PHÂN TÍCH TÁC PHẨM ANALYZE I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD BY William Wordsworth

Class: 14tb1

Instructor: Ms.Dang Nguyen Anh Chi

LITERARY WORKS
I WANDERED LONLEY AS A CLOUD

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

MEMBERS OF GROUP 4:
Lâm Phương Thảo
Trần Duy Khang
Trần Thị Hương Giang
Nguyễn Thị Minh Hiếu
Trần Thị Hương Giang
Nguyễn Quỳnh Ngọc
Trần Thị Trúc Ngân

I – BIOGRAPHY
1


William Wordsworth
(1770 -1850)

Author’s
1.

Life

Point of time
April 7, 1770

Events
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1791
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1790
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1792
•

1795

William Wordsworth was born in the Lake
District of Northern England.
he got a degree at St John’s College,
Cambridge.
he went on a walking tour of France and the
Alps; he was fascinated by the democratic
ideals of Revolutionary France.

he had a daughter, Caroline, from a French
aristocratic woman, Caroline.
William inherited some money from a
friend. He also moved to Somerset with his
sister Dorothy. Dorothy was a poet, too, and
wrote many diaries. She was said to have a
great influence on William’s writing.

2


1797-1799

•
•

1843
1850

2.

Main
works

•
•



•

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1798, 1800
•

•

1807

living with his sister Dorothy, with his friend,
Coleridge, write Lyrical Ballads.
He got married with a childhood friend,
Mary Hutchinson, and had five children.
He became Poet Laureate.
He became more conservative and went on
writing poems until his death.

Wordsworth was a well-known romantic
poet with many lyric poems. Almost works
described the poet's love of nature and
revolve around themes of death, endurance,
separation and grief. He gave prominence to
emotion in poetry. He said: “the poetry as the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.
Together, Wordsworth and Cole ridge (with
insights from Dorothy) produced Lyrical
Ballads an important work in the English
Romantic movement. The second edition
was published in 1800.
His Poems in Two Volumes were published,

including "Ode: Intimations of Immortality
from Recollections of Early Childhood".
His widow Mary published his lengthy
autobiographical "poem to Coleridge" as The
Prelude several months after his death. Then
it was recognized as his masterpiece.

1850

3


3.

Man and nature

Wordsworth’s
Style

•

•

•

•
•

•

4.

Death & April 23, 1850
Legacy

•
•

Wordsworth is usually considered “the poet
of nature”, but his poems contain very little
natural description.
He was more interested in the relationship
between the natural world and human
consciousness.
He thought that man and nature are
inseparable and that there are values in
nature. It is from nature that man learns joy
and love.
Wordsworth exploited the sensibility of the
eye and ear to perceive the beauty of nature.
Wordsworth was interested in ordinary,
everyday world and in the common life of
simple, rustic people (which was full of
moral values).
He used sophisticated language everyday,
and was against poetic diction.

William Wordsworth died at his residence
when he was living in Mount Rydal.
A total of 523 sonnet poems by William

Wordsworth, which make many scholars
compare him to William Shakespeare and
John Milton.

4


II - THE POEM
1.

Plot Summary:

The poet was wandered through the hills and valleys, but he felt lonely and sorrow.
Finally, he sees a crowd of golden daffodils packed tightly together, beside the
lake, beneath the trees. He is amazed by the beauty of the daffodils, dancing and
fluttering in the breeze. He gazed at the daffodils for a long time, but while he was
there, he was unable to understand what he had gained when he sees the golden
daffodils. Whenever he feels lonely, sorrow, depressed or feeling “pensive”, the
flash of daffodils, dancing and fluttering in the breeze; makes him feels cherished.
2.
•

•

Structure of the poem:

To talk about the structure of the poem, it is really very simple in form and
language. The poem is composed of 4 stanzas, each with 6 lines, which
makes the entire poem 24 lines long. He used end rhyme.
Genre - Lyric poem

The poet wanted to rhyme every other line except for the last 2. He wanted
to rhyme to make it like a song (a chorus). He wanted to make it pleasant to
the ear.



Express feeling
Have specific rhyming schemes : ABABCC, ends in a couplet
I wandered lonely as a cloud (A)
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, (B)
When all at once I saw a crowd, (A)
A host of golden daffodils; (B)
Besides the lake, beneath the trees, (C)
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. (C)

•



Set to music or a beat



The meter of this poem is iambic tetrameter.

