Analysis of William Wordsworth’s Daffodils

“Then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils”. This line is from a poem that was written by William Wordsworth in 1802, although it was not published till 1807 and again, was revised and republished in 1815. During a walk that William and his sister Dorothy took in 1802, they came across a “long belt” of daffodils which inspired Dorothy to write a journal entry on the walk. William then used ideas from this entry to write his piece. This poem “Daffodils” captures the ideas of the time period it was written in, this time being referred to as the “Romantic Period”.

The piece is written to relate to many people, which makes it reader friendly for lots of age ranges to enjoy and maybe gain something from it. The choices of vocabulary and tones that are used in the poem, are expressed in a way that makes the content in the piece come to life. William Wordsworth, being the official poet of the time, meant that his poems connected very well with the time century. In this case, it was the romantic period and his poems tended to have an overflow of powerful meaning within them, which goes perfectly with the ideas of the period. In the last paragraph of the poem Wordsworth mentions that when he saw the daffodils, he didn’t appreciate them as much as he did when he got home and was laying on his couch. He mentioned that “The flash upon that inward eye”, which is being referred to as a spiritual vision of the daffodils made his heart fill with pleasure. This connects to the time again with people being in love and their hearts being full of pleasure.

The Romantic period was of a time where nature was considered to be the base of everything. If fact people started seeing nature to be a guide/angel. Since nature is the main topic in the poem, it has a strong bind that relates back to this period. Many times in this poem we see that the daffodils are being referred to as something golden like an angel or even being compared to the brightness of the stars and Milky Way. The period also has the idea of the belief in spirits and things out of this world, which goes along with the theme of the poem as well. There are different tones that a reading can have, these tones being linked to the inspiration of the poem or what the writer may have been feeling while he is writing it. The person speaking in the poem could be a man or women and could be someone of any age although William, the writer was a man and was 32 at the time the poem was written. In the beginning, the content in the poem gives off the impression of it being a sad poem when he mentions being lonely as a cloud. We later on we realize that the tone of the poem is not meant to be sad but much meant to be a joyful and happy poem. I believe this tone is meant to lift the reader’s mood based on many lines in the poem especially the last 2 lines.

The poem ends with Wordsworth writing “Then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils” which gives off a happy ending for the readers to be left with. Right from the beginning of the poem you can see that Wordsworth uses many literary devices that bring the piece to life and make it much more interesting.

The first line “I wandered lonely as a cloud” has two literary devices in it, the first one being a simile where he compares a person’s solitariness to a cloud and the second being personification where he compares a cloud to a lonely human. He then goes on and uses much more personification throughout the entire poem.

In the second paragraph Wordsworth goes on to talking about how the daffodils, “stretched in a never-ending line” and how he saw “ten thousand saw I at a glance” which seems to be a bit of an over-exaggeration since the line of flowers would have to end somewhere. Both of the lines in this paragraph are examples of a hyperbole.

The writer also wrote the poem in an “A, B, A, B, C, C” format where the last words would rhyme based on the pattern. This is found to give the poem a little extra interest to it when you’re reading it because it adds some nice flow into the piece. One may think the poem will be hard to read because of the time period but I believe that Wordsworth was very skilled when it came to writing this poem.

The poem has very easy to understand English and the structure of the paragraphs go well together which makes the poem easy for all people to read. Although the poem can be put in perspective for anyone who reads it, I believe the poem was targeted at younger people. With one believing that the poem is written as a mood lifter in order to help someone think of something happy when they are feeling down or lonely. For example the daffodils weren’t there forever just like you may not always have something in your life like friends or family, but with the memory of those flowers, gives him and boost of joy that could help him move forward. The overall theme of the poem is nature being connected to happiness with many other ways as well to perceive it.

This poem is clearly one that relates to its time very well in the sense of nature and spiritual belief being a powerful thing in the romantic period. The way the poem was written with the rhyming along with the literary devices and tones of the poem it makes it more riveting. The poem is felt like it could relate too different people based on the content and how it was written. This is a very well written poem that I liked a lot and which I could relate too. Nature may be the focus of the poem but there are many hidden meanings within it.