19 pages • 38 minutes read
William WordsworthDaffodils
Nonfiction | Poem | Middle Grade | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Stars and Infinity
William Wordsworth revised “Daffodils” in 1815, adding the important second stanza. This stanza adds a quality of vastness to the daffodils, building on the first stanza’s use of descriptions like “crowd” (Line 3) and “host” (Line 4). The daffodils, the speaker notes, are as “continuous as the stars that shine / And twinkle in the milky way” (Lines 7-8). This image suggests that the daffodils exist far beyond where the eye can see, and are layered into space. In Grasmere, their existence on the shore of the bay is finite, but the speaker’s comparisons suggest they are symbolically far more epic, confirmed in the enumeration of “ten thousand” (Line 11) daffodils reaching in a “never-ending line” (Line 9). Further, the image of swaths of flowers compared with stars parallels the key image of the last stanza, the moment when the daffodils “flash upon the inward eye” (Line 21). The idea of the six-pointed petals of the daffodil blooming against the dark space of the imagination is made clearer by the parallel of the bright twinkling stars in the night sky. Wordsworth’s second stanza also enhances the idea that the daffodils can be recollected continuously.
The Steps of a Happy Dance
As an activity, dance has been shown to boost people’s endorphins, thus easing anxiety and depression. It is also a type of movement through which one can express outward joy, which may not be as obvious in other bodily motion. This is shown in the way “dance” (Lines 6, 12, 13) is used as both a verb and a noun. If someone dances, they move lightly and quickly, often happily. If someone’s eyes dance, they sparkle or convey a sense of excitement or playfulness. A dance is often a collective and communal activity, and can be emotionally expansive and inclusive for its participants. These ideas are shown in Wordsworth’s continual motif that the daffodils dance, a fact mentioned in each of the four stanzas. They “flutte[r] and danc[e] in the breeze” (Line 6), “[toss] their heads in sprightly dance,” (Line 12), and “out[do] […] in glee” (Line 14) the “waves beside them danc[ing]” (Line 13). By personifying the daffodils as dancers, Wordsworth suggests their joyousness and makes it obvious why the “lonely” speaker would want to join their party, both in terms of numbers and in terms of social activity. Once despondent, the speaker learns that they can join the swaying daffodils any time they wish, creating a mental happy dance whenever their “heart” (Line 23) needs to be filled.
The Daffodil
Daffodils, a type of narcissus, have a rich symbolic history in Greek mythology, which would have been familiar to Wordsworth. First, the flower is tied to the story of Narcissus, the vain youth who is cursed to fall in love with his own reflection by the goddess Nemesis. Eventually, he realizes his passion cannot be reciprocated and melts with the heat of it to be reborn as the white flower with a yellow heart. Wordsworth’s descriptions in “Daffodils” bear a resemblance to Homer’s story of Proserpine in “Hymns to Demeter”:
To look at [the narcissus/daffodil] gives a sense of holy awe
to the immortal gods as well as mortal humans.
It has a hundred heads growing from the root up.
Its sweet fragrance spread over the wide skies up above.
And the earth below smiled back in all its radiance. So too the churning mass of the salty sea (Homer, trans. Gregory Nagy. “Homeric Hymns to Demeter.” University of Houston. Lines 10-14).
Both of these myths show the power of resurrection. This is the same process that the speaker takes in “Daffodils,” when in a “vacant or pensive mood” (Line 20), and refurbishes themselves with the image of the field of daffodils they saw in the past.
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