Meter

5

..........1..............2..................3...................4
The WAVES.|.be SIDE.|.them DANCED;.|.but THEY
......1................2..................3................4
Out-DID.|.the SPARK.|.ling WAVES.|.in GLEE:
— ....1.............2.............3.............4
A PO.|.et COULD.|.not BUT.|.be GAY
......1.............2...........3............4
In SUCH.|.a JOC.|.undCOM.|.pa
NY: .......1................2..................3.................4
I GAZED—.|.and GAZED—.|.but LIT.|.tle THOUGHT
..........1....................2............3...............4
What WEALTH.|.the SHOW.|.to ME.|.had BROUGHT:




It is a unstressed, stressed pattern.
Each line is four iambic feet, consisting of eight syllables.
It is a regular rhyme scheme throughout the poem except for a
few deviations. .

III - SETTING
The setting of the poem is very important, as it helps develop the theme of the
relationship between man and nature. The poet’s blissful state is not triggered by
any event, but by being in nature.
1.

Time:

The poem was based on an experience Wordsworth had with his sister, Dorothy, on

April 15, 1802. They went to their friends, the Clarksons, at Eusemere. When they
were came back to Grasmere, they saw a large of number of golden daffodils
growing on the bank of a lake Ullswater in the Lake District of Northern England.
They both were astonished by the mesmeric beauty of these daffodils, which were
fluttering and dancing with the light breeze.
•

The season in the poem is the Spring:
•

the March of spring

•

Season of flowers “Daffodils”
6


•

This is on a sunny, breezy day
•
•
2.

•

“A host, of golden daffodils;” :Yellow daffodils are
considered golden under the sunlight.
“Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” : Daffodils look

like dancing because of the breeze.

Place:

The first place is the Lake District of Northern England. Wordsworth lived
in a part of England called the Lake District, filled with valleys, hills and
lakes. Is seemed possible that he is wandering through the Lake Valley,
describing what he sees: “…o’re vales and hills”

The Lake District of Northern England.

•

The second place is on (28)…………... The ninth sentence will show you:
“For oft, when on my couch I lie”

“Lying on a couch in a thinking mood could easily be a way to describe a
meditative state where the forces of the universe and our connection with the
continual movement, and our powerful God.”

IV - POINT OF VIEW:
1.

About the poem
7


This poem is written in first person. It’s all told in the perspective of Wordsworth.
Although he is reflecting back upon his memories, it is still written in first person.
More interesting things about the poem….

•

First one, this short poem is one of Wordsworth’s most famous works; it is
interesting the fact that there are two versions of the title.


The Daffodils



I wandered lonely as a cloud.



I do not know if it is a choice of the poet himself or a conventional attitude
of critics who came after him. But if I pause over one of the two versions, I
may suppose that "I wandered lonely as a cloud" wants to point to the first
personal pronoun "I", so the subject is the poet; the verb "wandered" is a
perception and intellectual one, so the imagination of the poet could be the
action of the poem; moreover, the adjective "lonely" indicates the solitude of
the poet, what is more, the comparison "as a cloud" affirms his loneliness.

•

Last one, 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.
“A poet could but be gay”

2.

Speaker of the poem:

•

The speaker is a (35) ……………… who learns to find companions not in
people but in nature.

•

The speaker of the poem seems to be a (36) ……………... He thinks that he is
a cloud that is looking over dancing daffodils.

•

The speaker demonstrates how (37) …………………. was to Romantics. The
speaker of the poem is (38) ………...

8


V - CHARACTERIZATION
1.

Cloud:

“I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills”

The poem opened with the narrator
walking

in

the

state

of

worldly

detachment, his wandering. When he
thought lonely as a cloud, he described it
lightly and helped readers did not feel
sad when they were reading because
clouds usually travel in groups. Also, the
cloud could be lonely because it floats
over a natural landscape with no people in it. This is a romantic poet in a romantic
emotion lead readers feel interested in the poem.

2.

Daffodils:

“When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of golden daffodils

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Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
When the poet was wandering in the forest and enjoying the fascinating nature
around him, he suddenly saw a crowd of golden daffodils by the lakeside. The
daffodils appeared so beautifully that he was compelled to gaze at these flowers
playing with pleasure in the wind.
The author used personification to describe the beauty of daffodils. Therefore, they
became to have action and mind like people. It made the poem as beautiful as a
lively picture.
3.

Stars:

In the 2nd poem, he continued describing daffodils:

“Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way”,
The figure of simile is subtly used “as the stars that shine” and “milky way”. The
golden daffodils were compared with the stars shining and twinkling on the galaxy.
By that way the poet immortalized daffodils. And this is in contrast to transitory
nature of life examined in other works. Daffodils seemed to become more beautiful
and amazing in Wordsworth’s poem.

