"I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud"
- analyse and interpret Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”
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The poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud" was written in 1804 by William Wordsworth, and is categorized as a representation of Romanticism. A typical Romantic poem often starts with a description of nature, and then slowly moves on to a human emotional problem, which is a result of the observation of nature. This statement matches Wordsworth’s poem.
The Romanticism was a period, where people had become fascinated by nature and the effect that nature has upon the state of mind. The Romantics viewed nature as a deity with which they could develop a relationship, and Wordsworth was a poet who inspired himself from nature, and his main theme of this poem was the human emotions inspired by nature.
Wordsworth opens his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” with him describing his action of walking in the landscape. The poem creates mental images for the reader through his use of similes and personification. In the first line, "I wandered lonely as a cloud", Wordsworth presents a simile comparing him to a wandering lonely cloud. As the cloud appears to be lonely, fluttering around wherever the wind may take it, the reader gets the feeling that he is alone and sad, as a cloud often brings alone a storm.
But then he sees the daffodils. The daffodils help him forgetting that he alone and sad. "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. These golden daffodils seem to so happy to see him that they are “tossing their heads in sprightly dance.” Wordsworth’s loneliness disappears as he has found a friend who gives him happiness and pleasure, the friend of nature.
