The Daffodils
The Daffodils 'The Daffodils' was written in the eighteenth century by William Wordsworth. Gillian Clarke wrote 'Miracle on St.David's Day' in the twentieth century, making her a contemporary poet. 'The Daffodils' is about a day when Wordsworth was contemplating, and decided to go for a walk. Along the way he observed a host of daffodils. He thought that the flowers were so beautiful that they left an indelible impression in his mind. Weeks, maybe months after he had first seen the flowers, when he was in a "vacant or pensive mood," Wordsworth remembered the beautiful sight of the daffodils. Just thinking of the flowers gave him inspiration and filled his heart with pleasure. We know that something remarkable is about to happen in Gillian Clarke's poem by reading the title; "Miracle on St. David's Day." The word 'miracle' conveys this feeling. After reading the title there's a chosen extract or a prolog from the poem 'The Daffodils.' We now know that Gillian Clarke's poem is accociated with William Wordsworth's poem. As this extract is located at the beginning of her poem it makes us believe that her poem is also going to be about daffodils. The poem by Gillian Clarke is about a 'miracle' that occurs on St. David's Day, when a dumb man is touched by the power of a poem. She visits a mental hospital and recites poems to the patients. When in middle of a poem the dumb man
How does William Wordsworth’s poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism?
ENGLISH COURSEWORK - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Q. How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism? A. Romantic poetry was an artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th century. It dealt with nature, human imagination, childhood and the ability to recall emotional memories of both happiness and sadness. Before Wordsworth began writing his revolutionary new style of poetry, all preceding poetry had a very different style. The reason these poems were classed as revolutionary was because he believed that romantic poetry should describe "incidents of common life" and ordinary people and were written in deliberately plain words. It was what Wordsworth called "The real language of men". Before this style of writing, all poems were about important things and people. They were written about Kings, Queens and Gods. All poems were of a formal nature and of epic proportions. Before Wordsworth, poets didn't believe that "common people" were good enough to have a poem written about them. We see Wordsworth's Romantic style and the inclusion of memories, imagination, human feelings and ordinary people. One such poem is "The Reverie of Poor Susan". In this poem, we are told of Susan who is a woman from the country who is living and working in the city. As she passes by a bird singing in a cage, she seems to be saddened. Wordsworth wonders why this is,
A comparison of two poems which have the common theme of daffodils
A comparison of two poems which have the common theme of daffodils William Wordsworth's "The Daffodils" and "Miracle On St David's Day" by Gillian Clarke have common ground even though they were written two centuries apart-William Wordsworth's at the end of the eighteenth century and Clarke's in the last ten years of the 20th. "The Daffodils" inspired "Miracle On St David's Day" in that William Wordsworth's poem "The Daffodils" creates the extraordinary event, which occurs in Clarke's poem. William Wordsworth had never seen the daffodils about which he wrights. However with a wonderful imagination William Wordsworth was able to transform the details into a remarkable poem of a of a truly beautiful scene "what wealth the show to me had brought," which allows the reader to join in and feel the beauty of the scene. A confrontation is obvious in the first four lines of his poem when the use of "I" and "lonely" contrast with the words "crowds" and "host" in lines three and four. The writers joy continues till the end of the poem, though his loneliness also continues it is not burdensome. The same type of loneliness is felt by the speaker in "Miracle On St David's Day" when she also manages to find herself amongst large numbers of flowers and patients who are mentally ill. The big labouring man appears to be the most lonely as "He has never spoken" for some time owing to
Miracle on St. David's Day by Gillian Clarke - How does the poet use subject, theme, language and poetic techniques to engage the reader?