The author could feel how many flowers were stretching as far as the eyes can see
though he had just come to that place:
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“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.”
Like the Milky Way galaxy, the flowers are roughly concentrated in a line that
seems to stretch as far as the eye can see. If readers have ever seen the Milky Way,
they can know that the galaxy appears to be a band that has more stars and a
brighter appearance than the night sky around it. They can also imagine the same
effect with the flowers. It’s not as if there are no flowers outside the shore of the
lake, but most are concentrated on the shore. Particularly, the author reversed usual
syntax and hyperbole in: “Ten thousand saw I at a glance”. That was capable of
emphasizing quantities of daffodils. In the last of the 2nd poem, Wordsworth used
personification “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance” again.

And in the next several lines the 3rd stanza:
“The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:”
Through characterized daffodils, we can find that nature has its own soul. These
light-hearted daffodils, weaving in unison with each other in the wind. And the
author compared them with waves. Through the lake’s sparking waves danced
beautifully, the daffodils seemed to do much better than them. That reinforced
beauty of daffodils. William lifted him out of his soul and placed him in a higher

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state in which the soul of nature and the soul of man were united into a single
harmony.

4.

The Author:

The poet felt happy and pleasant when he saw golden flowers smiling in the
sunshine:
“I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:”
The repetition of "gaze" tells us that he kept looking at the flowers for a long time.
It's as if the speaker enjoys looking at these daffodils at the time because he seems
to be really enjoying those daffodils. Perhaps to him, the daffodil’s charm was a
gift which God granted. Many years later, the daffodil’s beauty still haunted
Wordsworth. Whether he stayed in empty or thoughtful mood, the images of
daffodils came to mind and flashed upon his eyes:
“They flash upon that inward eye

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”

Which is the bliss of solitude;

12


In the last stanza, it is revealed that this scene is only a memory of the pensive
speaker. 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. The memory of daffodils was etched in the author’s
mind and soul forever. When the poet was feeling lonely, dull or depressed, he
thought of daffodils and cheered up. He desired to “dances with the daffodils”
because he can feel the soul of nature and the soul of him were united into a single
harmony,
The above two lines weren’t composed by Wordsworth but by his wife, Mary.

Wordsworth considered them the best lines of the whole poem. They showed love
of daffodils. To him, daffodils are friends who come to console and encourage him.
And images of daffodils would never seem to fade in Wordsworth’s mind.



The title, “Daffodils” appears as a simple word that reminds us about the
arrival the spring season, when the field is full of daffodils. Daffodils are
yellow flowers, with amazing shapes and charming fragrance. But daffodils
in Wordsworth’s poem is also an artistic symbol. They symbolize the nature
and the joys and happiness of life.



The poem not only showed us natural beauty and the potential of nature
towards people but also showed the traditional family about nature’s love.


VI – THEMES
The theme of the poem is mainly a collection of human emotions inspired by
nature that we may have neglected due to our busy lives.
1.

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker is feeling lonely and sad.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud,
That floats on high o’er vales and hills”

He begins the poem by telling his loneliness. This is the first theme that I want to
say about “a feeling of loneliness”
He compares himself to a floating cloud over hills and valleys, precisely described

how deep his loneliness was. He didn’t say “walked around”, but he used the much
more descriptive word “wandered” which literally means roaming around without
a purpose, like when you explore something, you feel purposeless and directionless
in general.
However, is a cloud lonely? Clouds always travel in group; they are big, and far
away above the sky. How could such big groups of cloud can be lonely? Or maybe
just the cloud on the hills, the cloud in the speaker’s eyes was lonely as he seemed
to be loneliness on it.
We feel that the speaker is seeking for the meaning of his life. He walked
aimlessly, beside his sister but he still felt “lonely as a cloud” that could be affected
by our daily routines.
So The speaker wanted to use “cloud” to show us the meaning of people’s life.
This cloud represents the majority of human population that is so self-involved
with their own insignificant lives that they will just do the same old thing and get
basically a monotonous existence without meaning or any worthwhile experiences
to shape their characters. They are so far removed from their surroundings, “lonely
as a cloud, that floats high o’er vales and hills” that many people will never take
the time to slow down to enjoy the simple beauty of life. Therefore, some people
will never know the glorious sense of peace that they are missing.


This poem is relevant to me because it describes time of loneliness. Sometimes we
feel that we are the only people on Earth, akin to a lonely cloud in the sky, until we
encounter something beautiful which completely changes our mindset.
Suddenly,
“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.”
From the first stanza, we saw the landscape which includes the valleys and hills,

the lake and the trees, the flowers beneath them and the breezy atmosphere that
came from where he was born, England. This beautiful landscape gave him a love
of nature.

