20 pages • 40 minutes read
William WordsworthI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1807A 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
Nature and the Imagination
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” appears to be a straightforward description of the natural world, but in the fourth stanza the speaker tells us that his memory has conjured up the scene before us. Nature has stirred his imagination, prompting him to set down his feelings.
There are clues to this in the first three stanzas of the poem, since the speaker does not describe nature minutely; rather, he focuses on a handful of details that provoke passion in him. The first two lines tell us that he does not walk through the landscape observing every little detail; instead, he is distracted, possibly lost in thought. It is when nature corresponds to an impulse within him that he pays attention to it.
The dancing daffodils and waves evoke a feeling of joy and liberation, and it is these feelings he remembers later, when he is in an uninspiring setting.
The poem seems to suggest that scientific objectivity would tell us little about nature, but the power of the imagination evokes its magnificence. The poem is as much about this congruence between nature and the mind as it is about nature itself.
Nature as a Friendly Force
Wordsworth’s poems praise the natural world with an almost pagan delight, although he is more commonly associated with Christian humanism. Unlike Coleridge, who found the more turbulent aspects of the natural world fitting metaphors for his inner torment, Wordsworth considered nature a source of solace and inspiration—his “best and purest friend,” as he puts it in Book 13 of his long poem The Prelude.
Nature’s benevolence and splendor stand in stark contrast to the grim discontents of progress and urban living. Although no science of ecology existed in his day, Wordsworth was clearly disturbed by how the forces of modernization were encroaching on and even damaging rural England. His poems outline his view that nature should be preserved, revered, and looked on as a source of wisdom. It has a beneficial effect on human beings, ennobling and refining them.
Dancing
Dancing is mentioned no fewer than four times in the 24-line poem, which indicates just how important a concept it is.
The speaker notices a field of daffodils, but significantly does not refer to them as such; he immediately personifies them, seeing them as a group of people dancing. It is possibly their very motion that has drawn the speaker’s attention: He is wandering along slowly, but the flowers are moving energetically.
In the second stanza, the speaker refers to their “sprightly dance” (Line 12); which denotes their extraordinary liveliness. They are “[t]ossing their heads,” which implies a sense of ecstasy and liberation.
In the third stanza, we are told that the waves beside them also “danced” (Line 13), but the sight is not nearly as impressive as that of “[t]en thousand” daffodils moving in unison.
In the fourth stanza, the scene changes and the speaker is lying on his couch; however, when he remembers the scene, his heart “dances with the daffodils” (Line 24), suggesting that their energy has transformed his lassitude; his imagination allows him to revive those feelings of harmony and equivalence with nature.
In this instance, dancing denotes not only happiness but vital energy. Human beings may be prone to indolence and moody introspection, but when we truly engage with the natural world, we can find within us aspects of its dynamism and spontaneity.
Romantic poetry was apt to note the restless, elemental qualities of nature, even when the weather was not stormy, and this poem delights in such movement. The movement is contrasted with stillness, however, when the poet is once again alone in his room, recalling the inexhaustible energy of nature.
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