Miracle on St. David's Day by Gillian Clarke How does the poet use subject, theme, language and poetic techniques to engage the reader? The poem is about a 'miracle' that occurs on St. David's Day, when a dumb man is touched by the power of a poem. The poet, Gillian Clarke, visits a mental hospital and recites poems to the patients. One of the poems that Gillian Clarke reads is called 'The Daffodils' by William Wordsworth. The continuous theme running throughout Gillian Clarke's poem is the healing power of nature and how nature can even cure the damaged minds of people who were thought of as incurable. Gillian Clarke finds nature of great importance. This may be the reason she reads the poem 'The Daffodils' at the mental hospital in the first place. I am lead to believe that she starts reading the poem and the dumb man follows on from her lead. The dumb man finds his freedom through a poem about nature, so Gillian Clarke believes nature has healing powers. She also conjures images of nature throughout the poem using similes, metaphors, alliteration, personification, oxymorons and enjambement. In the first stanza Gillian Clarke uses a metaphor to describe the happy scene at the hospital. It is a sunny afternoon and as it is the beginning of spring, there are many daffodils surrounding the hospital. The scene is "open mouthed with daffodils". This conjures an
What does this second, religious meaning of "host" add to your understanding of Wordworth's perception and valuation of the daffodils? The religious meaning of the word "host" suggests to m
Unseen Poetry - "Daffodils" Tang Hiu Tung Faith 4H (29) 3) What does this second, religious meaning of "host" add to your understanding of Wordworth's perception and valuation of the daffodils? The religious meaning of the word "host" suggests to me that Wordsworth feels graceful to see the daffodils. In the first two line of the poem, the mood of Wordsworth is rather depressed. He "wondered lonely as a Cloud/That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills", we can sense that he feels sad to the human world and has a desire to escape. Yet when we come to line 3 and 4 "When all at once I saw a crowd/A host of dancing Daffodils", the tone changes suddenly. According to the ancient religious meaning of "host", referring to "a large number of angels, and heavenly objects", gives us very positive ideas. The daffodils are like angels in the view of Wordsworth, which sparkle in the poet's world of sorrow and loneliness. They accomplish the emptiness of the desperate poet's heart and give him hopefulness again. On the other hand, use of word "host" of Wordsworth also indicates that he thinks his meeting with these "angels" is an enormous blessing of god. They stand as the herald from heaven which will guide him a new way of life. 4) What do you think Wordsworth means by "wealth" here? When Wordsworth says that he did not realize that the time "what wealth" (line 12) the daffodils had
A comparison of Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' and Clarkes 'Miracle on Saint David's Day'.
A comparison of Wordsworth's 'Iwandered lonely as a cloud' and Clarkes 'Miracle on Saint David's Day'. The title 'I wandered lonely as a cloud,' says a lot about the poem, especially as it is also the first line. It immediately starts off the poem with a sense of inner disharmony, shown by the words 'wandered', 'lonely' and 'cloud'. 'Wandered' gives the impression of being purposeless and 'lonely' shows that he longs for some sort of relationship. The word 'cloud' also relates to the loneliness and distance between him and civilisation. It could also mean that the poet is comfortable with his loneliness and wandering, just as a cloud seems comfortable alone. It also starts off a comparison between man and nature, an idea illustrated throughout both poems. The title of the second poem 'miracle on Saint David's day' starts straight off with a religious theme. Though this is not particularly shown through either poem, the fact a 'miracle' is a revelation is. In the first poem it is shown by the words 'when all at once' and shown in the second poem by 'he is suddenly staring'. It seems that the theme of an evolution for the better runs strongly throughout each poem. There is also a cultural side to the second title, the words, 'saint David's day' might be showing welsh culture as saint David is the welsh saint. The welsh theme also applies to the first poem as daffodils, 'a
William Wordsworth's `The Daffodils' compared to Gillian Clarke's 'Miracle on St David's Day'