2.

As for the theme, the poem is all about nature. Nature has its beauty and
influence to man. Man shows his love of nature. This is the relationship
between “Man and Nature”.

In the second stanza, the flowers are continued as compared as the stars.
“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.”
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. It reminds
him of the Milky Way, because there were so many bright flowers grouped
together that they seemed to be never ending.


Also, the poet says that the daffodils were tossing their heads as if they were
dancing in happiness. Actually, the poet was amazed at the beauty of the flowers.
So he found everything around him joyful. All these references of dancing and
tossing their heads are parts of his personification of the flowers. We have seen the
daffodils become to have action and mind like people. Those lines are beautiful as
a picture. If Wordsworth didn’t have love of nature, he couldn’t write how good
the verses were!

According to him, man’s inner feelings can be better polished and strengthened by
nature. He also thinks that man is near to the nature. Man gets real satisfaction,
knowledge and pleasure through nature . Nature inspires him a lot.
And I can say that “I wandered lonely as a cloud” is the poem that just makes you
feel good about life. It is said that when you are by yourself and lonely and missing
your friends, you can use your imagination to find new friends in the world around
you. In this poem, nature became his kind of friend when he is feeling alone and
when he thinks about “daffodils”.
“A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company” (lines 15-16)
As one more the influence of Nature.
In the last stanza, the poet speaks about the healing and refreshing of nature and
also praises “solitude”.
When the person is in solitude and there is nobody around him. He is all alone. He
has the opportunity to think of nature. These memories have a cheerful and lively
effect on him. He greatly feels happy not only with himself but also with all that
happened to him. In the poem, the poet says that whenever he lies on his couch
having nothing to do or in “pensive” mood, it means that when he is either busy
thinking or not thinking about anything, he is reminded of the daffodils. He says
that loneliness becomes lovely if he thinks about “daffodils” in his loneliness.
When he remembers the daffodils, he starts feeling happy, content and perfectly at
peace with himself. This is how nature influences him. The memories of the
daffodils fills his heart with pleasure and joy and he feels like dancing along with
the daffodils. This show the healing and refreshing effect of nature on the poet.


***

3.

The third theme, feeling happiness after enjoying the beauty of nature.

Let’s read the third stanza:
“The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee”
The fact that the daffodils are happier than the waves. The poet felt happy because
he is amused by the daffodils. For instance, when he sees the daffodils waving in
the breeze, he feels glee and his heart is at peace.
“A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company” (lines 15-16)
Glee? Gay? Jocund? It’s as if he’s running out of words for “happy”.
“I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought”
Or, he writes “the show to me had brought” instead of “the show brought to me”.
The word “Wealth” expresses a more permanent kind of happiness. It also carries a
hint of money that does not quite fit with the supernatural language that has come
before.
And whenever he feels vacant or depress, the flash of daffodils make him happy
and pleasant.
“For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye”
And when he thinks about daffodils like he is thinking of good times and things
that make him fill with happiness and make him feel happy when his feeling under
the weather. The happiness of the daffodils can always cheer him up.


Whenever you feel down, you can think about the things that make you happy and
you will then become happy too.

In the final line of the third stanza:

“What wealth the show to me had brought” 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 to there.

***


Before we read the poem, we predicted that the poem would be about. We
thought it would be about a guy that is very lonely and has no one in his life.
Also, we thought the poem would be very depressing and sad. We predicted
wrong, the poem is mainly about nature



The poem showed us natural beauty and the potential of nature towards
people. He would like to call us to come back to the nature and enjoy it. The
soul of nature and the soul of man were united into a single harmony. Nature
is the key connection between the author and the poem.

In the description of the daffodils, William used quite a lot of literary devices and it
was these figures that helped us understand more about the vivid picture he draw
and the way he connected with the nature, and also he conveys his feelings to the
reader.

VII - FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:
1.

Meaning of the title:

When you read the title as "I wandered lonely as a Cloud", you might have done a
double take because many people know the poem as "Daffodils" or "The
Daffodils". The original title merely follows a standard informal practice of using
the first line of a poem as its title. But this title is misleading, because you think
you’re going to read a poem about loneliness, but then you get a poem about
sublime happiness. Still, that’s what Wordsworth wanted, so you have to trust the
man.
“Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” (C)

2.

Figures of speech

The poem is also rich in its use of figures of speech.
The use of the figures of speech lets the reader feel what the poet feels, and
imagine what the poem is talking about.
A.

