58) William Wordsworth.

The emotional experience in “I Wandered

Lonely as a Cloud”.
The Romantic Poet, William Wordsworth (1770-1850) encapsulated a whole
gamut of emotions when he wrote his famous poem about a patch of daffodils.
He actually wrote two poems about the same subject, he improved on the first
version and the second poem is the one which we know and love today. (The
original is in the appendix at the end of this essay.) The first version was written
in 1804, and the revised version was released in 1815. The inspiration for
Daffodils was set in train on April 15th 1802, when William Wordsworth and
his sister Dorothy were taking a leisurely stroll through Gowbarrow Park by the
banks of Ullswater in the Lake District. They came across a large belt of
daffodils stretching along the edges of the water. Dorothy Wordsworth was a
recorder, she kept a very detailed diary, and she wrote a description of the scene
in her book which her brother later used as a basis for his poem. The poem itself
on its first reading is charming in its simplicity. Wordsworth wrote four six line
(quatrain-couplet) stanzas in iambic tetrameter using an ABABCC rhyming
scheme. Wordsworth uses enjambment to convert the poem into a continuous
flow of expression. (Enjambment being the running over of the sense and
grammatical structure from one verse line or couplet to the next without a
punctuated pause.) Wordsworth describes the feelings and emotions that this
group of flowers engender in him. The introduction shows him wandering
aimlessly, as lonely as a cloud without any clear intention in mind when he
suddenly comes across a band of yellow daffodils stretching into the distance.
At this point in the poem Wordsworth makes use of hyperbole to describe the
extent of the daffodils in his sight, ten thousand saw I at a glance. He describes
the flowers dancing in the breeze thereby giving them an almost human quality.
The waves of Ullswater also danced, but Wordsworth felt that the daffodils
outclassed the waves in beauty and joy. The daffodils are a symbol of natural
beauty and represent in their light hearted fluttering dance the bliss and ecstasy
of living a fulfilling life. One worth living. He felt that the scene was infectious,
he couldnt help but feel happy amongst the group of flowers. He describes
gazing on the scene without realising the profound effect it was having on him.
When it comes to the final stanza, Wordsworth switches from the past tense to
the present tense as he explains what effect the memory of all this beauty and
gaiety has had on him. He speaks about relaxing during quiet moments, and
reflecting on the splendour of nature, as he remembers the great sweep of
daffodils nestling at the water's edge.
59) William Wordsworth. The religious experience in “The World is too
much with us”. The poet seems to suggest that having contact with nature is
almost a religious experience for mankind. “The world is too much with us” is a
sonnet by William Wordsworth, published in 1807, is one of the central figures
of the English Romantic movement. The poem laments the withering
connection between humankind and nature, blaming industrial society for
replacing that connection with material pursuits. Wordsworth wrote the poem
during the First Industrial Revolution, a period of technological and mechanical
innovation spanning the mid 18th to early 19th centuries that thoroughly
transformed British life. The material world—that of the city, our jobs, our
innumerable financial obligations—controls our lives to an unhealthy degree.
We are always rushing from one thing to the next; we earn money one day just
to spend it the next. The result of this is that we have destroyed a vital part of
our humanity: we have lost the ability to connect with and find tranquility in
nature. In exchange for material gain, we have given away our emotions and
liveliness. This ocean that reflects the moonlight on its surface, and the
peaceful, momentarily windless night, which is like flowers whose petals are
folded up in the cold—these natural features still exist, but we just can’t
appreciate them. Our lives have nothing to do with the rhythms of the natural
world. As a result, those rhythms have no emotional impact on us.
60) William Wordsworth. Personification.
Wordsworth has also made the poem deeper and richer by using these devices.
The analysis of some of the literary devices used in this poem. Personification:
Personification is to attribute human characteristics to lifeless objects. The poet
has personified “daffodils” in the third line of the poem such as, “When all at
once I saw a crowd.” The crowd shows the number of daffodils. The second
example of personification is used in the second stanza as, “Tossing their heads
and sprightly dance.” It shows that the Daffodils are humans that can dance.
The third example is in the third stanza such as, “In a jocund company.” Here
he considered the daffodils as his buoyant company.
61) Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.
Juxtaposition of symbols.
This can be clearly seen in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, where the
juxtaposition of ordinary experience with supernatural events, and the use of
powerful symbols (the sun, the moon) and striking images create an eerie,
otherworldly atmosphere which stimulates the reader's imagination.