In this essay I will attempt to compare two very contrasting poems, William Wordsworth's `The Daffodils' which was written in pre 1900s and Gillian Clarke's 'Miracle on St David's Day', written in the 20th century. Strangely enough Gillian Clarke's 'Miracle on St David's day' was actually inspired by 'The Daffodils'. In 1804 William Wordsworth wrote 'a masterpiece', two years after his experience with the daffodils, while the poem "Miracle on St. David's Day" was written by Gillian Clarke around 1980, one hundred and seventy-six years after The Daffodils was. Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, and raised around the mountains of Cumberland around the River Derwent. It was here that he would have been in 'pure communication' with nature and this was probably the inspiration for most of his poems. Gillian Clarke was born in Wales in 1937. Her parents spoke only Welsh but she learned to speak English as well as Welsh and currently lives in Tallgarreg, Wales, where she breeds sheep with her architect husband, daughter and two sons. The poems have many differences and similarities. I plan to write about some of them in this essay. The poems are set in two different places. 'The Daffodils' was written when Wordsworth was out walking on his own, in Gowbarrow Park, by the River Ullswater - which was obviously outside. 'Miracle on St. David's
Kubla Khan
S.T.COLERIDGE KUBLA KHAN "Kubla Khan is a voice and a vision, an everlasting tune in our mouths, a dream...revived and re-inspired...a piece of the invisible world made visible by a sun at midnight and sliding before our eyes." (Leigh Hunt, "sketches of living poets) Born in 1772 in Ottery. St., T.S.Coleridge lead a very disquiet life in his early childhood. After his father's death he was sent to the Christ's hospital school. There he had felt a great emotional vacuum, which was the beginning of his continuos ill health. Charles Lamb, his schoolmate, gave us an account of this period affirming that Coleridge was highly imaginative, who sought refuge in reading old romantic tales as well as Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare. Perhaps the most influential period in Coleridge's life was the period when he met Wordsworth in 1795, after he had left Cambridge. It seemed that in the company of Wordsworth, Coleridge found the mental peace, security, and environmental harmony. This had resulted in the sudden flowering of his genius, a sudden release of his creative impulses, and he wrote "The Ancient Mariner", "The Christable", and "Kubla Khan". Much about the composition and subject matter of "Kubla Khan" can be detected from Coleridge's Preface to that poem: " This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of reverie brought on by two grains of
Compare and Contrast Two Poets Opinions On Infant Mortality.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST TWO POETS OPINIONS ON INFANT MORTALITY The two poems are 'We are Seven' by William Wordsworth and 'On My First Sonne' by Ben Jonson. Prior to 1900 infant mortality featured in most peoples lives but although it was expected it still created personal catastrophe which could be devastating. Although both 'We are Seven' and 'On My First Sonne' are both taking about the subject of infant mortality, they portray it in a very different way. Wordsworth's poem is about a young girl who does not recognize death as a separation or loss which the narrator feels he is trying to explain to her but in fact the girl teaches him a lot more than he teaches her. Jonson's poem is about the father-son relationship, an exploration of a father's feelings on the loss of his son. In Jonson's poem we get an insight into how Jonson is feeling over the loss of his son. Jonson's poem has a complex structure and we can see from this that perhaps he wanted to focus his mind on a poem to try and ease the pain of his loss. The poem can also suggest to us that at this point Jonson's feelings are also very complex as he uses different arguments in his poem to try and convince himself that his son is now at and advantage. "My Sinne was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy" In the opening lines we see how Jonson feels that he has loved his son too much and that his future was too
Wordsworth begins Tintern Abbey with the tranquil scene of nature as he is revisiting this place after Five years have passed; five summers, with the length/Of five long winters.
SPIRITUAL GROWTH AND REJUVENATION IN TINTERN ABBEY Wordsworth begins "Tintern Abbey" with the tranquil scene of nature as he is revisiting this place after "Five years have passed; five summers, with the length/Of five long winters". This part of nature had such an impact on Wordsworth that he reflects on his memories in this place while he is away and unable to return over the course of five years. He expresses his vivid remembrance of the Wye by saying, "Though absent long, / These forms of beauty have not been to me, / As is a landscape to a blind man's eye" Even though he is unable to visit this place physically, he often escapes there in his mind to experience the pleasure he once gained from its surroundings. It could be said that Wordsworth meant to convey the message that true wisdom as well as true religion may be gained through sensuous acuteness. In other words, there is much insight to be gained from nature's offerings, whether spiritual or mental, but one must be in tune with nature in order to fully receive all it has to offer. Even though Wordsworth is pleased to be revisiting this place that he once treasured so dearly, he also notes that his outlook on life and nature has changed. to nature's teachings. His previous perception of nature seemed to consume him as he then had an "appetite" for the "coulours" and "forms" of the mountains and woods that nature so