Personification

It is also notable that the poet is fond of using personification in describing the
movements and ambience of the daffodils. He first establishes the image of the
daffodils in lines 5 and 6.
“Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze”
The poet could have easily depicted the flowers to be swaying with the wind, but
rather, he prefers to personify their movements in order to show the intense
emotion that the poet has experienced towards seeing the flowers. It is also

remarkable that the persona is consistent in describing the flowers movement to
dancing to insinuate joyful activity. He even mentions how the waves danced as
well but still, the daffodils are much more remarkable.
“The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee”
The poet personifies his heart as a human being who is dancing


“And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”
B.

Metaphor

The persona also speaks in metaphors as he compares the sets of daffodils to a
crowd which most likely pertains to people. The lines depict the quantity of the
flowers to that of a crowd of people. Obviously, the speaker feels an overwhelming
happiness upon the sight of the flowers that he cannot help but claim that:
"A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company"
Wordsworth also considers the view of the daffodils as a show which brought
wealth to the narrator. This line further emphasizes the impact of the flowers to the
narrator.
Wordsworth's insistence upon language as a primitive utterance of passions is seen
in the archaisms in the poem. For example, we have the expression, the "jocund
company" (Daffodils) that suggest the impassioned utterances of the poet.

C.

Simile

Wordsworth uses simile in numerous stanzas to describe how the persona feels
towards the sight of the daffodils.
The title itself “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” uses simile to describe how the
speaker compares himself to a cloud freely wandering atop the valleys and hills.
He also makes use of another simile in the first two lines of the second stanza
which is a parallel of the first stanza.
“Continuous as the stars that shine
And the twinkle on the Milky Way”
In these two lines, the persona compares the daffodils dancing to be as continuous
as the stars. This is another reference to nature. It is apparent that most of the


objects to which Wordsworth compares the daffodils are elements of nature as
well.
D.

Alliterations

Alliteration is the repetition of similar sounds that the poet used in:
“The floats on high o’ver vales and hills”
**
“Beside the lake, beneath the trees”
**
“Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”
**
“The waves beside them danced; but they”
**
“What wealth the show to me had brought:”

E.

Hyperbole
"Ten thousand saw I at a glance"

This sentence is an exaggeration and a hyperbole, describing the scene of ten
thousand daffodils, all together.
"They stretched in never-ending line".
The flowers are spread everywhere in a line, significance of vastness is explained.
F.

Repetition

In the third stanza, the poet repeated the word “gazed” 2 times.
The word “dance” is repeated 3 times in this poem. In the 1st stanza, it denotes the
happiness and liveliness of the flowers. In the 2nd stanza, it creates a sense os


harmonious relationship between the daffodils and the waves. In the last stanza, it
refers that this harmony is advanced to include the poet himself.
G.

Archaic:
‘O’er hills and dales’

The shortening of O’er from Over is what is called Archaic i.e. it is abbreviated: a
syntactical feature of language the Romantic poets used a lot and gives it an olden
Romantic quality as you read out loud.
H.

Rhyming scheme

The “ I wandered lonely as a cloud” has a rhyming scheme throughout the poem.
The rhyming scheme of the poem is 'ABABCC'. The first four lines of each stanza
has a rhyming scheme of 'ABAB'. While the ending two lines, are the rhyming
couplet. Each stanza makes use of 'Enjambment' which converts the poem into a
continuous flow of expressions without a pause.
I wandered lonely as a cloud (A)
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, (B)
When all at once I saw a crowd, (A)
A host of golden daffodils; (B)
Besides the lake, beneath the trees, (C)
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. (C)

VIII. NEW ENDING VERSION
I would like to add two verses to have a new ending in this poem:
“The Daffodils lead me to new land
Where I know I belong”


The author seems to feel too tired of living in a city, his mind always have got
depressed thoughts, and he is getting smaller in a crowded place. There is just only
one thing that help him release the depression is the nature where is a way to
communicate with God. God is through nature. 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. Although
he was wandering lonely, he never feel lonely. He considered the clouds, the
daffodils, the waves, etc. as his companions. His companions are just scenery and
inanimate objects, but that objects bring him peace, bring him happiness, and bring

him positive emotions. But in the poem, the author seem to be just passing through,
he keeps going and there is no destination for his wandering. He is like the clouds
of mosquito netting that was floating across the sky. Therefore, I want him to
realize where he belongs to it, I want him to stop his tired steps, and I want him to
leave what does not belong to him. In our life, we can’t live with the pressure
forever. Life always has the options and you should not waste your life because it
is short. Let’s follow your purpose and never ever get back to the places, the
person, and the things that you never want to exist in your life.

The End.