.
The speaker mentions his loneliness in the first line of the poem, but in the third line comes across a “crowd” of daffodils. The tone of the poem changes as the speaker enjoys the newly convivial atmosphere—by the third stanza, he uses three words to convey a lightening of mood: “glee” (Line 14), “gay” (Line 15), and “jocund” (Line 16). The archaic meaning of the word ‘gay’ is carefree and light-hearted.
Although the speaker finds this joyful state dissipates when he is lying on his couch at home, “in vacant or in pensive mood” (Line 20), he merely has to think about the sight of the daffodils and his boredom or melancholy are replaced with “pleasure” (Line 23). His aloneness no longer causes him distress as he experiences “the bliss of solitude” (Line 22).
The poem artfully describes how memory and imagination can transform our mental states, particularly when we think about time spent in nature.
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By William Wordsworth
