Enjoying English Poetry Course Essay
Student’s Name: Class Number:
Date: 2015/12/21
Wordsworth’s View on Nature
Based on the Reading of I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Che Hongyu
Wordsworth was a British poet in the 19th century and the poet laureate since 1843 till his death in 1850. He was born and grew up in the English Lake District and the beautiful scenery of his hometown nurtured his deep love for nature and his purpose of praising nature in his work. He called himself “Prophet of Nature” in The Prelude, and claimed that prophets of nature “will speak a lasting inspiration, sanctified by reason, blest by faith: what we have loved, others will love and we will teach them how” (Wordsworth, 1979: 482), by which he means he, as a nature worshipper, will write about his love for nature in his work and show the readers what he loves about nature, so as to teach them how to love nature and evoke their love for nature.
This essay will analyze the poem I wandered Lonely as a Cloud from the aspects of writing background, metrical patterns, figures of speech and images so as to examine William Wordsworth’s view on nature.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud was written in 1804 and believed to be one of the most beautiful poems written on nature. The poet wrote this poem based on his experience on April 15th, 1802. That day, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth were walking in the Lake District, to quote Dorothy in Grasmere Journals, “It was a threatening misty morning-but mild. We set off after dinner…The wind was furious & we thought we must have returned…We first rested in the large Boat-house, then under a furze Bush…The wind seized our breath the Lake was rough. We rested again in the Water Millock Lane…We got over into a field to avoid some cows…When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side” (Abrams, 2000: 391). It was clear that that day was a windy one, Wordsworth and his sister set off for a walk after dinner but was frustrated by furious wind. They rested in the Boathouse, under a bush, and in the Water Millock Lane and they walked on against the wind and when they arrived at the woods, they saw the daffodils. The daffodils were beautiful and vast, “there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road (Abrams, 2000: 391)”. They did not expect to see such beautiful daffodils in such a multitude on such a rough day. “I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing (Abrams, 2000: 391)”. The daffodils are not only beautiful but also cheerful, such natural beauty cheered up the two travelers on such a windy cold day. Two years later, Wordsworth wrote the poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud to praise nature.
Obviously, the theme of the poem is “nature is beautiful and wise” as shown in daffodils. To show the beauty and charm of daffodils, the poet creates a musically beautiful poem. This poem was written in iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme scheme of ababcc. All the four stanzas follow the same metrical pattern, and the whole poem is actually an ode to daffodils of the Horatian type. Tetrameter, shorter than pentameter, creates a cheerful rhythm and the use of traditional iambic meter ensures the soothing effect of musicality of the poem. The long vowels of au, i:, ai, ei, a: also create a comforting, calming effect on the readers, beautifully soothing. The repetition of the lateral l sound adds to this loving and peaceful effect. The poet’s use of the euphony shows how much he wants to show and convey to the readers the beauty of daffodils, which is also the beauty of nature.
Apart from the musical beauty, the poet uses various figures of speech and images to further show the beauty and cheerfulness of the daffodils. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker was seen as a lonely wanderer in the hill, who was compared to “a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills”. But the appearance of the daffodils greatly changed his melancholy mood. He did not see just one or two daffodils, but a great many, “a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils”, “continuous as the stars…on the milky way”, “they stretched in never-ending line”, “ten thousand saw I at a glance”. The images of “crowd”, “host”, “never-ending line” showed the non-loneliness of the flowers which instantly impressed the speaker. The daffodils are not only impressive in number, but also extremely cheerful, happy and inspiring. The kinesthetic images of “fluttering”, “dancing’, “shine and twinkle”, “tossing their heads in spritely dance” depicted vivid pictures of this “jocund” company.
Nature is beautiful, as shown in the poem, but not only so. Nature teaches people about the wisdom of life too. The daffodils are blooming in the rough wind, dancing, shining, fluttering against the bad weather, which tells the speaker a truth about nature: nature is naturally merry. The wind is rough, that is what the wind is; this does not stop the daffodils from remaining happy and celebrating life. The speaker was influenced by the cheerfulness of nature and forgot his loneliness. Even upon retrospection, when the speaker was “in vacant or in pensive mood”, the wisdom taught by nature’s beauty still came back to him, “they flash upon that inward eye/Which is the bliss of solitude” and this inspired him and worked a wonder on him, and he became happy.
To conclude, Wordsworth loves nature and believes nature is not only beautiful, but also wise. He, as a poet, takes “praising nature” as his mission and tries to be the “prophet of nature”. He uses the persona to express his faith in and love for nature in this poem. He believes if people try to appreciate nature’s beauty, take in nature’s wisdom, humbly accept nature’s nurturing, people will be wise and happy.
Note: All the quotations of the poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud are from《英语诗歌欣赏》，蒲度戎主编，2008，重庆：重庆大学出版社。
References
1. Abrams, M. H., 2000, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th edition, volume 2. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
2. Wordsworth, W., 1979, The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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